GEORGE CLOONEY (Matt Kowalski) has garnered numerous honors, including two Academy Awards®, for his work on both sides of the camera as an actor, writer, director and producer. He has, in fact, been Oscar®-nominated in more categories than any person in cinema history: Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Director, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, and Picture. In addition, he is internationally respected for his global humanitarian efforts on behalf of a number of important causes.
Following “Gravity,” Clooney has a number of projects upcoming in 2013. He is a producer on John Wells’ “August: Osage County,” based on the Tony-winning play by Tracy Letts and featuring an all-star cast, led by Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. In addition, he directed and stars in “The Monuments Men,” about the race to save priceless works of art from the Nazis. He also co-wrote and co-produced the film, in collaboration with Grant Heslov.
In 2012, Clooney won his second Oscar®, as a producer on the Best Picture winner “Argo,” directed by and starring Ben Affleck. Among the film’s many awards, “Argo” was also named Best Picture at the Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards, and Critics’ Choice Awards.
The year before, he received dual Oscar® nominations, one for Best Actor for his role in Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants,” and another for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on the political drama “The Ides of March,” which he also directed, produced, and starred in with Ryan Gosling. For his performance in “The Descendants,” Clooney also won a Golden Globe and several critics groups’ awards, and earned BAFTA Award and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award® nominations, all for Best Actor. Clooney’s work behind the camera on “The Ides of March” brought him Golden Globe nominations, for Best Director and Best Screenplay, as well as Producers Guild of America (PGA) and Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award nominations.
In 2006, Clooney won his first Oscar®, for Best Supporting Actor, for his role in “Syriana” and, that same year, also received Oscar® nominations for Best Director and for Best Original Screenplay for “Good Night, And Good Luck.” It marked the first time in Academy history that an individual received acting and directing nominations for two different films in the same year.
Clooney’s work on “Good Night, and Good Luck.” and “Syriana” also brought him numerous other accolades. For the first, he earned Golden Globe, BAFTA Award and Critics’ Choice Award nominations, for Best Director and Best Screenplay; nominations for both a Directors Guild of America Award and a WGA Award; an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Director; and a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award® nomination for Best Ensemble, shared with the cast. The Broadcast Film Critics Association also presented Clooney with its Freedom Award for “Good Night, and Good Luck.” In addition, he won a Golden Globe Award and earned BAFTA Award, SAG Award® and Critics’ Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor for his role in “Syriana.”
Clooney has since earned two more Oscar® nominations in the category of Best Actor: for the title role of the 2007 drama “Michael Clayton,” on which he was also an executive producer; and for his performance in Jason Reitman’s 2009 hit “Up in the Air.” He also received Golden Globe, BAFTA Award and SAG Award® nominations for both films.
Clooney partnered with Grant Heslov to form Smokehouse Pictures, whose inaugural production was the 2008 release “Leatherheads,” which Clooney directed, co-wrote and starred in. Under their Smokehouse banner, Clooney also starred in and produced 2009’s “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” marking Heslov’s film directorial debut.
Clooney was previously partnered with Steven Soderbergh in the production company Section Eight, which produced the “Ocean’s” trilogy, directed by Soderbergh and starring Clooney as part of an all-star ensemble cast. Section Eight also produced the 2002 film “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” which marked Clooney’s directorial debut, bringing him a Special Achievement in Film Award from the National Board of Review. Other Section Eight films include the aforementioned “Michael Clayton,” “Syriana,” and “Good Night, and Good Luck.,” as well as “The Informant!,” “The Good German,” “Insomnia,” “Far From Heaven,” “The Jacket,” “Full Frontal,” and “Welcome to Collinwood.” For Section Eight’s television division, Clooney executive produced and directed five episodes of “Unscripted,” a reality-based show that debuted on HBO in 2005. He was also an executive producer on HBO’s “K Street.”
His other film acting credits include the Coen brothers’ films “Burn After Reading,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” for which Clooney won his first Golden Globe Award, and “Intolerable Cruelty”; Soderbergh’s “Solaris” and “Out of Sight”; “The Perfect Storm”; “Three Kings”; “The Peacemaker”; “Batman & Robin”; “One Fine Day”; and “From Dusk Till Dawn.” He also lent his voice to the title character in Wes Anderson’s Oscar®-nominated animated feature “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”
On the small screen, Clooney has starred in several television projects but is best known for his five years on “ER.” His portrayal of Dr. Doug Ross on the hit NBC drama series earned him Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award® nominations. Additionally, he was an executive producer and star of the Golden Globe winning 2000 live television broadcast of “Fail Safe,” based on the 1962 novel of the same name. More recently, he was Emmy-nominated for his producing work on the 2010 telethon “Hope for Haiti Now.”
George Clooney in Gravity
