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And thanks to Laetval for posting this (Google) translation in the CNCU Forum!

The Cary Grant of the 21st century

He is on all fronts: environmental, humanitarian, celebrities and film. However, the actor-director does not have the big head and “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” his new comedy, is the proof!

Vox : George, you are the poster of the men who stare at goats! What would you say if you were to summarize in a few words?

George : For me, the men who stare, is a comedy although it has not the usual standards. is the story of Bob Wilton, a desperate reporter who is happy meeting Lyn Cassady, a soldier with paranormal powers fighting terrorism. they go together in Iraq when they meet Bill Django, the founder of the unit that runs a prison. like that, I see that you do not bend to laugh, but I assure you it’s pretty funny.

V : by your side, there are Ewan McGregor, we see everywhere now, including defending gay’s rights alongside Jim Carrey in ‘I love philip morris “! here’s one that will start to get a sacred competition!

G : but the better and deserved it. this is an actor who looks like Brad Pitt in the way of understanding the existence and fame: it does not take the head is not watermelon, simplicity, generosity, and a extreme kindness. me if I was 15 years younger, is the type which I like.

V : you also are very generous. you just give one million dollars to victims of Haiti!

G: This is not about money but personal investment. I know plenty of actors who said in late January: “but why you’re bored with all this stuff humanitarian? make films and amuses people, that’s all we ask!” I just felt like something at that time, **** them a slap!

V: thanks to these investments for other than the United States, many people who you would see Obama succeed to the presidency?

G: This story follows me like a bullet and I do not know who invented it! I have no view on the white house, far away, just a vital need to make every effort to help my fellows. This is not an electoral calculation, just obvious.

V: In any case, as you spend freely to others, you’re fit!

G: for a 48-year-old, despite my already white beard, I think in fact take shape! I go to the gym every day and I play basketball twice a week.

V: because you feel old?

G: no, I do not feel old. but it is a little pathetic that these people get older and do not want to accept. I will never do anything to prevent it. I think we should be aware, take the idea and use it to his advantage.

V: we said all along that you had a good thousand mistresses …

G: thousand? wait, I recount in my head … Me, I count 1005! if I count my goats kentucky home! but do not write this, there are some who would be able to take it seriously and it would make more stories!

V: thousand husbands cuckolds hypothetical now!

G: Better a thousand husbands find their wives! I am unlivable in the long run!

V: So says elisabetta canalis, your girlfriend?

G: who? (laugh)

V:what? it’s already over?

G: but no, but I do not want you take me on that ground. private life should remain private. and then I’m a bit silly: as you are to me nice, I’m going to want to say a big bullshit that once it is published, will go around the planet! then help, do not push me to say anything to cover their tracks!

V: But George, some magazines are already talking marriage, babies …

G: magazines are decidedly very fast. there is little time, lent still homosexual adventures, and here now they say I’m going to be a dad very soon. honestly,
everyone say what he wants, I do not care!

V: do not deny that you have a reputation as a breaker of couples!

G: si! I deny it! Moreover, I am surprised that we did not even told that I broke the union of Tom Cruise with Katie Holmes!

V: no, but frankly, not a hidden child, born of your moult romances?

G: Knowing the propensity of Americans to take him to court anyone therefore that
there is money to be made, believe me, if so, my lawyers have gotten wind of this
type of case !

V: you have the chance to share your time between LA and Italy, where you have a splendid palace on the banks of Lake Como. spend time in Italy has made you more aware of environmental problems?

G: it’s been 15 years that we should elect a president who vows to eliminate any
motor vehicle combustion. we would need more oil and frankly, this is also a way to fight terrorism. I always thought there was a way to run cars otherwise. However,
for airplanes … as there are big problems loads of batteries, I think I’d rather not be the first to try the electric plane!

V: do you drive a hybrid car?

G: I have one and two hybrid electric cars (he stops talking for a moment). I dream
or hear a baby crying next door? I tried to keep secret, but now you know
everything, my son Enzo! (laugh)

V: what about your humanitarian work in Africa?

G: recent weeks have mostly been spent for me to haiti. I created with the help of
Brad (Pitt), Matt (Damon) and Don (Cheadle), the association Not on our Watch, and we collected $ 4 million for the World Food Program. that governments in the rich world do not we do with our small means.

V: celebrity helps solve problems in the world?

G: when you’re famous, your job is to go where the cameras and journalists can not or will not go and reveal what is happening. do not be naive: you can not really
change the situation with just one star status but you can suggest some ideas and
hope to bring some solutions

V: you are not only sexy, you also have the image of a powerful man …

G:power is so fleeting that it does not mean much. I never thought of achieving such success. I have always aimed high, but I never thought I’d finish. but I am well aware of how lucky I am. and that’s why we will not mind if I take advantage of the maximum, and as long as possible!

