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I kind of forgot that George Clooney and Viola Davis know each other. They’ve worked together three times! Out of Sight (Viola had a righteous and hilarious cameo, basically), Solaris and Syriana – the last two Clooney actively shepherded, meaning that he pretty much chose Viola as a costar, meaning that he loves her. That alone makes me like Clooney a little bit more. That, and he let Viola and her then-new husband have their honeymoon at his Lake Como house. That’s a cool little piece of Hollywood gossip, right?
Anyway, Viola and George cover the new issue of EW. I saw this earlier and I was all “Meh. George needs to stop campaigning so hard. We get it, Clooney, YOU WANT IT.” But! In the EW interview, it actually seems George is coming close to throwing his weight behind Brad Pitt…? That sounded more man-on-man than I meant. Here’s what Clooney said about possibly (probably) being up against Brad for the Best Actor Oscar:
“Brad is my pal, and we’re a long way from that discussion anyway. But I’d like living in a world where Brad Pitt has an Academy Award. I watched Moneyball and I couldn’t do what Brad does.”
Interesting… Clooney isn’t coming out and saying that everybody should vote for Brad, and yes, there’s probably a little bit of “I have an Oscar already and Brad doesn’t” one-upmanship, but still… interesting. When Clooney was nominated the last time… when was it? Two years ago? He was against Jeff Bridges, who ended up sweeping all of the awards. Clooney let it slip late in the Oscar campaign that he had voted for Jeff, but he actually sounded kind of pissy about it. I think it would nice to see Clooney put aside his desire for his second Oscar just to support his BFF Brad – but that won’t happen, really. It’s way more likely that they’ll just spend two months ribbing each other in the press.
Here are some more highlights from the EW piece:
Clooney on women delivering box offices: “There’s this strange thing that’s happened over the last 25 or 30 years where there’s this decision being made that women aren’t able to carry the box office. Now, Bridesmaids has proved that to be bulls—, and The Help has proven it to be bulls—. But it’s much harder to get a film with a woman lead made. When a man hits 40 is when roles just begin to happen. And for women it doesn’t happen. I find that to be a very concerning issue.”
Viola Davis on race and awards: “Only one black actress in history has been back [at the Oscars] more than once, and that’s Whoopi Goldberg. But that’s only because there aren’t a lot of roles out there that are going to bring you back. Say if you have two great roles for an African-American actress in a year — one actress can cover it. So if there’s five really good black actresses out there, and that one actress gets it all, then the other four can sit for the next three years.”
Viola on Meryl Streep: “Can you wrap your mind around someone throwing you into the ring with Meryl Streep? You are in a fight with a 500-pound gorilla. I mean, you just throw up your hands. I just don’t understand the competition thing. How can you compare two actors’ performances? How do you say one is better than the other?” Clooney says: “I know how you do it. You have to play Margaret Thatcher and she has to play the maid.”
George on Viola honeymooning at his Lake Como Villa: “I had just bought the place. And she was getting married, which I tried to talk her out of. [Laughs] But that didn’t work out, so she had her honeymoon at my place.”
Yeah, whatever Faux-feminist George Clooney. “I find that to be a very concerning issue.” Not when you’re making sausage-party films, you don’t! George is like President of The Boys Club. Now, I’m sure that he is “concerned” about the lack of substantial, quality work for women in Hollywood. And I’m sure he’s “concerned” that more diverse films get financed and made. But let’s not buy into this idea that as ladies, George has our backs. He doesn’t. George is “behind us” of course. But whatever he’s doing back there, it doesn’t involve feminism. Trust me. Look at Viola’s face. She knows what he doing back there.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Written by Kaiser
Posted in Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Viola Davis
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50 Responses to “Is George Clooney campaigning for Brad Pitt’s Best Actor Oscar now?”
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I like George faults and all, i love Viola, they both look fantastic! Glad she is getting some attention!
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I ADORE that cover. It’s different and very sweet.
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Brad for the win!!
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according to Lainey Bradley got his face freshened just in time to pick up his award..not that there is anything wrong with a little face job..
