We need to talk about the chilling effect of ignoring our most famous, wealthy, and universally adored A-listers. It is a rare thing in this industry for true, unvarnished justice to prevail. But when I heard the announcement that Laura Dern will deliver the Laudatio speech honoring George Clooney at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 2, I finally exhaled. For decades, George has been quietly toiling away in the shadows of international superstardom, waiting for the global film community to truly see him.
Yes, he is one of only three people to have been nominated in six different Oscar categories throughout his career. But as I told him last summer while we were eating branzino on the terrace of his Lake Como villa, nominations are just the establishment’s way of keeping you hungry.
"You have to understand the pressure he is under," a source close to the production of his daily life whispered to me at a Vanity Fair party earlier this year. Clooney has had to scrape by on a meager combination of global box office dominance, critical adoration, and a billion-dollar tequila acquisition. It is exhausting to carry the burden of being classically handsome while also being asked to direct historical dramas that middle-aged men fall asleep to on airplanes.
Let us look at the facts. The Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement is often reserved for filmmakers who have dedicated their lives to the craft, enduring the brutal whims of the market and the crushing weight of artistic obscurity. Who knows that pain better than a man who was forced to shoot a Nespresso commercial with Jean Dujardin just to maintain his iron grip on the European television advertising market?
The hardest part of our job is finding a way to make the most successful man on earth feel like he just won a raffle.
I have known Laura Dern for years. We once shared a golf cart at the Telluride Film Festival—an experience that fundamentally bonded us, even though she spent the entire ride looking at her phone—and I can tell you she is the exact right person to validate this struggling artist. Laura understands the precarious nature of a comeback narrative. George hasn't been handed a major European lifetime achievement statue since he received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2018. The drought has been palpable, and the emotional toll on his household staff has been devastating.
When you look at the rollout for his recent projects, you can see the quiet desperation of a man trying to prove he is more than just a charismatic billionaire with perfect hair. During a private screening I was invited to—the seating was quite limited, but they made room for me in the third row—I noticed that George actually had to learn lines of dialogue to participate in his own film. The sheer indignity of having to memorize words written by someone else when you have a private jet sitting idle on the tarmac is a sacrifice that Film Twitter absolutely refuses to acknowledge.
We had to bring in a crisis team when George realized he had only been nominated in six Oscar categories. There are twenty-three categories. That means he has failed in seventeen different disciplines. It haunts him.
People conveniently forget the trauma of 1997. I was at the premiere of Batman & Robin, standing just a few feet from the red carpet, and I saw the look in his eyes. He knew he was wearing a rubber suit with anatomically correct nipples. Do you think it is easy to bounce back from that by merely starring in a string of critically acclaimed Steven Soderbergh heist films? The resilience required to transition from a disgraced comic book hero to a devastatingly charming casino robber is something they do not teach you in acting classes.
It is easy for the public to sit back and assume that having everything makes life simple. But the reps in the trenches know the truth. Securing a deal for an actor who has already achieved every conceivable milestone is a logistical nightmare. Where do you even put the Golden Lion? Does it go next to the two Oscars, the BAFTA, or the four Golden Globes? Does he have to hire a new contractor to reinforce the mantle in his Los Angeles compound? These are the real-world consequences of awards season that the working class simply cannot comprehend.
I remember sitting on a panel at Sundance a few years ago—I was moderating a discussion on the intersection of cinema and my own career trajectory—and an audience member had the audacity to suggest that George Clooney was "doing fine." I practically threw my complimentary sparkling water at them. Doing fine? The man was entirely shut out of the Best Original Song category at the Academy Awards. He is practically invisible to the music branch.
Do you think it is easy to sell a tequila company for a billion dollars? The sheer weight of the capital gains tax alone would break a lesser man. He needs this trophy just to feel something.
Some critics will inevitably argue that the Golden Lion should go to a struggling avant-garde filmmaker from the Global South who has spent fifty years fighting censorship and poverty to make profound art. But those filmmakers haven't had to endure the pressure of maintaining a perfect jawline across four decades of high-definition lenses. Let them get their own lions.
This September, as the flashbulbs pop along the Lido, I will be watching from the VIP section, likely holding a glass of something expensive that was handed to me for free. And I will smile, knowing that after all the hardships, all the multi-million dollar paychecks, and all the magazine covers, the scrappy kid from Lexington, Kentucky who only ever wanted to be the most famous man alive has finally caught a break.