George Clooney is calling out celebrities who behave like divas on set.
During a recent interview with USA Today, the 64-year-old actor poked fun at stars who include extravagant and sometimes eyebrow-raising requests in their riders, which are a set of requirements that artists demand in order to perform.
While speaking with the outlet, Clooney recalled a humorous misunderstanding that he had with a production employee over his rider.
“I remember I was in New York and the driver, he was p—– at me. I was like, ‘What’s going on, dude?’ He goes, ‘Look, George, I looked everywhere for Fuji apples. I can’t find them anywhere.’ Somebody had asked me at some point, do I want anything in my trailer to eat? And I said maybe some apples. They go, ‘Any kind in particular?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, Fuji?’ Because it was the only one I could think of,” he said.
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“And all of a sudden it’s in your rider,” Clooney continued. “Everywhere you go, people are climbing mountains to find Fuji apples for you. And I had to go, ‘Take that out. You are crazy.'”
“A little bit of it happens accidentally with people trying to make everything nice. There’s some actors that are literally ‘I only eat green M&M’s’ kind of bulls—. I grew up in Kentucky – we try to stay out of trailers,” he joked. “That’s not the end all and be all, [me] in a double wide on the set.”
Over his decades-long career, the two-time Oscar winner has credited his Kentucky roots with helping him stay humble in Hollywood.
Born in Lexington, Kentucky, Clooney is the son of TV journalist Nick Clooney and former beauty queen Nina Bruce Warren. Clooney has previously shared that he and his siblings spent summers earning modest wages while working on their grandparents’ tobacco farm in rural Kentucky.
“I was a tobacco farmer. I cut tobacco for $3.30 an hour, and that’s okay,” Clooney told Vanity Fair in 2023. “That’s how you made a living. We didn’t have money, but nobody had money. Nobody thought we were poor. We were all just getting through the day.”
During a joint appearance on GQ’s “Epic Conversations” series with his “Jay Kelly” co-star Adam Sandler, Clooney recalled that cutting tobacco was how he earned money from “the time I was about 13 to 18.”
While speaking with the Tennessean in 2019, Clooney recalled his childhood in the small town of Augusta, Kentucky, which had a population of about 1,100 at the time. Clooney detailed his humble upbringing, telling the outlet that he wore clothing that his mother made for him.
In addition to cutting tobacco, Clooney said he also sold insurance door-to-door and worked at a liquor store.
After graduating from high school, Clooney attended college at Northern Kentucky University from 1979 to 1981 and briefly enrolled at the University of Cincinnati before dropping out to launch his acting career.
The “Ocean’s Eleven” star remembered that he first discovered his passion for acting when his cousin Miguel Ferrer, the son of his aunt, legendary singer and actress Rosemary Clooney, helped him get a role as an extra on a production filming in Kentucky.
“Miguel, my first cousin, came to Kentucky due to a horse racing movie and I was walking horses at River Downs, which was kind of an old beat-up racetrack near Cincinnati, and they were gonna go down to Keeneland, which is a beautiful one in Lexington, to shoot,” he said.
“And he got me a part as an extra,” Clooney continued. “And all of a sudden, I’m on a set and it was exciting and fun. And he just goes, ‘You gotta come to California, be an actor.’ And I was like, ‘OK.'”
“I got in my beat up Monte Carlo with rust all over it and I drove to California.”
Clooney went on to share Nick’s reaction when he told his parents that he had decided to pursue a career in acting.
“I remember walking in to tell my mom and dad that I was leaving college and I was gonna go to California to be an actor. And my dad was like, ‘You’re an idiot,'” he recalled. “He was p—– ’cause he wanted me to get an education.”
“He also knew how hard it was,” Clooney continued. “I remember one point he said, ‘I don’t think you have the smarts to be an actor.'”
“And now you realize that’s really not a prerequisite,” he added with a laugh.
Clooney has previously said though he enjoyed living in a tight-knit community, he was desperate to leave farm life behind.
