The 1 Actor George Clooney Refuses to Work With
Over the past three decades, George Clooney has cemented his spot as a Hollywood heartthrob with an impressive talent for acting. The Academy Award winner has worked with many of the industry’s biggest names, and has had varying relationships with all of them. There’s one star, however, that you won’t catch him working with any time soon.
George Clooney’s acting career
George Clooney got his start in acting in the early 1990s, with guest spots on popular sitcoms such as Roseanne and The Golden Girls. He became a household name in 1994 when he was cast as Dr. Doug Ross in NBC’s hit medical drama ER.
ER opened the door for Clooney to take on a wide variety of leading roles in films in the following years, such as From Dusk till Dawn, Three Kings, and the wildly successful Ocean’s Eleven.
Clooney has crossed paths with many other actors over the years. While most of those relationships are positive, there’s one that has left a bad taste in his mouth for over two decades.
George Clooney refuses to work with Russell Crowe
In 2020, a Hollywood insider told New Idea that Clooney has had “sour grapes” in his mouth ever since Russell Crowe won the coveted lead role in Gladiator over him way back in 1999. “George always wishes he got that one,” the source said.
In a 2013 interview with Esquire, Clooney explained the origins of his feud with Crowe. He wasn’t upset about missing out on a movie role, but comments that Crowe made about him and other iconic actors back in 2005.
“He put out this thing saying, ‘George Clooney, Harrison Ford, and Robert De Niro are sellouts,'” Clooney recalled. “He picked a fight with me. He started it for no reason at all.”
“I put out a statement saying, ‘He’s probably right. And I’m glad he told us, because Bob and Harrison and I were also thinking about starting a band, which would also fall under the heading of bad use of celebrity,'” he continued. “And that’s when he really went off on me. ‘Who the f*ck does this guy think he is? He’s a Frank Sinatra wannabe.'”
“So I sent him a note going, ‘Dude, the only people who succeed when two famous people are fighting is People magazine,” Clooney recounted. “‘What the f*ck is wrong with you?'”
Russell Crowe apologized to George Clooney with poetry
After their public dust-up, Crowe reached out to Clooney and owned up to his negative behavior.
Clooney remembered that it wasn’t done face-to-face, but in the form of poetry: “The truth is that [Crowe] did send me a book of poems to apologize for insulting the sh*t out of me, which he did.”
