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writer and director Tony Gilroy argues that George Clooney filming with an injury helped his performance. Released in 2007, the legal thriller features Clooney starring as the titular character, a law firm fixer who becomes wrapped up in a conspiracy after becoming involved in a multi-billion-dollar class action lawsuit against a chemical company. Also starring Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, and Sydney Pollack, Michael Clayton marked Clooney’s follow-up to movies like Syriana (2005), The Good German (2006), and Ocean’s Thirteen (2007).
During a recent interview with Letterboxd, Gilroy reveals that he initially had some hesitation about Clooney in the lead role of Michael Clayton due to the contrasting personas of the movie star and the titular protagonist. Clooney, however, Gilroy explains, sustained an injury while filming Syriana, a political thriller, and this ended up playing into a key quality of Clayton. Check out Gilroy’s explanation below:
“I was very excited because I had a movie and I was going to get the money I needed to make it. And I had George Clooney and everybody was extremely happy about that. But I was nervous because the character really is, as you say, they’re not just exhausted physically, they’re they’re morally exhausted and he’s not a winner. Not a winner. And George Clooney at that point was very, very, very much a pure winner.
“And I was really worried about having a winner in this part. And I’m sure there were doubts in my mind. George, I think, would agree. He took a fall on Syriana. Watch Syriana. There’s a scene where Mark Strong is torturing him and kicks a chair and he and when they did the stunt, he got hurt. He came to us damaged. I know that every day he came to work, he was struggling.
“I think a lot of the quality of the movie, it’s also how brave he was to trust me because it was really dicey for a few days, the first few days. And there’s a real feel of him playing catchup through the whole movie that’s just fantastic and impossible to recreate. And I don’t know if he just walked off the Vaporetto in Venice, you know, and tore off his sunglasses and jumped onto the set if it would have been anything like what it is. And you’re looking at somebody who’s really… he’s hurting through the movie.”
What This Means For Michael Clayton
Why The Film Is A George Clooney Outlier
After playing the lead on ER for a number of years, Clooney became one of Hollywood’s leading movie stars with the release of movies like O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000), The Perfect Storm (2000), and Ocean’s Eleven (2001), among other titles. All of these movies played into Clooney’s inherent charm as a movie star in a traditional leading man sort of way, and Syriana was, in many ways, an attempt to buck this trend and emerge as a serious actor. The film was a mixed bag in terms of its success, but Michael Clayton ended up being a major win for Clooney in this regard.
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Michael Clayton reviews were glowing from critics, and the movie currently has a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. At the box office, the film was a success, grossing $92 million. Michael Clayton also earned Clooney is first Oscar nomination, though he ultimately lost to Daniel Day Lewis for There Will Be Blood (2007). The film was also nominated for six other Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, with its only win going to Swinton for Best Supporting Actor.
Gilroy is also best known for writing multiple installments in the Bourne franchise and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), in addition to creating the acclaimed Andor.
Our Take On Gilroy’s Michael Clayton Story
It Remains A Highlight Of Clooney’s Career
When looking at the larger arc of Clooney’s acting career, Michael Clayton remains a highlight, and potentially his best movie. Clooney is certainly right at home in the more comedic Ocean‘s franchise, but the 2007 legal thriller presented the star in a way that audiences had never really seen before. There’s also an argument to be made that Clooney was never quite able to reach these same heights again, despite having taken on several more serious projects in the years since.
While it’s unfortunate that Clooney was injured while making Syriana, Gilroy evidently believed it helped to strengthen his Michael Clayton performance. It’s not clear how the film would be different had Clooney not been injured, but Gilroy’s story speaks to the happy accidents and elements of chance that sometimes play large roles in shaping what ends up on screen.
Source: Letterboxd
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