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.”

[From EW & Pop Sugar]

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.