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In The Men Who Stare at Goats, which opened yesterday, there is a scene where a disturbed soldier runs amok in Fort Bragg, firing at troops during their morning exercises. The all-too-plain parallels with the tragedy that occurred at Fort Hood two days ago, when Major Nadil Malik Hasan opened fire on the base, killing 13, were cause for cringing and collar-tugging. While watching the movie—which starts off great thanks largely to an inspired performance by George Clooney as a benevolently deranged psychic spy but which had, by that point, begun to unravel—I wondered whether Overture films should omit the scene from future prints.

The sequence is a self-contained clip in a montage; the movie wouldn’t be diminished by its excision. Though the film deals with psychic powers, it’s fair to assume screenwriter Peter Straughan had no premonition of the Fort Hood shootings, and therefore no intention of evoking it in the scene. But now the associations are inevitable, and they’re not only distracting but detractive to the movie. When Michael Jackson died, Universal cut a scene from Brüno in which Sacha Baron Cohen rifles through Latoya Jackson’s Blackberry to find Michael’s number. It was the right move to cut it, not because it would have been tasteless—that’s never stopped Cohen—but because the joke would have fallen flat. But then, Michael died two weeks before Brüno’s release, so there was time to swap the prints before distributing them. Logistically, it would be much more difficult to alter The Men Who Stare at Goats now that the film is already in theaters.

And then there is the question of whether a work of art should be changed because of outside circumstances. There are other grave issues that the film handles with a cheeky tone, most prominently the war in Iraq, black-ops, and psychological torture. Just because the scene accidentally evokes an additional unfortunate occurrence doesn’t necessarily mean it should be omitted.

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It all started with an unlikely pairing of two unknowns. Back in the ’80s, a couple of struggling actors named Grant Heslov and George Clooney were in Milton Katselas’ famed acting class. Clooney asked Heslov, then a student at USC, if he wanted to do a scene from Neil Simon’s Depression-era play ” Brighton Beach Memoirs.” Heslov agreed, playing the younger nerdy Eugene to Clooney’s older sibling Stanley. Their chemistry worked, and shortly after, when Clooney was invited to audition for ABC, he brought Heslov along to repeat the scene.

“George ended up getting a talent deal out of it, and of course, I got nothing,” Heslov says with a chuckle. “But that was the beginning of our friendship.”

It’s a friendship built on mutual respect, admiration and trust, one that has spanned more than two decades and pre-dates any of the success that both men would come to enjoy. It was Heslov who lent Clooney $100 to get his first head shots, and he’s been there for the entire ride, watching his pal go from workaday actor to A-list superstar.

These days, Heslov, a lean soft-spoken former character actor, is still sharing the stage with Clooney. The two are partners in a production company called Smokehouse. Heslov received Oscar nominations for co-writing and producing Clooney’s directorial effort, “Good Night, and Good Luck” and has now stepped into the director’s chair himself with “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” which stars Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, and . . . Clooney.

The film is inspired by the so-called “true-life” experiences of a motley band of soldiers who were trained by the Army to become “psychic spies,” able to use paranormal powers to theoretically walk through walls, “view” enemy installations from the safety of their own Army bases hundreds of miles away, and even stop the heart of one’s foe, merely by sending him bad mojo via a menacing gaze (it was practiced on goats, hence the movie’s unusual title).

McGregor plays a hapless journalist who joins Clooney’s Lyn Cassady, a self-professed former “Jedi Warrior” (and an amalgamation of several real people) on a “secret” mission in Iraq to rescue his mentor, the founder of the New Earth Army.

Peter Straughan’s script, based on journalist Jon Ronson’s nonfiction book, first landed on Heslov’s desk, initially as a submission for Clooney to direct. While Clooney ultimately passed because “Goats” seemed too similar in tone and theme to his directorial debut, 2002’s “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” Heslov was intrigued.

Back in the ’90s, during bouts of insomnia, he’d while away the night hours listening to Art Bell’s radio show about the paranormal.

“He had on any kind of kook, from aliens to people in the government,” says Heslov, noting that psychic spies were a staple. “What I loved about the show was he was respectful of everybody. He took everybody at face value.”

Heslov’s film is a straight-forward account of a rather loony, albeit weirdly touching crew of believers. It’s a satire of the U.S. government military policies, but somehow doesn’t flay the faithful for their nuttiness, or their search for a more enlightened form of warfare. “The idea was coming out of Vietnam, our spirit and soul were crushed in the military. We needed a way to approach warfare differently and rehabilitate our own troops.”

