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My
friend George
 George
Clooney and Noah Wyle are close friends, bloodstained comrades
from the emergency room and
multimillionaire actors. They are also fiercely competitive
basketball jocks who have battled each other on the court since they met
on NBC's top-rated series ER in 1994.
Today, at Clooney's Studio
City, California, home they're at it again. First, Clooney, 39, a
varsity center in high school (for a team, he claims, that once went
1-25), takes Wyle, 29, five games to zip. Afterward, Wyle challenges
his friend to play on his home court, a two-hour drive away in Santa Ynez.
Clooney, who stars in O Brother Where Art Thou?, the latest dark comedy
from the Oscar-winning Coen brothers (Fargo), heads for his BMW, and they
make the drive north to Wyle's house, where Clooney beats him six straight.
Is he that good? "He's sneaky," Wyle says, "As soon
as I stepped out to guard him, he went around me. He's quicker.
In high school they used to say about me, 'Noah he's tall, but he's slow.'
I scored and sometimes I was ahead. But there always comes a time
while playing George Clooney when you think you got him and he comes back.
The saving grace is that I'm a much better pool player."
During the drive from one
court to the other, Wyle turned on the tape recorder and conducted this
interview:
Wyle:
I think sports reveals a side of a person that doesn't come out in
conversation. What does the way you play say about you?
Clooney:
I'm much more mature than I used to be. I used to be a real yeller.
I was really an ugly competitor. I would break my clubs on the golf
course, and I would always crack my tennis racket in tournaments, and I
would kick the basketball over the fence when I lost. I was a really
bad sport because I was really competitive. But in the last 10 years,
I've gotten much more Zen about it.
Wyle:
Win or Lose, you're still rich.
Clooney:
Either way, I'm still loaded.
[They Laugh]
[Early in the journey, a
Plymouth Prowler with slick chrome wheels pulls alongside them on the
freeway. They notice the driver has his hat on backward and a stud
in his ear.]
Wyle:
That guy is cool
Clooney:
He is so cool. And it says BAD CAT on his license plate.
Wyle:
BAD CAT.
Clooney:
Do you want to race him for a pink slip?
Wyle:
Yeah, let's drag him. Have you ever drag-raced?
Clooney:
Sure. I've done all the dumbass things like that. Were you that way?
Wyle:
I never could take anybody in my sky-blue Dodge Shadow. Which was
the car I employed until I got ER.
Clooney:
Remember when we came back from Europe after the show got picked up?
We all went to Europe on our famous world tour. Then we came back,
went to work and you had to borrow money to pay your rent . . .
Wyle:
True. Author's note: George Clooney subsidized my first four months
of the first season of ER, because I had blown all the money I made on the
pilot in Europe when Eriq LaSalle invited me to go, and I in turn invited
George to go to Spain, England and - that is where we went, right?
Clooney:
Yeah, Spain and England. You were so poor. Then you got the
money you made on the pilot, and we had no idea. We knew the show
was going to be picked up, but we had no idea if it would go or not.
All we really knew is we had 13 paychecks, which weren't really that much
at the time. We were literally living by "Well, I hope the show
goes; I hope it hits."
Wyle:
Neither one of us gets very nostalgic talking about the show, but we both
agree that it will take about 10 years before we can actually have some
perspective and realize what an accomplishment this show has been.
Clooney:
The show is sort of magical in the way it survived, and it certainly
launched a lot of careers. The show's numbers are as high as ever.
But there was an amazing, magical thing that I don't understand about the
six of us those first couple of seasons.
Wyle:
Julianna Margulies, Sherry Stringfield, Eriq LaSalle, Anthony Edwards.....
Clooney:
And you and me. We went through instantaneous fame together. I
remember walking in New York on Thanksgiving. The show had started
in September, so it wasn't that much longer, and people were going "Hey,
George." I mean, they knew my name, and that was the first time - I
remember looking at my buddy Benny and going "Wow, I just got famous."
And it was, you know, exciting and scary and all of those kinds of things
at the same time. It was like overnight success, even though there
were 15 years of bad television in between.
