Time has not healed the wounds between George Clooney and David O. Russell.
The Oscar-winning actor, 63, called the filmmaker, 65, “a miserable piece of shit” in a joint interview with his Wolfs co-star Brad Pitt published Tuesday in GQ.
After Pitt, 60, made a reference to time allocation, Clooney laid out the concept when it comes to working with the people you love, some 25 years after he and the mercurial filmmaker Russell clashed on the set of the 1999 war film Three Kings.
The Lexington, Kentucky, native said, “The older you get, the distribution of time is very different. Five months of your life is a long time.”
Clooney said he’s more selective about who he works with, even if it means sacrificing a worthwhile endeavor, saying it’s “not worth it” at this point in his life “just to have a good product.”
George Clooney, 63, called filmmaker David O. Russell, 65, “a miserable piece of shit” in a joint interview with his Wolfs co-star Brad Pitt published Tuesday in GQ
Clooney said: “So it’s not just, ‘Oh, I’m going to make a really good movie, like Three Kings, and I’m going to have miserable sex like David O. Russell making my life hell. Making every single person’s life hell on the crew.'”
Clooney played the lead role of Archie Gates in Three Kings, which hit theaters in October 1999. The film, derived from John Ridley’s story, also starred Ice Cube, Mark Wahlberg, Spike Jonze, Nora Dunn and Cliff Curtis.
Clooney detailed his clash with Russell in a 2000 interview with Playboy, calling the film’s production “truly, bar none, the worst experience of my life.”
In the interview, Clooney said that after witnessing Russell being verbally abusive toward crew members, humiliating them in front of others, he wrote a letter to the director imploring him to calm down for the sake of the project.
Clooney said in an interview later in production that Russell became aggressive with an extra over a stunt and that he tried to intervene and calm things down.
“I was trying to make things work, so I went over and put my arm around him,” Clooney said in the interview. “I said, ‘David, it’s a great day. But you can’t push, shove or humiliate people who aren’t allowed to defend themselves.'”
Clooney said Russell verbally assaulted him, telling him, “Why don’t you mind your fucking act?”
Clooney continued: ‘He was like, ‘Hit me, faggot. Hit me. ‘ Then he grabbed me by the neck and I went nuts. Waldo, my friend, one of the guys, grabbed me by the waist to get me to let go. I had him by the neck. I was going to kill him. Kill him. Eventually, he apologized, but I walked away.
Russell and Clooney were photographed on the set of their 1999 film Three Kings, during which things got physical between them.
Clooney detailed his clash with Russell in a 2000 interview with Playboy, calling the film’s production “truly, bar none, the worst experience of my life.”
Clooney played the lead role of Archie Gates in Three Kings, which hit theaters in October 1999.
‘At that point, the guys at Warner Bros. were freaking out. David was in a bad mood for the rest of the shoot and we finished the movie, but it was really, bar none, the worst experience of my life.’
According to The Guardian, in an October 2004 interview, Russell denied ever laying hands on Clooney, saying: “I never physically attacked him. If I met him, I’d say: ‘Shut your mouth, you fucking liar.'”
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in 1999, Clooney said Russell is “a weird guy and hard to talk to, but that’s what makes his writing unique and interesting.”
Clooney told The Hollywood Reporter in 2012 that he approached Russell at a Hollywood event and that the two seemed to be on firmer ground.
‘I saw David a few weeks ago at a party… and I felt compelled to go up to him and say, ‘So, are we done?’ And he was like, ‘Please.’ And I was like, ‘Okay.’ We made a really great movie and we went through some really tough times together, but it’s a case of us both getting older.
“I really appreciate the work he continues to do, and I think he appreciates what I’m trying to do.”