“I knew one thing when I left Kentucky, which was I didn’t want to be a tobacco cutter,” he told OK magazine in 2020. “So everything on top of that has been gravy.”
However, Clooney has acknowledged that he developed a strong work ethic and humility due to his blue-collar background, which helped him during his years of struggling in Hollywood before finding success.
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After moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting, Clooney stayed with Rosemary before moving in with his friend, actor Thom Mathews, where he lived for eight months while sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a closet.
Clooney worked in construction to make ends meet and appeared in guest roles on television series and a series of failed TV pilots.
While speaking with USA Today, Clooney remembered numerous failed auditions, including a reading for Francis Ford Coppola after which he learned that the “The Godfather” director believed he was drunk.
After 12 years, Clooney found fame at the age of 33 in 1994 when he was cast in “ER.”
“That’s late in Hollywood life to get successful,” Clooney said. “I’d failed so many times. I’d done 13 pilots and seven television series before ‘ER,’ so my trajectory was very different.”
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“For me, it was a long journey,” he added. “It was probably 100 auditions before I got my first paid job. So you get a lot of nos, but no’s are helpful. You get tougher skin as you go.”
In a 1996 Vanity Fair profile, friends and collaborators of Clooney praised him for keeping his ego in check despite his newfound fame.
Joel Schumacher, who directed Clooney in his 1997 movie “Batman & Robin,” told the outlet, “Woody Allen once said that success gives people permission to become exactly who they were always meant to be. Some people, when they get successful, punish everyone. Others, like George, are grateful.”
“George has set a really wonderful example of not becoming a jerk movie star,” Clooney’s “ER” co-star Anthony Edwards said. “He’s not ego-tripping. He is so solid within himself that he hasn’t changed.”
Meanwhile, Clooney shared a piece of advice from Nick that helped him stay grounded in Hollywood.
“My dad was probably the best for me about understanding the basic law of show business, which is that you’re never as bad as they say you are when they say you’re bad, and you’re never as good as they say you are when they say you’re good. Once you understand that, you’ll survive anything,'” Clooney said.
However, Clooney told the outlet that one lesson from his upbringing was learning to handle finances more carefully than his parents.
“I’m smarter about money, or have some sense that maybe I won’t blow everything,” he said. “I mean, let’s leave a little over here so we don’t end up in a trailer.”
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Throughout his career, Clooney has noted that his Kentucky roots and early struggles made him more appreciative of the massive success that he has achieved.
In 2022, Clooney was honored alongside rock band U2, singer Gladys Knight, Christian pop singer-songwriter Amy Grant and Cuban-born composer Tania León at the Kennedy Center Honors.
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During his speech at the awards gala, Clooney said, “Growing up in a small town in Kentucky I could never have imagined that someday I’d be the one sitting in the balcony at the Kennedy Center Honors.”
“To be mentioned in the same breath with the rest of these incredible artists is an honor,” he added.
Meanwhile, despite at one point “desperately” wanting to escape farm life in Kentucky, Clooney has said that later in life he found himself drawn back to a rural lifestyle.
The “Ticket to Paradise” star lives on a farm in France with his wife of 11 years, Amal Clooney, and their 8-year-old twins, Ella and Alexander.
During an interview with Esquire, Clooney explained why he decided to relocate his family to the French countryside.
“A good portion of my life growing up was on a farm, and as a kid I hated the whole idea of it. But now, for them, it’s like – they’re not on their iPads, you know? They have dinner with grown-ups and have to take their dishes in. They have a much better life.”
“I was worried about raising our kids in L.A., in the culture of Hollywood. I felt like they were never going to get a fair shake at life,” he continued. “France – they kind of don’t give a s— about fame. I don’t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don’t want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids.”
During an interview with The New York Times earlier this year, Clooney got candid about embracing the quieter life outside the city.
“Growing up in Kentucky, all I wanted to do was get away from a farm, get away from that life,” he told the New York Times in February. “Now I find myself back in that life. I drive a tractor and all those things. It’s the best chance of a normal life.”