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He looks a little desperate to me. Brad is certainly not on every magazine cover.
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I gotta start going out to the movies, I havent been to the movies in probably 10 years. I’ve never heard of her.
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Why doesn’t George date chicks like Viola Davis, so much more beautiful and classy than cray cray and canalis. Also he is starting to morph into ashton kutcher – his eyes are no longer warm, they seem creepy to me.
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What an hypocrite, GC pretending to be a feminist when in reality he refuses to date a woman with a legitimate, sustainable career, that say something about the way he sees women. You can tell he’s desperate for this oscar.
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You are 100% right.
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I will always love George as smarmy as he is. I also can’t wait until Brad and George decide to let their boys club loose on the Oscar season. They are taking it slow because I doubt they want to overwhelm everybody. But it’s coming. Possibly at the Golden Globes??? I can’t wait.
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Great cover shot. Looks like they’re having fun in the photo shoot. Very comfortable. Like the snippet of the article, plus King George reminds me of warm creme filled Zeppoles with Champagne. – Delicioso
Sighhhhh.
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George doesn’t do it for me and I find his taste in female companions questionable and odd, but I love his friendship with Brad. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of ego and macho muscling there, they’re just good pals who seem to really get each other. For two massive stars like they are, that’s pretty cool.
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I think George has been in every major magazine in the last few months. I don’t know why they are going to even hold an Oscar night, it seems like George is going to win everything the way Hollywood and the magazines are making it. They should have just a special ceremony for him and give him all his Oscars. It is hard to believe that he is concerned about the role of women in Hollywood, considering who he dates. IMO there seems to be almost a disrespect for women. By the way he refers to the women he dates as “girls”. Just goes to show you what he thinks about the opposite sex. By the way I like Viola, she is a wonderful actress and she looks great on the cover.
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lol
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Am I the only one who finds it weird how often George jokes in interviews about how anti-marriage he is? I mean, we GET it already. If he’s not careful it’s gonna be the MAIN thing he’s known for (like Warren Beatty before he finally got married). George jokes about hating marriage so much, it’s going to overshadow his acting.
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I agree with you. He seems to be fighting with himself about the marriage issue. I think who he dates and the anti-marriage, no children stuff has already begun to overshadow him. The difference between him and Warren is that Warren I think never claimed he didn’t want to get married.
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Thats true and I should have been more clear on that in my original post. Beatty was known as a philandering playboy but he didn’t give a million soundbytes about how anti-marriage he was. I don’t know a ton about Beatty’s thoughts on marriage, but I sure know how George feels about it! Why does Clooney feel the need to “joke” about it constantly? We get it…it didn’t work out for you the one time you tried it. Let it go, dude.
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So Brad and George are and will be the only (worthy) nominees this award season?
But I guess all is fair in love and awards season…
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No.. just that they could improve the ratings. But they both had amazing work this year. so the nominations if gotten are well earned.
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Waited too late to edit original comment:
But I will say Clooney’s quote on playing a prime minister against playing a maid to win an Oscar it quite (truth) telling.
We’ll see what he and his production company will do in the coming years to *help* (no pun intended) change that…
It’s not his job alone, but he apparently is aware of the lop-sided playing field he’s mastered…
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Isn’t it sad that someone has to campaign to be nominated? Obviously the performance wasn’t enough to get people/voters talking.
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He probably knows Brad isn’t his biggest competition (that would be Dujardin). If he can sway a few Dujardin votes towards Brad, it won’t be enough for Brad to win, but it might be enough for Dujardin to lose. Sneaky…
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Have you been following the race or do you just have an anti-Brad bias? The prevelant theory is that they are in a 3-way dead heat. It’s the closest race in years.
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I’ve been following the odds on Gold Derby and several betting sites where it’s Clooney ahead, followed by Dujardin and then followed by Pitt. Do you just have a pro-Pitt bias or are you getting your prevalent theory from somewhere valid?
