The movie that left George Clooney ready to “kill” the director
With charm to spare and an affable, easy-going charisma, George Clooney hardly gives off the impression of somebody susceptible to fits of rage. And yet, tensions got so fraught on the set of 1999’s Gulf War thriller Three Kings that he was happy to admit he was ready and willing to kill the director.
Of course, that director was David O. Russell, who has a habit of rubbing people the wrong way on set, whether it’s his infamous rant directed towards Lily Tomlin on I Heart Huckabees or Amy Adams confirming that Christian Bale was forced to intervene after he drove her to tears during “most days” of shooting American Hustle.
In fairness, Clooney knew he was in for an interesting experience from the very beginning after reflecting on his initial assessment of Russell to Entertainment Weekly: “He’s a weirdo, and he’s hard to talk to, but that’s what makes his writing unique and interesting”. However, the pair ended up at loggerheads on more than one occasion, which reached a head when the filmmaker would take his frustrations out on the crew.
During an interview with Playboy, Clooney recalled the moment he reached breaking point: “I was trying to make things work, so I went over and put my arm around him. I said, ‘David, it’s a big day. But you can’t shove, push or humiliate people who aren’t allowed to defend themselves,'” he explained. “He turned on me and said, ‘Why don’t you just worry about your fucked-up act? You’re being a dick. You want to hit me? You want to hit me? Come on, pussy, hit me.'”
The one-time Batman continued, revealing Russell wasn’t the only one to lose his temper: “I’m looking at him like he’s out of his mind. Then he started banging me on the head with his head. He goes, ‘Hit me, you pussy. Hit me.’ Then he got me by the throat, and I went nuts. I had him by the throat. I was going to kill him. Kill him. Finally, he apologized, but I walked away.”
Understandably, then, Clooney anointed the production of Three Kings as “truly, without exception, the worst experience of my life.” Never one to let personal opinion get in the way of professional praise, though, the two-time Academy Award winner did correctly predict Russell’s future trajectory: “Will I work with David ever again? Absolutely not. Never. Do I think he’s tremendously talented and do I think he should be nominated for Oscars? Yeah.”
Since Three Kings, Clooney has kept his word and never entertained the idea of collaborating with Russell while also proving to be quite the prophet after the writer, director, and producer notched five Oscar nominations in the years since their ill-fated creative partnership.
