Clooney goes for laughs: At the ‘Leatherheads’ premiere
Jenny Peters

LOS ANGELES—This time out, George Clooney is not only the star of the show; he’s the director and producer as well. Bringing his cast, crew, and close friends together on Monday night in Hollywood at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the affable actor-turned-director presented the premiere of “Leatherheads,” his 1920’s vintage homage to the classic screwball comedies of Hollywood’s golden age.
“Leatherheads” is Clooney’s third directing effort, having two previous dramas, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and “Good Night, and Good Luck,” under his belt. As he told reporters at an earlier press conference for the comedy, “Leatherheads” is a film he felt compelled to make, despite it taking a very long time to come to fruition. “The truth is that this was a part that for a long, long, long time I wanted to play. I thought that I was the right guy to play it and I also thought that since I’m forty-six, that if I didn’t do it now I’m done. This was my last shot,” Clooney explained. “[Steven] Soderbergh was going to direct it in 1998 and I was very excited about that prospect and then things moved on and the script wasn’t in good shape. We were in preproduction, but we had an outline and two or three scenes that we loved and also characters that we loved. But we didn’t have a plot. So we shelved it for a while.”
Cut to today, and Clooney is not only the leading man but the director of the film. Taking on both jobs was a natural fit for him, as he is both an Oscar-winning actor and an Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter, so can obviously do it all. Plus, “Leatherheads” also proves that Clooney can direct more than one type of film, which is exactly why he wanted to make a comedy this time out. “I had a great fear of being the ‘issues’ director,” Clooney said, “because the issues change, and I have a much bigger interest in being a director. So I thought I wanted to do something that was completely away from that. I like exploring different genres and this is a world that I knew a little bit, the style of this kind of film.”