The movie has received mixed reviews, but Heslov had a singular vision for what he wanted to accomplish during his recent stint behind the camera.

“I had no question in my mind that he knew what he wanted,” says Clooney, pointing out that Heslov directed five episodes of the HBO series “Unscripted,” which they produced. “The question was how he handled it with a $20-million film. There was a lot of pressure on him. There was never a day that was easy.”

On Clooney’s recent film ” Leatherheads,” Heslov produced and served as Clooney’s sounding board when the actor directed.

On “Goats,” it was Clooney who produced: “I’m there as emotional support,” says the actor, noting that actors and crews often resist the directions of a neophyte director. “You need a friend and partner like me to say ‘I think it’s great. Let’s do it.’ You need to have a good backstop. I’m a good backstop.”

Their shorthand with each other comes from years of shared moments. Back in the ’90s, and Clooney and a bunch of pals would drive around the states in a motor home during the summer and play golf. Right after Clooney shot the pilot for “ER,” the show that would make him a small-screen star, they were driving to Texas, taking breaks here and there to hit golf balls, when they stopped at a roadside cafe to call their message machines. Clooney found out that “ER” was being slotted to 10 p.m on Thursdays, the primo network slot.

“We got back into the car, and he said, ‘I think my life is going to change,’ ” Heslov remembers. “He had an epiphany moment.”

Heslov’s rise in Hollywood has been less meteoric. Raised in Palos Verdes, a Jewish son of a dentist, he always wanted to act, and for years made a living as a character actor, playing Dwayne Johnson’s sidekick in “The Scorpion King,” Arnold Schwarzenegger’s computer geek pal in “True Lies” and a paparazzo in “The Birdcage.”

At one point, he had his own epiphany, while at an audition at Warner Bros. He sat in the waiting room with four older guys who were all auditioning for one three-line role for a forgettable TV show. “These were the guys who were on ‘All in the Family’, and ‘Maude’ and ‘ MASH’, and I thought I don’t want to be that guy. I didn’t want to be 50 or 60 and auditioning for a three-line role.”

“It’s the lack of control over your own destiny” that motivated him, Heslov says. “That’s when I started to focus on the other side.” He ultimately made a short film, “Waiting for Woody,” a kind of actor’s anxiety dream about auditioning for Woody Allen, inspired by his own experience. It caught the attention of agents, but Heslov admits he wasn’t sure about how to proceed with his career.

“Grant’s issue was he was much more interested in the bigger field, and more security,” Clooney recalls. Heslov’s family was also growing — he now had two little girls.

Clooney invited him to work in the TV department at Section 8, the company Clooney then shared with the director Steven Soderbergh.

“He and Steven and I then spent about 14-15 weeks in Washington shooting [HBO's] ‘K Street.’ It was so exhilarating, and Steven really got the sense that Grant was more than me hiring my friend. Then Grant just became the go-to guy at the company.”

When Soderbergh decided he no longer wanted a production company, Heslov and Clooney became partners. They recently moved their deal from Warner Bros. to Sony, which Grant admits is “bittersweet,” as they both spent many years on the WB lot. So far, their aesthetic has tended to more sophisticated, less tent pole-style films such as “Goats,” or the Focus Films thriller “The American,” starring Clooney as an international assassin, now shooting in Italy.

“We’re definitely attracted to stories that are based on truth, though they’re varying degrees of truth,” says Heslov.

They’re not averse to big-budget extravaganzas, though Clooney has been publicly leery of unabashed popcorn pictures ever since his unfortunate stint as the nippled Batman in 1997’s “Batman & Robin.” “Oddly enough, they’re more difficult to do,” says Heslov, of the event films. We do want to do one, but it’s got to be somehow elevated or different from what you’ve seen before.”

Thanks Alma for the Source find!

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I’d like to know when you first encountered Jon Ronson’s book or did you ever catch the original ‘Crazy Rulers of the World’?
‘There was a script that I read first, and then once I’d read the script and wanted to pursue it as a film. Then I read the book, and then I saw the documentary, so that’s sorta how it happened.’

Did you have any personal interest in the subjects that Jon Ronson covered in the book?
‘You know, I did. I had a real interest in the idea of remote viewing. Also, there was this guy named Art Bell who did a radio show in the States about the paranormal. I listened to him for years. His show is from midnight until five in the morning so I used to have the radio on all night long. I was a bit of an insomniac. He literally did a show in a little trailer in the middle of the Nevada Desert and he always had these wacky characters on. And what I loved about him was that he always treated these ostensibly crazy people with total respect and he didn’t make fun of them. There was actually a scene in the movie that I cut where Ewan McGregor’s character listened to the same radio show.’

