George Clooney admitted to being “a little irritated” at filmmaker Quentin Tarantino for admonishing him in a recent interview for not being a real “movie star.”
Speaking in a joint GQ interview with Brad Pitt, Clooney recounted a recent interview he read with the “Pulp Fiction” director where he praised Pitt for being a 21st century movie star but questioned Clooney’s standing at that rank.
“Quentin said some s–t about me recently, so I’m a little irritated by him. He did some interview where he was naming movie stars, and he was talking about you, [Pitt], and somebody else, and then this guy goes, ‘Well, what about George?’ [Tarantino] goes, he’s not a movie star,” Clooney said.
“And then he literally said something like, ‘Name me a movie since the millennium.’ And I was like, ‘Since the millennium? That’s kind of my whole f–king career.’”
Clooney and Tarantino worked together in the 1996 Robert Rodriguez film, “From Dusk Till Dawn,” which Tarantino cowrote and starred in opposite Clooney. They played brothers Seth and Richard Gecko.
In the years since, Clooney has led the “Ocean’s 11” franchise, scored three Best Actor Oscar nominations, and won Best Supporting Actor in 2006 for “Syriana” — the same year he was nominated in directing and screenwriting for “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
“Now I’m like, all right, dude, f–k off,” Clooney continued of the slight. “I don’t mind giving him s–t. He gave me s–t.”
For his part, Pitt has been a go-to collaborator for Tarantino, starring in “Inglorious Basterds” and winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
Elsewhere in the joint interview, Pitt and Clooney reflected on that different stages of their career, noting that even later on, they continue to be competitive with one another.
“We both have production companies, and both of us have produced a movie that’s won best picture. If I had a movie we were producing up against him, I’d do everything I could to undercut his ass,” Clooney said with a laugh.
“We have a competitive nature. Like the competitiveness that an athlete would have,” Pitt added. “You take pride in what you do, you want it to really, really work. But at the same time, if I didn’t have a George Clooney in my life, I don’t know that I would’ve reached certain levels. Because it inspires you to push on.”
The two real life friends will star in “Wolfs” together this September. The film, written and directed by Jon Watts, follows two fixers, Nick (Pitt) and Jack (Clooney), who get assigned to the same job and are forced to work together. Pitt and Clooney said it was just another excuse to spend more time together.