Wyle:
Hey, I've got to take a wicked piss, if you see a spot to pull over.
Clooney:
All right.
Wyle:
That's my Mark Wahlberg impression: "I've got to take a wicked piss."
Clooney:
Wicked.
Wyle:
Anyway, enough about ER. I guess we should start talking about your
movies.
 Clooney:
Oh, yeah. OK, Let's talk about . . .
Wyle:
From Dusk Till Dawn. You and Quentin Tarantino pulled off brothers.
Clooney:
[Laughing] Yeah. Quentin - Quentin and I are brothers. In fact,
a lot of people still think we are brothers.
Wyle:
Seth Gecko, that character you played - I remember you telling me that you
had designed this interesting look for this character.
Clooney:
It ended up becoming, like, a fad.
Wyle:
A fad. A fashion statement.
Clooney:
I just wanted him to look like a guy who never had his hair cut. So
I took a razor blade, and I cut off all my hair into, like, this Caesar
haircut. I did it myself, with a razor blade, and I cut it into this
look. But because I was also doing this popular series at the time,
the haircut ended up becoming something that I would get known for.
Wyle:
It did it for Jennifer Aniston that year.
Clooney:
We were haircuts. That's all we were. Which is sort of fair in
many ways about me. But not about Jennifer.
[They pull over at a
restaurant, and Wyle goes inside]
Clooney:
OK, Noah is in the bathroom, so I thought I would give you a few things
right now. First of all, he's not wearing anything from the waist
down. Secondly, he's wearing a headband - sort of like in Staying
Alive, like John Travolta. I don't know what he's really - I don't
know what he's trying to do, but it's a whole new look for him, and he
only does it, you know, at home. He doesn't do it on the show, but
I'm a little worried about him. I just thought you should know. OK.
[Wyle returns, and
Clooney pulls onto the freeway again.]
Wyle:
I want to ask about an interesting theme in your life - you and friendship.
You've had the same friends around you for years.
Clooney:
I moved out here when I was 20, and I'm about 40. If you don't have
family out here, you have to sort of create that family, and, you know,
it's much more fun when everybody there takes the ride with you.
There's this sort of core group of guys, and it got to the point where we
decided that we had been friends long enough that we didn't want to be
those ones who said "Oh, yeah, whatever happened to...?"
We take trips together, and we all call each other constantly, and it's
become a great support group for all of us.
Wyle:
Is it an unspoken thing that friendships come before relationships?
Clooney:
I don't know that they come before relationships. These guys
aren't this big misogynistic he-man woman-haters club, you know.
People think my house is this Playboy Mansion. However, in reality,
it is filled with kids and friends - none of the things that I think
people sort of assume that my life is. A guy will get into a
relationship, and we'll lose him for a couple of months, you know, which
is what always happens, and then we go, "OK, he'll be back."
Wyle:
Of all the places that stardom made you give up as part of your routine,
what do you miss the most?
Clooney:
Nobody wants to feel sorry for you, so I'm not whining about it or
anything. But what I truly miss is going to a ballgame. I
think about that one a lot.
Wyle:
Do you remember the first year we went to the Emmys all together?
Clooney:
Yeah. We took the bus. The fun part was that all six of us got
nominated those first two years.
Wyle:
That's right.
Clooney:
Then the third year comes up and I had done Batman and Robin, right,
so everything was sort of going against me now because I was a sellout.
The truth is, I had had one of my best years on the show, but it didn't
matter. Fair enough. The nominations come out. And
around nine in the morning, my publicist calls and say's I didn't get
nominated. And I said, "Oh well." And then I said,
"Who else didn't get nominated?" He goes, "Well . . ."
And I said, "What?" And he goes, "Well everyone else got
nominated." So everybody else on the show was nominated except
me. Then I got to work, and everybody was on the set for a big
trauma scene. I got there a little late, and everybody had been in
there rehearsing, and you guys were all excited again about the Emmy
nominations. Then I came in and it got totally silent. We
start rehearsing. I don't say anything. Then I go "Oh,
hey, the Emmys were this morning. What happened?" There was
silence. Again I said, "What? What happened? Who got nominated?"
