The romantic scene George Clooney shot blind drunk: “I smelled like a distillery”
There are many actors known for their love of the liquor or those with even more voracious drinking habits. The legendary Richard Burton was known to knock back three to four bottles of spirits a day; not to mention the many instances of actors causing a ruckus on set due to inebriation, like Robert Shaw on the set of Jaws. You might expect it from the likes of Brad Pitt or even Daniel Radcliffe, who has spoken about his issues with alcohol while shooting Harry Potter.
But one you might not expect to show up drunk is good old George Clooney. Sure, the guy’s been renowned for his womanising, but he’s also known for his philanthropy and nice guy persona. Really, he just seems like a truly charming, down-to-earth guy. However, even he isn’t beyond the drunk-at-work antics. Speaking to One Fine Day co-star Michelle Pfieffer for Variety’s ‘Actor on Actors’ podcast, Clooney recalled the time he showed up drunk to set while shooting the beloved rom-com.
“I had the next day off, I was on hold, and you were working… So I stayed up and had a few vodkas or something [with Rande Gerber]. Then I came home at like one in the morning and my machie was like you have to work at 6.30 and I’m like, oh shit,” he told Pfeiffer. Of course, being the good guy he is, he knew he had to stick to his responsibilities. So what did he do? “I said, ‘I just gotta go to sleep,’ and I was pretty hammered. And I woke up at like five in the morning and I was like, ‘I feel ok.’ And then I looked in the mirror and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m still drunk.’”
But despite the inability to stave off the alcohol through sleep, ‘Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome’ went to set anyway, “And I got to the set, and we walked into the trailer, and I sat down, and you looked at me, you go, ‘What?’” “And I was like, ‘I didn’t know we were going to work today, and you go, ‘You’re still drunk.’” Of course, the professional actor that she is, Pfeiffer, knew straight away something was up. But Clooney’s drunk antics didn’t quite reach the hellraising heights of some of his colleagues.
Being a rom-com, the movie stars were sure to get up close and personal, so Clooney’s only issue was covering the smell of the alcohol sweats, “I kept trying to spray like, whatever mouth spray I could because I smelled like a distillery along the way.” It surely mustn’t have been a pleasant day on set for Pfeiffer, facing one of the most handsome men in the world when he smells like a dive bar.
And, hilariously, the story sounds like it could have come straight from the movie. One Fine Day followed Pfeiffer as a type A, driven career woman with a kid and Clooney as a single father with a Peter Pan complex, two total opposites who, of course, fall in love despite how unlikely it might seem.
Given this, it wouldn’t have been out of character for Clooney’s Jack Taylor to show up to a playdate slightly toasted and for Pfeiffer’s Melanie Parker to call him on it immediately. But then again, maybe that’s why they were cast in their roles.
