George Clooney

George Clooney (born May 6, 1961, Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.) is an American actor and filmmaker who emerged in the 1990s as a popular leading man, known for his good looks and versatility, and who later became a respected director and screenwriter. Clooney won an Academy Award for his supporting role in Syriana (2005).

Early life and ER

Although his family had a show-business background—his father, Nick Clooney, was a broadcast journalist, and Rosemary Clooney, his aunt, was a famous singer and actress—Clooney initially wanted to be a baseball player. After an unsuccessful tryout with the Cincinnati Reds, he moved to Los Angeles at age 21 to pursue an acting career. Two years later he began appearing in television sitcoms. Although Clooney soon had recurring roles on the popular series The Facts of Life and Roseanne, most of his early television work was forgettable. In 1994, however, he earned his big break when he was cast as Dr. Doug Ross on the drama ER.

Film stardom: Out of Sight and the Ocean’s trilogy

After starring in a series of films—including Batman & Robin (1997), The Peacemaker (1997), and Out of Sight (1998)—Clooney left ER in 1999 to concentrate on his movie career. Later that year he appeared in the critically acclaimed Three Kings. The comedy-drama centered on U.S. soldiers at the end of the Persian Gulf War. Clooney then starred in the quirky Coen brothers film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and earned a Golden Globe Award for his performance as an escaped convict.

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Clooney’s next film, Ocean’s Eleven (2001), followed a group of con artists as they robbed a casino. The all-star cast included Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Julia Roberts. Clooney’s portrayal of Danny Ocean, the group’s ringleader, continued throughout the movie’s sequels, Ocean’s Twelve (2004) and Ocean’s Thirteen (2007). Clooney made his film directorial debut during one of the breaks between shooting for the Ocean’s trilogy with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), which was based on the life of Chuck Barris, a television host who claimed to have been a hit man for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Syriana and Up in the Air

In 2006 Clooney won his first Academy Award, as best supporting actor for his portrayal of a cynical CIA agent in Syriana (2005). The complex thriller took a critical look at the oil industry and its impact on international affairs. Clooney was nominated for best director and best screenwriter for Good Night, and Good Luck (2005). The film—shot in black-and-white and featuring actual newsreel footage—documented journalist Edward R. Murrow’s confrontation with Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Both films reflected Clooney’s growing liberal political activism. He was involved in causes to end world poverty and to stop the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

In 2007 Clooney starred in the critically acclaimed Michael Clayton, portraying a corporate attorney who pushes ethical boundaries. The following year he directed and starred in the 1920s football film Leatherheads and then reteamed with the Coen brothers for Burn After Reading, a CIA comedy in which he played an adulterous federal marshal. Clooney later starred as a U.S. soldier trained to use mind control in the comedy The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), and he provided the voice of the title character in Fantastic Mr. Fox, an animated film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s book. In Up in the Air (2009), Clooney appeared as a consultant who specializes in firing people, and he portrayed an assassin on assignment in Italy in the thriller The American (2010). He moved behind the camera again for the tense political drama The Ides of March (2011), casting himself as a presidential candidate in a cutthroat primary campaign.

Gravity and later films

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In the seriocomic The Descendants (2011), Clooney starred as an indifferent father forced to reassess his life after his wife suffers a coma-inducing accident. He earned a Golden Globe for the role. In 2013 he and Sandra Bullock portrayed astronauts in Gravity, a sci-fi drama about a space mission that goes awry. Clooney then cowrote, directed, and starred in the film The Monuments Men (2014), which fictionalized the efforts of the international Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) unit to recover art stolen by the Nazis during World War II. He next starred in the fantastical Tomorrowland (2015), about a quest to gain access to a utopian civilization.

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Clooney again teamed with the Coen brothers for the Hollywood comedy Hail, Caesar! (2016), in which he played a kidnapped movie star. His character in Jodie Foster’s Money Monster (2016) is a finance pundit who is taken hostage by a former devotee of his advice. In 2017 Clooney directed and adapted a screenplay by the Coen brothers for the dark comedy Suburbicon, about an idyllic 1950s suburb where an episode of insurance fraud goes awry. Clooney then appeared as Scheisskopf in Catch-22 (2019), a TV miniseries adaptation of Joseph Heller’s novel. In 2020 he directed The Midnight Sky, a postapocalyptic sci-fi drama in which he starred as a scientist in the Arctic. The following year he helmed The Tender Bar, which centers on the relationship between a bartender (Ben Affleck) and his nephew; the drama was based on a memoir by J.R. Moehringer.

Clooney later costarred with Julia Roberts in Ticket to Paradise (2022), a rom-com about a divorced couple who try to stop their daughter’s wedding. In 2024 he reteamed with Brad Pitt on the action-comedy Wolfs, in which they played rival fixers who must work together.

Clooney also worked as a producer of various television programs and films, including the Oscar-winning Argo (2012). In recognition of his multifaceted career, he received the Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement) in 2015 and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2022.

Personal life

After his marriage (1989–93) to actress Talia Balsam, Clooney vowed never to remarry, and his various relationships became fodder for the tabloids. In 2014, however, he wed Lebanese English lawyer Amal Alamuddin. The couple had twins, Alexander and Ella, in 2017.