“That’s kind of my whole fucking career”: when Quentin Tarantino called George Clooney a has-been
There are no guarantees that any movie career will span for decades, but George Clooney has nonetheless done a stellar job establishing himself as one of the biggest, most popular, most widely acclaimed, and awards-laden multi-hyphenates of his generation.
The actor’s star-making turn as heartthrob doctor Doug Ross in televised sensation ER was positively dripping with silver screen charisma, and many were predicting that Clooney would effortlessly make the jump into cinema thanks to his decidedly old-school matinee idol looks and radiant charisma.
Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go to plan when Batman & Robin was deservedly received as one of the worst blockbusters of the 1990s, but it was only a minor setback in the grand scheme of things. The year before, Clooney had oozed cool and displayed plenty of star wattage when sharing the screen with Quentin Tarantino in the filmmaker’s self-scripted instant cult classic From Dusk till Dawn.
Sporting rubber nipples in a disastrous comic book adaptation was definitely a blip, but nothing Clooney couldn’t recover from. For further proof, look no further than the litany of the box office smash hits and critical darlings he’s played a part in over the last three decades, never mind his two Academy Award wins from eight nominations spanning six different categories to underline his filmmaking credentials.
From Dusk till Dawn was the only time Clooney and Tarantino worked together, but the latter welcomed the former’s close friend Brad Pitt into his inner circle after they collaborated on Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Why hasn’t he returned to the Clooney well? Maybe it’s because he doesn’t think he’s a star anymore, something that seriously rankled.
“Quentin said some shit about me recently, so I’m a little irritated by him,” Clooney ranted to GQ. “He did some interview where he was naming movie stars and he was talking about Pitt and somebody else, and then this interviewer goes, ‘Well, what about George?’ He goes, ‘He’s not a movie star’. And then he literally said something like, ‘Name me a movie since the millennium.'”
Understandably, Clooney wasn’t best pleased with effectively being called a has-been. “That’s kind of my whole fucking career,” he continued. “So now I’m like, all right, dude, fuck off.” Movie stardom can be a fickle thing, but Tarantino is in the minority if he truly believes that Clooney hasn’t been in anything remotely star-worthy since the beginning of the 21st century.
That said, it’s not like the Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction creator is talking completely out of his arse. While there’s no denying that Clooney is as talented and famous as he’s been since the dawn of the millennium, the only role he’s played that’s overtly ‘starry’ or designed with the express intention of putting butts in seats is arguably Danny Ocean in Steven Soderbergh’s heist trilogy, which ironically saw him acting opposite Pitt in the majority of his scenes.
If anything, it’s a testament to Clooney’s enduring star power that he doesn’t take the kind of parts that generate the most visibility and earning potential and still hasn’t fallen off his A-list perch.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.