Clooney, George

actor, director, producer; star of Jay Kelly

“𝐽𝑎𝑦 𝐾𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑦”: George Clooney about his new coming-of-age dramedy directed by Noah Baumbach

Andrea Cirla · Dec 8, 2025 · partial coverage

• George Clooney
• Jay Kelly
• Noah Baumbach
• Fresh Air
• Tanya Mosley
• fame
• family
• ER
• Rosemary Clooney
• Nick Clooney
• Good Night and Good Luck
• Edward R. Murrow
• Hollywood

Coverage note: full (about forty minutes with station breaks; YouTube auto-captions in English, accurate, including sponsor/promo segments between the interview parts)

Core ideas

Work, family and the trade-offs of fame. Jay Kelly follows a world-famous actor who realizes he has missed what matters, notably his bond with his grown daughter. Clooney says he never read the script as a story about a movie star but about the balance between work and family that most people face; he recalls his own father missing ball games and parents who were working to put food on the table, and says that parents who succeed make themselves "irrelevant" to their children (his son went to Halloween as Batman and was unimpressed). He explains that fame arrived at 33 with ER, after years of auditions, bit parts and sleeping on a friend's closet floor in LA, and that so much of it is luck of timing (a Thursday-night slot), the lesson he learned partly from his aunt Rosemary Clooney, who was famous at sixteen, then lost her career and fell into addiction when tastes changed.

Friends, truth and a sense of proportion. Unlike Jay Kelly, Clooney says he has an assistant, a publicist and an agent but no manager or business manager; he has kept the same friends for decades and values their candor (they told him never to drive after drinking). He tells the story of giving twelve friends a million dollars each in suitcases, a gesture to thank the people who stood by him before he had a family. He recalls his father Nick Clooney, a Cincinnati news anchor who was trusted because he held truth to power; he also describes his failed attempt at journalism and the grim door-to-door and shoe-selling jobs before acting, and the shrimp cocktail as a sign the family was doing okay.

Speaking out, and Good Night and Good Luck. He brought the 2005 film to Broadway in 2025 (playing Murrow), arguing that when the other branches of government fail the press must step in, and that truth has become negotiable today. He says that he speaks out when he is informed and no one else will, that he does not give up free speech because he has a union card, and that he stands by his 2024 New York Times op-ed asking Biden to step aside. He ends by saying that watching the tribute reel of his career in the film reminded him of friendships rather than movies.

Excerpts