Daily Dose of George Clooney!
 
 
Sailing above it...As his new movie, Ocean's Eleven, hits the screens, George Clooney gracefully accedes his Sexiest Man Alive Crown.
Phil Penfold
 The Big Issue

So, George, now that you're officially no longer the Sexiest Man Alive...

Clooney breaks into a guffaw of genuinely warm laughter. "Yeah," he grins, "gone, finished, it's all over. My life is done. Kaput! And it's gone to Pierce Brosnan, too. Brad Pitt was telling me he was spitting tacks at that announcement. Matt Damon isn't too happy either. But hey, they're just kids - their time will come. Let me tell you, I am so sore about that...."

This is followed by a huge grin and a knowing wink.

Supposedly promoting his new film, a remake of the infamous Rat Pack caper movie Ocean's Eleven, George is having one of his Big Kidding Days, where nothing much gets taken very seriously. In fact, nothing ever does - except work.

"Life," he says, "is for living. For enjoying. The alternative is...kinda sobering."

George Timothy Clooney - nephew of both singer Rosemary and film idol Jose Ferrer, son to broadcast journalist Nick Clooney and Mina (sic) and heart-throb to millions - will hit the grand old age of 41 in May.
Oddly enough, while he usually looks years longer, today he looks his age - chiefly because his hair is cut in an awkward, slightly geeky style and he's growing a moustache and a goatee. Not to worry, this look will not be permanent - it's for his next movie, which he will star in and direct.

Co-starring Catherine Zeta Jones, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind has been developed by Clooney's own Maysville Pictures production company. Directing himself, he reckons, "will be a piece of cake. Hell, all I got to do is give myself a raft of good notes, telling myself what I am doing in front of the cameras is simply brilliant, spectacular work. I know how to keep myself happy."

Evidently. He's an internationally adored movie star, a well-heeled executive, a charming, talented, good-looking hunk but who shares Gorgeous George's life? No one.

Once upon a time he was in love with Kelly Preston - she's now Mrs John Travolta - but that was 14 years ago. His marriage to Talia Balsam lasted from 1989-1992, before ending in acrimony, with a divorce which ran up a bill of nearly $100,000 in lawyer's fees and what Clooney describes as, "a lot of aggravation."

"I will never marry again," he said when the dust had settled. "I don't want to go and screw everything up again."

Then came a highly public two-year love affair with the French actress Celine Balitran, followed by a relationship with British model Lisa Snowden. Since then he's been spotted with starlets Traylor Howard and Lucy Liu and a mystery blonde in London. Oh, and there was also a brief dalliance with Renee Zellwegger. But now? Only George knows, "and George ain't saying," he says with an enigmatic smile.
"I made that statement about not marrying again, oh, what six years ago? And I felt real strongly about it then. I'm still not looking for it and I don't have any thoughts about it. But I've definitely learned as I've got older that definitive statements are kind of dumb, because they will always come back to haunt you."

He laughs: "Nicole Kidman bet me a large some of money - well, since you ask it was $10,000 - I would be married and have kids by my 40th birthday. Well, May 6 rolls around and, well, Nicole is a sport and a cheque for $10,000 turned up at home. I sent it straight back with a note saying, 'Thanks - but make it double or quits in 10 years time.'"

Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of George Clooney. But fame and recognition, he says, he can handle.

 "When you're famous from television you tend to be completely available to the public, somehow. They think they know you personally because they see your every week. I got off a jet with Mel Gibson the other day, and people were saying 'Look, it's Mel Gibson,' but they were saying it in whispers because they only ever see him on a vast screen when he's 60ft tall.

"Me, I get off the plane and it's like, 'George!' and they grab me and they come out with things like, 'You don't look so good up close, you've got greying hair, and you're a lot shorter than we expected'. And that's purely because I've actually been inside their homes. In a sense, they own you, because if you piss them off they hit the mute. So there is a difference between TV fame and movie fame, and TV fame is, weirdly, tougher.

"I'm not complaining about it - don't get me wrong - but people do have a piece of you. There's no denying that."

How does he react to all that then?

"By looking people in the eye," he answers evenly. "There is a funny thing that happens when a crowd collects around you, it can get a bit frenetic. People go crazy. I tend to make them stop screaming by saying something like, 'How you doing?' and that makes them back off a bit. They see me as a human being and things calm down."
The Lexington, Kentucky-born six-footer has been making "people go crazy" since he was cast as Dr Doug Ross - "everyone's favourite paediatrician, apparently" - in ER. Prior to that, Clooney had been working on "no-hoper pilots for other shows" for years.

Initially he wanted to play professional baseball and even had trials for his beloved Cincinnati Reds. Later, at university (Northern Kentucky), he discovered academia didn't suit him either.

Then, Uncle Jose got him a small role in a film about racing, which never saw the light of day but no matter - the young Clooney was hooked and on his way.

"I have had a lot of luck," he admits, "and I've never really had those difficulties a lot of other people talk about."

Even so, it is only now, he says, he is starting to do the work he really wants to, like Three Kings, Perfect Storm and, of course, Ocean's Eleven.

"I'm focusing on work and at last I'm able to talk about my projects, because I feel confident and proud. I think I've got about 35 projects in development. It almost becomes like a machine that runs itself. I've modelled my company on Danny de Vito's outfit because I like the way it functions and what he does. We now employ about 12 people, and we put pitches to some of the highest players, and a lot of them - thank God - are very successful."

The antithesis of the stereotypical Hollywood heart-throb, Clooney famously provided the bark for a gay dog in an episode of adult cartoon show South Park. He doesn't mind doing cameos, he says, "as long as it's a good role. I think people who count their lines are pretty insecure anyway. But hey - anything can change. Ask me in a year's time if I mind doing two lines and a cough, will ya?"

What he looks for, he says, "are scripts that are tight and well structured. I like it when there's nothing to change. I do not like a set where someone is trying to hog all the limelight. On Ocean's Eleven that wasn't the case because we all realised it looks so much better if you give the scene to someone else. That way, paradoxically, everyone benefits.

"In an ensemble piece you pull together or you fall apart. And I couldn' t wish for a better bunch of guys than Andy, Julia, Matt, Brad and all." He beams, before adding, "And watch for the remake of The Guns of Navarone, with exactly the same team."

So, really, did he mind that Sexiest Man Alive tag so much?

"Well, it's only fun," he says. "The trouble is, as you get older, things start falling apart - and then you have to be a 'character actor'. So let Pierce enjoy it while he can."

And there's another big grin.