At 64, George Clooney now fully grasps his dad’s advice

The best bit of advice George Clooney ever got came from across the kitchen table.

“I remember saying years ago, ‘Having kids is a version of living forever, but my version is the movies that I do. Those are my children,’” the A-list actor says.

“My dad said, ‘How many stars can you name from the 1920s?’ I named five or something and he said, ‘That’s five. That’s how many you can name, and that’s 80 years ago,’” Clooney says, recalling the clear-eyed wisdom of his father, Nick, now 91 years old. “He said, ‘You’re not buying forever with these movies. You’re buying maybe 80 years.’ ”

At age 64, the father of 8-year-old twins with wife Amal now fully grasps his dad’s lesson on the power of the next generation.

“Now I completely understand what he was saying, because I’m so happy with my life,” Clooney says in an interview at the New York Film Festival.

But rest assured, the whole movie star thing is still working out just fine for Clooney, whose latest picture, “Jay Kelly,” is playing in select theaters and streaming this weekend on Netflix.

Clooney’s Kelly, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, is having a bit of an existential crisis in the third act of his career. He’s uninspired by work, sick over the loss of his mentor and grappling with a figure from his past. So, he does the unthinkable and backs out of a big production to run off to Europe to catch up with his college-bound daughter (Grace Edwards).

Adam Sandler and Laura Dern co-star in the Noah Baumbach-directed dramedy.

Along with his father’s counsel, Clooney shares his own good life advice:

Seriously, though

How did he get the role in “Jay Kelly”? “Tom Cruise was busy. And I was cheaper,” Clooney jokes. “Seriously, this was just a beautifully written character with really wonderful actors and an amazing director.” Filling out the cast was easy. “Adam and I have known each other for a long time, about 25 years,” he adds. “He was on my show, ‘Saturday Night Live.’ That’s where we met … and we’ve played a lot of basketball together over the years. It’s good for the knees as you age.”

Looking back

“You’re always trying to balance work and family. Later in life, many look back and know they could have spent more time with family,” he says. “I know my parents didn’t show up for things, but they were putting food on the table.” The film asks if you would want to do it again. “But you just don’t get to go back and redo life,” he says. “You just make the most of each day.”

‘Oh yeah, that’s me’

Clooney as Kelly watches himself rapidly age during one of those “this is your life” montages. The Oscar winner didn’t know his own movie footage would flash before his eyes. The walk down memory lane hit him hard. “I don’t know how you feel about this, but you don’t really see yourself age. Right?” Clooney says. “You’re looking at the thing and think you still look like you did when you were 16 years old. And then you see a picture and you go, ‘Who is that old guy?’ And you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s me.’” He takes it all in stride, but acknowledges his “Facts of Life” years hit a bit differently: “It’s not so easy to see yourself with a bad mullet.”

A ‘normal’ life

In 2021, Clooney and his wife moved to a 425-acre Provence wine estate in southern France complete with vineyards, olive groves and other wonders of nature, including their Saint Bernard puppy. “Growing up in Kentucky, all I wanted to do was get away from a farm, but now I find myself back in that life,” he marvels. “It’s a wonderfully normal life.”

Grizzly reviews

“Jay Kelly” is receiving raves, but Clooney is no stranger to bad reviews. He mentions he first met Dern on a film that didn’t exactly garner awards attention. “We both did roles in ‘Grizzly II: Revenge.’ It’s the worst thing you can ever imagine because we ran out of money, got stuck in Budapest and they couldn’t send us home because they didn’t have money. Plus, we get killed in the first scene, and it’s starring Laura Dern and George Clooney. … We are still getting terrible reviews for this 40 years later. A nightmare.”

Take fame in stride

“One of the great privileges if you’re at this long enough is you get to put your hands in cement outside a certain theater. I remember as a kid seeing it, thinking, ‘Look how small Humphrey Bogart’s hands and feet are!’” … Of course, Clooney made his impressions with a twist. “When I did mine, I was with Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. We showed up with three pairs of size 14 shoes.”