George Clooney

George Clooney
George Clooney at the New York premiere of Gravity
Born	May 6, 1961 (age 52), Lexington, Kentucky, United States
Occupation	Actor, director, producer, screenwriter
Portrays	Matt Kowalski

George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, film director, producer, activist and screenwriter. He portrays astronaut Matt Kowalski in Gravity.

Career

He has received three Golden Globe Awards for his work as an actor and two Academy Awards—one for acting and the other for producing. Clooney is also noted for his political activism and has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since January 31, 2008. Clooney made his acting debut on television in 1978, and later gained wide recognition in his role as Dr. Douglas "Doug" Ross on the long-running medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999, for which he received two Emmy Award nominations. While working on ER, he began attracting a variety of leading roles in films, including Batman & Robin (1997) and Out of Sight (1998), in which he first worked with long-term collaborator Steven Soderbergh. In 1999 Clooney took the lead role in Three Kings, a well-received war satire set during the Gulf War. In 2001, Clooney's fame widened with the release of his biggest commercial success, Ocean's Eleven, the first of a profitable film trilogy, a remake of the 1960 film which starred members of the Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean. He made his directorial debut a year later with the 2002 biographical thriller Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and has since directed Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Leatherheads (2008), and The Ides of March (2011). He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the Middle East thriller Syriana (2005) and subsequently gained Best Actor nominations for such films as Michael Clayton (2007), Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011). In 2013, he received the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing the film Argo, alongside Ben Affleck and Grant Heslov. He is the only person to ever be nominated for Academy Awards in six different categories. In 2005, TV Guide ranked Clooney #1 on its "50 Sexiest Stars of All Time" lists. Clooney's humanitarian work includes his advocacy of finding a resolution for the Darfur conflict, raising funds for the 2010 Haiti earthquake, 2004 Tsunami, and 9/11 victims, and creating documentaries such as Sand and Sorrow to raise awareness about international crises. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Aside from his reputation as a sex symbol, Clooney has been nicknamed an "Oscar Magnet" because he tends to get Oscars on many of his films and most of his films get Oscars also.

Work on Gravity

Ryan's hallucination of seeing Kowalski again in the space pod was George Clooney's idea. According to Clooney, Alfonso Cuarón and Sandra Bullock were unable to come out with a satisfactory resolution for the character and how Dr. Ryan Stone figures out how to use the landing rockets. Despite many revisions of the scene, including removing the dialogue, he kept coming up empty, until Clooney offered to give a shot on the rewriting scene itself. This scene also helps for how Kowalski makes a final appearance. 

Cuarón claims that Clooney was quick to offer a hand with writing or direction if he was ever confused or stuck on how to do something. Sandra Bullock has agreed with this. 

Interview

George Clooney on Gravity (70th Venice International Film Festival 2013)