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I’ve been on Awards Daily, IMDB and a few other sites where they compile articles and data from quite a few different sources. From what I can tell for the first time in quite a few years the Best Actor race is pretty wide open between those three and there is no clear frontrunner.
I honestly haven’t seen the Artist (I am planning on it) so I can’t judge the performance. I’m obviously pro-Pitt still I am in general a fan of Clooney but I think The Descendants while definitely baity is really overated. I honestly would have loved it if Gary Oldman ended up taking home the statue but everyone seems to be putting him completely out of the race at the moment.
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Well, William Hill and Paddy Power online betting both have Pitt in 4th position, Leo being in 3rd. Gold Derby has him in third, 6 points behind Dujardin and about 20 behind Clooney. WH and PP have Dujardin closer to Clooney than Gold Derby does. All of them have The Artist as a far in the lead favorite for Best Picture. I’d tend to have more faith in the sites where they are putting their money where their mouth is, personally.
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Yes, because betting/gambling is so reliable *snort*
.
(Sorry couldn’t help myself. I’m sure I will now get told off for my opinion
lol).
mln76 – I agree with you. Very wide open this awards season, with no clear front runners- yet. It will be fun to watch.
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Betting sites and casinos aren’t set up for anyone but the owners to win the most. They obviously aren’t always right, but they are almost certainly a lot less susceptible to smoke and mirror hype than sites who have no stake in the race.
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I’d say until the precursor awards are handed out. SAG(especially), Golden Globes, BAFTA etc Brad, George and Dujardin are pretty much tied. The Golden Derby, Vulture and other ‘betting sites’ will change their odds according to those awards which is why they do weekly updates.
This is just the beginning of the season.
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Clooney and Pitt have both been campaigning their bums off. We know they’ll get a nom, we know Dujardin will too. We haven’t seen him doing much press as of yet, but he’s up at the front of the pack all the same. I’d be willing to bet that we’re shortly going to see him rolled out to campaign, armed with the cute dog and charming French accent, talking about how old Hollywood was a magical place, how much he adores the “larger than life-ness” of American cinema, how incredibly special it was to get to do a film like this (such a tribute to HW’s roots) in this day and age, how delighted they are all that people walk out of the theater entertained and smiling etc etc. There will be references to how Hollywood has welcomed French stars like Maurice Chevalier, Deneuve, Cotillard. And he’ll make all sorts of charming little mistakes when he speaks that will make the ladies swoon.
They’ve kept him under wraps so far (probably in intensive English immersion), but that’s not going to last. And he’s usually got the press eating out of his hand in his own country, he’s not exactly a rookie at it.
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Oh and BTW ANY site that has Leo ahead of Pitt is just garbage. At this point it wouldn’t surprise anyone if Leo was snubbed. He only got back on prediction lists because of his SAG and Globe nominations but by no means is he considered the lock that Clooney, Pitt, and Dujardin are. Dujardin’s main advantage is Harvey Weinstein but will the Academy give him Best Picture(the Artist), Best Actress (Meryl), AND Best Actor? I sort of doubt it.
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Well, be that as it may but there isn’t a single one of the online betting sites that offer Oscar betting that I’ve been able to find (5 or so) that is showing a three way neck and neck race for Best Actor. Clooney is ahead by a comfy lead, followed by Dujardin and then either followed by Leo or Pitt. That may change, but I’m sure Clooney can and does follow the odds as well I you or I can, plus he’s no doubt got ears in the Academy that can give him a heads up on intentions.
So, in answer to your original question… No, I’m not saying what I said out of a bias against Pitt. I think Clooney knows very well how to play the game and I’m quite sure that he is comfortable playing both ends off the middle. A month ago, he did an interview in which he declared Dujardin’s performance as “spectacular” and Pitt’s as “very good” in the next sentence. Hardly a glowing recommendation for Pitt when you have the two seperated by only a period. Now, he’s talking up Pitt. I don’t think that Clooney in campaign mode does anything by accident. And he visibly wants this one badly, so it’s not likely he’s going to be talking up his closest rival, but he’s sure not above bleeding votes to #3 from #2 if he can manage it. it’s got nothing to do with Pitt, if Pitt were 2 and Jean were 3, he’d be doing the exact same thing only he’d be talking up Dujardin instead.