And I just let it soak for like 10 minutes, and I finally went, "F---
you guys!" And everybody starts laughing so hard.
[They get cut off by
another car]
Wyle:
Look at that. B----.
Clooney:
No Wonder.
Wyle:
It's an old woman.
Clooney:
Actually, we could take her.
Wyle:
Oh, brother. Hey, speaking of O Brother, Where Art Thou? - your new movie
- you did something I thought was kind of cool for your character.
You called up your Uncle George and had him. . .
Clooney:
My Uncle Jack, yeah, my mother's brother. Are we going right or left?
Wyle:
Make a little right, and make a left by the McDonald's.
Clooney:
All right. Right here and then a quick left.
Wyle:
You've got to park. This McDonald's, oddly enough, is where the Egg
McMuffin debuted in 1972.
Clooney:
How do you know this?
Wyle:
There's a plaque on the wall.
[Clooney parks and Wyle
goes in to use the bathroom]
Clooney:
OK, he's peeing. Now, does it worry you that we've been driving for,
I don't know, an hour and a half, and
he's had to stop twice? What does that tell you? It tells me
that's a hidden drug problem. That's right. Noah Wyle stopping
to pee. I don't think so. Stopping to go to the bathroom in a
McDonald's, I don't know. I question it. I'm not going to say
it's a problem, because I don't know if it's a problem, but I'm just
questioning it.
[After a few minutes,
Wyle returns and they get back on the road]
Wyle:
I believe before I went to the restroom we were talking about your
character preparation for O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Clooney:
My Uncle Jack has a tobacco farm in a tiny Kentucky town, near where my
mom grew up. He's a pretty heavy-duty Kentucky boy, I called
him up and told him that I was going to do this movie that takes place in
the South. It had been a while since I'd been in Kentucky and heard
the accent. So I sent my uncle the script and said, "I want you
to just read the script into the tape recorder, the whole script.
And then I'm going to use that. I'll get you a credit and pay you
some money." And now, at the end of the movie, there's a
special thanks to Jack Warren.
Wyle:
You always give yourself a hard time about Batman and Robin, but that
opened a s--- load of doors.
Clooney:
Yeah, it was the biggest break in my career. But it was also easily
the worst film I've done and probably the worst I've been in. But I
couldn't have gotten Out of Sight made if I hadn't done Batman and Robin.
Wyle:
Is Out of Sight your favorite?
Clooney:
Yeah. I love that. I love Three Kings, and I love this movie,
O Brother. They're good movies.
Wyle:
The other night I saw a documentary on Robert Redford. The point was
that his popularity has lasted because he, unlike other movie stars, never
lets us know everything about him.
Clooney:
Redford really is the last of your movie stars. Spencer Tracy was a
movie star. Harrison Ford is a movie star. But the old-school,
old-time movie stars don't exist anymore. And it's too bad. I
love Cary Grant. Burt Reynolds was like that for a while. Burt's
mistake was he started to defend himself. But how many Paul Newman's
are there, really, in the world who are that popular that long?
Wyle:
I remember you said something to me once - you don't want to get famous
before you learn how to act.
Clooney:
I was watching me on The Facts of Life the other day. It was on
Nickelodeon or one of those [networks], and I couldn't believe it.
It was the worst combination of over confidence and bad acting you've ever
seen in your life.
Wyle:
The double whammy
Clooney:
I just sat there going "Oh, my God, how did I survive this?"
You know, I was always sort of on the periphery of getting one of those
Brat Pack jobs. And if one of those had happened I probably wouldn't
be here now, because I would have had a brief moment in the sun where I
would have shown everyone how incredibly bad I was.
[Finally they arrive at
Wyle's home - at least the start of the drive leading up to the house]
Wyle:
Make a right. You get
to see more of my land if you make a right.
Clooney:
Is this your land here?
Wyle:
Yes, that is the guardhouse.
Clooney:
Yes, it's nice.
Wyle:
I know that you've said you are never going to have children.
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