In this week’s issue of FT Weekend, on sale Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th March, George Clooney talks to Emanuel Levy about world issues, politics, how he shot to fame and why it took him so long to get there: “I didn’t’ really think I was going to have the kind of success I have. I was 33 when ER hit, and I had already run the gamut of jobs. I am able to handle the idea of fame a little easier: I was unfamous for an awful long time. I now understand how little it has to do with you and how much it has to do with other elements, like luck, being in the right place at the right time. If ER hadn’t been picked up for Thursday night at 10pm, then I wouldn’t have had a career.”

Highlights of the interview include:

•Politics: “I think Barack Obama is going to be president. Barack’s got a pretty sizeable lead in the pledge delegates and a lead in the popular vote, so it’s going to be hard to defeat him come the convention. It’s the first time we’ve seen young people show up to vote ever, they didn’t do it for Kennedy or for Reagan. There’s a real movement, and if you guys have ever been in a room with him or seen him give a speech, you’ll understand. People say it’s not just about making speeches, but in many ways it is. We don’t need a manager, we need a leader. I’m keen on his leadership style, that’s why I’m rooting for him.”

•Roles he likes playing: [He enjoys playing broken people because] “it’s more challenging than just being the hero, you’re buying increments of what makes us all human. After Syriana and Good Night, every film that I got sent had a heavy duty political message – but I want to be a director, not an issues director, because it’s dangerous, issues change.”

•Involvement in the Darfur conflict: [Why Darfur and not other issues] “You have to pick one issue that’s important to you and focus on it. If you spread yourself out too thin, then you’re just the issues guy again. There are a million issues, but Darfur is something specific that’s not getting attention. Darfur is my issue. I go the UN and I speak in front of the Security Council and it a big deal. This is a fairly cut-and-dried issue, where there good and gad because innocent people are being killed.”

•On ecology: “I have two electric cars and a hybrid car, but I also have a weak spot because I’ve flown on private jets, so its hard for me to stand up as a spokesman for ecology. [And there are drawbacks to championing specific political causes] “you get in trouble, I spoke out against the war in 2003, when you couldn’t find five people to do that in this town, people would come and whisper to me. That’s why I wrote Good Night, and Good Luck. That’s why we did Syriana. But I was picketed and called a traitor to my own country.”

•How he became a UN Messenger of Peace: “I said to them ‘let me shine a light on this area, let’s take the camera where they don’t get so much attention’ and that seems to be effective. But I couldn’t get a visa to Darfur, and the secretary-general said ‘We’ve got a way to do this, we’ll make you the Messenger of Peace, with special focus on peacekeeping’.”

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For further information, please contact:

Jo Crosby, Financial Times, 020 7873 3811 or jo.crosby@ft.com

Sophie Grut, Financial Times, 020 7873 3119 or sophie.grut@ft.com

About the Financial Times:

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