Hello June 10 2008
Jun 9th, 2008 | By admin | Category: Featured Article, magazines
When a man’s just broken up with his girlfriend, what might he turn to for comfort? The answer, if you’re George Clooney, is a Martini and group of gorgeous girls. Photographed exclusively for Hello! looking mustached and dashing on the set of this latest commercial, George, 47, seemed not to have a care in the world. Yet the Hollywood star had set millions of female hearts fluttering last week when it was reported that he had broken up with his 29-year-old girlfriend Sarah Larson, and was a single man again.
“She is very sweet, but we came from different backgrounds and it became clear to us both that our relationship wasn’t working any more,” he is said to have told friends.
They had first met at at cocktail bar in Las Vegas at a time when his on-off relationship with Essex-born model Lisa Snowdon - whom he had met filming his first Martini commercial in 2000 - was going through a rough patch.
But for that moment in his life, George was unattached. He chatted to Sarah, a cocktail waitress and winner of American reality TV Show, Fear Factor, for an hour. “There was chemistry between us, but it took another four years to really get together,” the Michael Clayton star later recalled.
Sarah’s Story
They began dating steadily after George came to Las Vegas to promote his film Ocean’s Thirteen in June 2007, although it was not until September that they first appeared in public together - she on his arm at the Venice and Deauville film festivals. Sarah was also at this side at the Oscars ceremony in Hollywood earlier this year, the first girlfriend to attend the prestigious annual event with him.
But whatever George was feeling about the apparent break-up, when he arrived on the set in Malibu, California to make the new martini commercial, he was nothing but professional, putting at ease the glamorous yet starstruck women hired as extras by greeting them warmly and kissing their hands.
The Laid-Back Star
Dressed casually, the Hollywood star had arrived in an environmentally correct hybrid care with no entourage-not even ad rive. He quickly changed into an ivory suit, complete with cravat and white patent leather loafers for this role as an Italian movie star- though looking every inch like a dashing Clark Gable -twirling around to model his outfit for the critical eye of director , Francois Girard.
For the print shoot for the same commercial, he finds himself surrounded by beautiful women at a party on splendid terrazzo overlooking the ocean. Then, the following day, for the TV shoot in an elaborately recreated Italian villa, he unaccountably finds his glass empty and races a young woman - his costar, actress Shannyn Sossamon - to the bar.
“I’d do anything to get to the drinks, even outrun a helpless young woman,” George joked. “I think that pretty much sums up my character. Martini hiring me to sell their drinks is like employing an Eskimo to make snow cones. I know how to drink, and I love Martini, so it’s great that I get to make an ad for something I really do use all the time.”
Everyone on set was enormously impressed with George. He eschewed star treatment, laughing and joking with even the humblest extra and most junior crew member. During the break for lunch, he chose avocado and tomato salad, declined dessert, and when finished cleared his own dishes away.
When the music started up, to get everyone in party mood just before the cameras started rolling, it was George who led the way, clowning around with exaggerated body movements, theatrically adjusting his cravat, and polishing his empty glass on his jacket sleeve.
“What I enjoy most of all about this - apart from the free drinks,” he said between takes, “is that I get a chance to show off and not take myself seriously. Life is all about enjoying yourself whenever you can.”
Clearly, whatever the stat of his love life is at the moment, it’s a maxim he has taken to heart.
George Clooney’s new TV advert for Martini will be shown across Europe this summer.
Thanks to Lilalucy for posting these scans at CNCU Forum
You can find the behind the scene shots (cropped from this issue) in the 2008 Martini Advert section of the gallery.
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