George Clooney has adopted (pun intended) a sound strategy for diverting questions about his personal life – he makes jokes about Brad Pitt’s family instead. For instance, he recently told Star, “Brad is a great comic actor. You have to have a sense of humor when you’re the father of 15 kids – have you heard how many he and Angie have now? – and your pockets are filled with rattles and Legos.”

But Brad doesn’t mind. He jokes back: “No, he [George] hates children….Are you kidding? I love the twins too much to subject them to George.”

Now their Ocean’s 11 co-star Don Cheadle is joining in on the fun.

I think it’s a wrap on the Ocean’s movies, although I hear that Brad [Pitt] may do an Ocean’s movie with just his family.

[From People, print edition, September 8, 2008]

He even jokes about adopting some of Brad’s kids, telling People, “There will be enough of them pretty soon. I’m calling two through four.”

Don has two daughters of his own with actress Bridgid Coulter, his co-star in Rosewood. He tells People that he enjoys when he doesn’t know the answers for his daughters’ homework.

Don’t act like you know something when you don’t. The best thing is when both of you struggle to figure it out together. That’s the most fun part.

[From People, print edition, September 8, 2008]

While Don garnered good reviews for his performance in his current movie Traitor, the film itself received relatively mediocre reviews and didn’t do well at the box office.

Don received an Oscar nomination for Hotel Rwanda, but has yet to become a box-office hit-maker in his own right, somewhat inexplicably for such a versatile actor.

He tells People that if he wasn’t an actor, he’d follow in the footsteps of his Ocean’s 11 character, Basher Tarr.

I would be robbing people, which would really stink because everybody would be like, “Hey, Don Cheadle just robbed me! He was wearing his costume from Ocean’s Eleven!“

[From People, print edition, September 8, 2008]

Besides kidding Brad and George, like them he also participates in extensive global charity efforts. He is especially interested in alleviating atrocities happening in Darfur, and he has enlisted famous friends like Pitt and Clooney to help. He told People magazine, “People ask me, ‘So do you guys really sit around talking about Darfur?’ Yeah, we actually do. What do you think we talk about? How many cars we have?”

He is a member of Not On Our Watch, which “generates lifesaving humanitarian assistance and protection for the vulnerable, marginalized and displaced. Where governments remain complacent, Not On Our Watch is committed to stopping mass atrocities and giving a voice to their victims.”

Don even went so far as to say he’d leave the country if John McCain is elected.

I mean it depends on this next election whether I’m going to stay in this country….I’m pretty serious about being pretty concerned. I wish I could say for sure I knew what was going to happen. But I think we’re in a mess right now and I don’t know why anyone would want to be President right now to begin with. If you are going to take that on, you’ve got a lot of stuff to untangle. To me right now, we’re in bizarre-o land with all of it.

[From OK! Magazine]

Traitor is in theaters now. Cheadle’s next projects include a comedy, Hotel for Dogs with Lisa Kudrow and a gritty drama, Brooklyn’s Finest with Richard Gere.

Don Cheadle is shown outside The Late Show on 8/26/08. Credit: Dan Jackman/WENN