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Wendy, are you referring to film critics? because min 76 is right. Most film critics say its now a race between clooney, pitt and dejardin, and fassy. Pitt won NY film critic and Boston, clooney won National Board review and Los Angeles. There could be some less prestigious critics awards in between.
Leo is now considered a dark horse to win but will probably be nominated.
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I was talking about a mix between Gold Derby who calculate based on the predictions of 30 different critics (Yahoo, CNN, LA Times etc), Editors ( a dozen or so, presumably people who write for them), and Users (I would guess that would be general public who interact with their site) and the odds that the online Bookmakers are giving. They are all giving Clooney a fair lead, although Pitt has moved up in the bookie’s odds over the past few weeks and they have less of a spread between Clooney and Dujardin than the critics do.
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I don’t care what GoldenDerby says, Pitt has won more prelims now than George, so I don’t know why Cloons is still considered the favorite.
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@norma: perhaps all awards are not considered equal in the eyes of the Bookies.
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“But let’s not buy into this idea that as ladies, George has our backs. He doesn’t. George is “behind us” of course. But whatever he’s doing back there, it doesn’t involve feminism.”
I LOVE YOU KAISER
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What does that mean? Is he gay? WTF.
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Wow, he really is pushing for another Oscar isn’t he. Desperate much.
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I love this cover. Didn’t know all the extra stuff about his friendship with Viola. That’s sweet.
I’m just happy all 3 will be at the Oscars this year. I hope Viola win, but am torn between my boys. I love both George & Brad so much.
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Billy Crystal is the only reason I’m even going to watch the Oscars this year.The Best Actor category will be the one to watch.George was the front runner earlier on in the award season but it could very well be up for grabs now.
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I like Clooney. A lot.
I like him because he’s not an insufferable dbag hypocrite like so many people in the limelight (both politicisn and celebs).
He’s completely unapologetic about his lifestyle and mans up to most of the stuff he’s done. (BTW, I don’t buy that he’s gay, so there’s nothing to man up about that… )
What was that little quip he said a while ago? About how he’s done too many drugs and played around with too many women to be a viable candidate?
That’s my George.
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George seems like a nice enough guy. However, really don’t think he’s that great of of actor. Giving an award to someone just because they have put their time into Hollywood, is silly. Neither George or Pitt deserve best actor this year. Michael Shannon for Take Shelter would be my choice. Sorry George its shouldn’t be you.
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Oddly enough, I think George will win the Oscar this year. Poor Brad will have to work on another film.
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I just got this today in the mail and I have to say, his face brought a smile to my face. He seems genuinely having a blast and made Viola just smile and put her at ease. He seems to be championing for her and that’s something vain Brad Pitt can’t pull off.
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Gigohead,
Not sure if you know that Brad (whom you called vain) championed for Casey Afflect for the Jesse James movie and Casey WAS Oscar nominated.
Now he is doing it for Jonah Hill who has been Golden Globe and Sag nominated and thrown into the Oscar discussions.
Seems like Brad is something far different than your description, which BTW was incorrect. What you are seeing is Brad’s lack of desperation NOT vanity. He is being himself NOT Mr. President of HW.
George won’t win, so there’s that.
Brad could win, so there’s that.
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well brad is truly a nice guy, all of his co-stars just love him, including George obviously, they have nothing but praise for brad, as an actor as well as a human being, but none of that should be a reason to win the Oscar, like George said, brad’s acting was great, even George could not do that, i do hope brad walk home with it, he deserves it just like everyone else, rather you like brad or not, he would not even be considered if he didn’t serve up the goods. go brad, and I’m back with brad.
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Clooney looks good with a woman around his own age.
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Whatever, the oscar belongs to Gary Oldman
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I love Viola Davis but it is time to fire her hairstylist and her current stylist needs to take the game up or keep moving. You’re beautiful but you need a better team than this.
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