Now Playing
Courtesy of NetflixGeorge Clooney is not one to shy away from challenges, but when it came to making his first Netflix film, The Midnight Sky, he admits he took on a lot.
“Look, this was a big, tall order because it was one of the more difficult acting jobs I’ve ever had,” Clooney tells ABC Audio. “And it’s certainly the most difficult directing job I’ve ever had.”
Clooney, who also serves as the film’s producer, says he picked the project, which is based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton, because he felt it was “really interesting and timely.”
“I felt like it was a good time to talk about all of these kind of issues,” he says. “And I thought it was an entertaining, smart movie. So it seemed like if you’re going to do it, this is the right one to do it on.”
The film, also starring Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo, follows Clooney’s character of Augustine, a scientist in the Arctic who races to stop astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe. Clooney says the film is really about his character “com[ing] to terms with his own regrets and his seeking redemption along the way.”
“And I think that that’s sort of what drives him the whole way,” he says. “So maybe that sort of blinds him to everything else.”
While Clooney admits it was a heavy lift to make a project set in both outer space and the Arctic, the Oscar-winner jokes that the real challenge was dealing with Clooney himself.
“Well, George Clooney is a pain in the [butt] to direct. I’m going to tell you right now,” he quips. “He doesn’t listen to the director.”
The Midnight Sky is now streaming on Netflix.
By Candice Williams
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
