For a large chunk of his career, George Clooney was known as much for his heartthrob status as his acting prowess.
But that is about to change.
In a new interview, Clooney said you won’t see him kissing his co-stars on screen anymore, in deference to his human rights lawyer wife Amal, with whom he shares two children.
Clooney, 64, told the Daily Mail he was going down the “Paul Newman route” when it came to his acting career – a reference to the fact the famed movie star refused to kiss co-stars for many years out of respect for his wife Joanne Woodward.
“I’ve been trying to go the route Paul Newman did; ‘OK, well, I’m not kissing a girl any more’,” he said.
His new stance also appears in part to be a reflection of the actor’s age.
He has made a number of comments recently about being in his 60s, and perhaps no longer feels it is appropriate.
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“When I turned 60, I had a conversation with my wife. I said, ‘Look, I can still play basketball with the boys’. I play with 25-year-old guys.
“I can still hang, I’m in shape.
“But in 25 years, I’m 85 years old. It doesn’t matter how many granola bars you eat, that’s a real number.”
Clooney’s last romantic lead role was in the surprise 2022 hit film Ticket to Paradise, which was filmed on location in Australia during the COVID lockdowns.
It saw him star opposite his long time friend and sometimes co-star Julia Roberts.
They play a divorced couple who fall back in love while trying to stop their daughter’s wedding.
It contained just one love scene – a kiss between the pair, but Clooney told The New York Times in 2022 their friendship made it hard to get it right.
“I told my wife, ‘It took 80 takes’. She was like, ‘What the hell?” he said, before Roberts chimed in.
“It took 79 takes of us laughing and then the one take of us kissing,” she said.
Clooney appears to have become quite obsessed about his age since turning 60.
During a recent wide-ranging interview with Esquire, he made similar comments about the passage of time, and how he was nervous before his recent stint on Broadway that he would blow his lines due to his advancing age.
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His refusal to kiss co-stars is not the only change he has made to his career recently.
Clooney is also taking on less projects and has returned to acting after a stint mainly directing because it is more conducive to family life with Amal, whom he married in 2014 and their twins, Ella and Alexander, who were born in 2017.
Clooney was 56 when he became a first-time dad, after famously swearing off marriage and children.
The family now lives in France, when they are not at their famed holiday home in Italy’s Lake Como.
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