Were you actually interested in becoming a remote viewer?
‘Yeah, yeah. I looked it up on the Internet, but I never actually went through with it. I was fascinated by that world and then, y’know, five, ten years later, I came across a screenplay and I loved it. The tone was just right. I thought it was funny and had some really cool things to say. I was genuinely interested in that world.’

As a fan of Art Bell, do you think there would have been a film to be made about that story?
‘He’s written a lot of books, and he’s done a lot of weird stuff…but probably not.’

I wonder if, prior to making the film, you tried to meet the people that Jon met in the book?
‘I met Jim Channing who’s the character Jeff Bridges plays. And I spoke to him at length.’

In terms of casting, were you able to put faces to names quite quickly?
‘Yeah, it was pretty quick. I mean, George Clooney – that was easy. And then we talked about the Ewan character and, y’know, his name came up early and we both thought that was a great idea.’

Obviously you’re long time friends with George Clooney. I wondered if there any collaboration there in the direction, or in this instance was he kind of hands-off?
‘He’s very hands-off, yeah, he shows up…“What do you want me to do? Where do you want me?”’

No power games?
‘No, no power games. He was a producer on the film so we’d have discussions about creative decisions and things like that, but when it came to directing the film, no. And with Kevin Spacey it was much the same thing. No, there was none of that.’

How did you settle on the tone for the film?
‘I think the tone of the film was very close to the book in that the idea for me was that we had to play it totally straight and we could never make fun of any of these characters, we could never weaken the audience. The whole thing was a stack of cards and if you did that then it would all fall apart. That was the trickiest thing about making the film and the thing I paid most attention to. So to whatever extent that works, I think it was definitely planned that way.’

Do you think you’re a natural comedy director?
‘Yes, I would say I’m definitely more attracted to comedy. My personal comic style is fairly deadpan, it’s fairly dry and I think that’s what this was from the beginning so that’s probably why I wanted to do it because I thought it’s something I could do well. But, I like directing comedies. It’s fun.’

Have you had formal training as a director?
‘Well no. I acted for so many years and sat on a million sets and worked with a million different directors so that is to me some of the best training you can get. Particularly because I knew I wanted to direct at some point in my life so I always paid a lot of attention, talked a lot to directors, would try to get in the editing room any time I could. You work with great directors and terrible directors and so you learn: you take what you think will work for you.’

I wondered, do you plan to keep directing?
‘I hope so, yeah!’

Do you have any particular plans?
‘Nothing particular. George and I have some things we’re developing together as a company, but we don’t know exactly if any of those will be right or not. And I’m always looking for stuff.’

I noticed that one of your first acting roles in the very early days was in ‘Happy Days’. Do you have any memories about that?
‘Oh yeah! I have tremendous memories of it.’

So was it a good learning experience?
‘Well yeah, it was the very first professional acting job I’d ever got. I was friends with George at the time – we were already friends at this point – and there was a show called “Joanie Loves Chachi”, which was actually a spin-off of Happy Days with Scott Baio and Erin Moran.’

So was that happening at the same time as ‘Happy Days’?
‘Yeah, exactly the same time. And coincidentally, the week I was in it, Henry Winkler, y’know: ‘The Fonz’ , ‘Fonzy’, he was on the show, and he was just a fantastic guy and he sort of took me under his wing.

The Fonz took you under his wing?
‘Yeah! I grew up with ‘Happy Days’, and that was huge, huge part of my life. And then about six or seven months after I did ‘Joanie Love Chachi’, I actually got a role on “Happy Days” and it was the second to last ever episode of the show so it was just an interesting time to be there because everyone was just very excited and sad.’

Were you the age of Richie Cunningham or were you younger?
‘No no, I was younger. In that last “Happy Days” I played a student of Ted McGinley’s – he was the teacher. So I was 20 at the time and that was 26 years ago.’

Richie and all the guys must have been around that age as well?
‘Oh no, they were significantly older. Ron Howard’s gotta be 55, 60 now. I still know them.’

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Our favorite goat sat down with Mr. Movie, Gary Wolcott,  and talked shop.  This is what he had to say about George.

Gary Wolcott: What’s it like to work with George Clooney?

Goat: George is great. A total pro. I really respect the way he is so giving of his fellow actors. Not afraid to let us shine. And I’m sure you’d agree that I really did shine in my scene with him.

Gary Wolcott: I definitely agree. You were amazing. Cross your fingers, You may have given an Academy Award winning Best Actor in a Supporting Role performance. Did Clooney have any acting tips for you?

Goat: Just to go big or go home. But that is how I live my life so we were already on the same page.

You can read the complete interview here.

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