TEAM CLOONEY, DUH

George Clooney Has No Plans to Run for Office, But He Will Continue to Roast Steve Bannon

The actor and director of Suburbicon weighs in on “failed f—ing screenwriter” Steve Bannon at the Toronto International Film Festival.

by Katherine Cusumano

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Caitlin Cronenberg.

Among the myriad dispatches George Clooney has offered out of the Toronto International Film Festival while promoting his new Coen brothers film Suburbicon, the actor returned again to one of his favorite objects of criticism: the former White House chief strategist and “failed f—ing screenwriter” Steve Bannon. (Among the other choice invectives Clooney used to describe Bannon were “pussy” and “little wannabe writer.”)

Clooney spoke with a group of journalists on Friday, weighing in on the recently ousted Breitbart executive ahead of Bannon’s 60 Minutes interview on Sunday. Apparently Clooney got ahold of Bannon’s screenplay for his hip hop adaptation of Coriolanus, set in Los Angeles in the midst of the 1992 riots. Clooney described it as “unbelievable” (and, given the context, not in a good way). “If he’d somehow managed miraculously to get that thing produced, he’d still be in Hollywood, still making movies and licking my ass to get me to do one of his stupid-ass screenplays.”

Apparently thrilled by his earlier caucus with the press, Clooney repeated the sentiment in an interview with the Daily Beast. “Someone in Hollywood should’ve given him a script—or approved one of his scripts—just to keep him out of the right wing,” he said. (It’s not the worst proposition, though Donald Trump’s own Hollywood experiences only worked to his advantage when it came to the election.)

The actor, by his own admission, relished the chance to roast his apparent nemesis; he’s been an outspoken critic of Trump and his lackeys since the dawn of his candidacy (and, by contrast, is basketball buddies with former president Barack Obama): “I like picking fights. I like that Breitbart News wants to have my head,” he said, according to Entertainment Weekly. “I’d be ashamed 10 years from now if those weaselly little putzes, whose voices are getting a lot higher every week as this presidency starts to look worse and worse weren’t still [after me].” (Breitbart responded to Clooney’s gleeful tirade by spinning his remarks as a “full-blown meltdown.”)

Shortly after the Trump inauguration, Clooney weighed in on the president and his top adviser, blasting their Hollywood connections (and Trump’s tweets describing beloved actress Meryl Streep as “overrated”). “Steve Bannon is a failed film writer and director,” he said in an interview ahead of France’s César Awards, according to Variety. “He made a lot of money off of ‘Seinfeld.’ He’s elitist Hollywood, I mean that’s the reality.” (In fact, though Bannon’s apparent Seinfeld connections were widely reported at the time, a later story by New Yorker writer Connie Bruck highlighted some inconsistencies—including that co-creator Larry David had not “ever heard of him until he surfaced with the Trump campaign”—while Businessweek’s Joshua Green suggested Bannon does in fact continue to receive some royalties from the series.)

For all his criticism of the current sentient spray tan-in-chief and his Breitbart proxy, Clooney has no political aspirations himself. (And, according to Julianne Moore, his Suburbicon co-star, that’s probably for the best.

“I think that having a celebrity as president who has a star on Hollywood Boulevard will exorcise our need to have someone famous in office,” Clooney said, according to Variety. Plus, as he admitted to the same group of journalists Friday, “The reality is, there are many more people who are much better qualified than me.”

Portraits of George Clooney, Elle Fanning, Claire Foy, and More Stars of the 2017 Toronto Film Festival

Andrew Garfeld, Breathe

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg at ET Canada Festival Central. Produced by Arthouse (@arthouseagency). Set design by @hawkeyesdesign.

Claire Foy, Breathe

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Annette Bening, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Glenn Close, The Wife

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Annie Starke, The Wife

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Dominic Cooper, The Escape

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Michiel Huisman, Indian Horse

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Adèle Exarchopoulos, Racer and the Jailbird

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

George Mackay, Marrowbone

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Bella Heathcote, Professor Marston & the Wonder Women

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Javier Bardem, mother!

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Christoph Waltz, Downsizing

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Edie Falco, Outside In

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Wim Wenders, director, Submergence

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Andy Serkis, director, Breathe

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Justine Bateman, director, Five Minutes

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Michael Haneke, director, Happy End

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Ellen Wong, TIFF Rising Stars

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Melissa Leo, Battle of the Sexes

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Brooklyn Prince, The Florida Project

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Miranda Richardson, Stronger

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Daniela Vega, A Fantastic Woman

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Hong Chau, Downsizing

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Julianne Nicholson, Who We Are Now

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Diane Kruger, In the Fade.

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Kate Mara, Chappaquiddick

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg

Sarah Gadon, Alias Grace.

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Margaret Qualley, Novitiate

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Matthias Schoenearts, Racer and the Jailbird.

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

All photos by Caitlin Cronenberg.
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