George Clooney gave a virtual interview for the BFI London Film Festival, promoting his upcoming Netflix movie “The Midnight Sky”.
During the expansive conversation, reports Deadline, Clooney shared a story about how he became friendly with Paul Newman toward the end of the screen icon’s life.
“We were going to do ‘The Notebook’ together,” Clooney revealed. “Basically, I was going to play him as a young man, and it was funny. We met and said, ‘This is it. It’s going to be great.’”
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However, Clooney eventually got cold feet when he went home and watched several of Newman’s movies.
“He’s one of the handsomest guys you’ve ever seen,” Clooney recalled. “We met up [again] and I said, ‘I can’t play you. I don’t look anything like you. This is insane.’ We just wanted to do it because we wanted to work together, [but] it ended up being not the right thing for us to do.”
Clooney also remembered Newman’s sharp sense of humour.
“We had a very funny relationship, late in life for him,” said Clooney.
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“I directed a movie that just completely bombed called ‘Leatherheads’. [Newman] was still racing at the time, and raced a car, and crashed it,” Clooney added. “So, he took a photo of ‘Leatherheads’ and superimposed it on the crashed car, and said, ‘I was driving your car in the race.’”
