VARIETY: George Clooney & Patti LuPone Discuss GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, THE ROOMMATE, and SUNSET BOULEVARD

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In the first conversation for VARIETYs first-ever Broadway edition of “Actors on Actors,” George Clooney and Patti LuPone discuss the relevance of “Good Night and Good Luck” in the Trump era and Megyn Kelly’s reaction to the play, what it was like for LuPone to see “Sunset Boulevard,” cellphones going off in the audience, the future of democracy, LuPone’s friendship with “The Roommate” costar Mia Farrow, and more. 

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Clooney and LuPone on Megyn Kelly’s reaction to “Good Night and Good Luck”:

At the end of “Good Night and Good Luck,” the audience sees a montage of the history of television that ranges from Lucille Ball, to the assassination of JFK, to Martin Luther King Jr, and then Jerry Springer.

Clooney: “We don’t tell people what to think when we show that montage at the end, for instance. You see Megyn Kelly, who’s come out and said I’m not a journalist. I didn’t say I was a journalist.”

LuPone: “Neither is she.”

Clooney: “I’ve at least been to Darfur and Sudan and the Congo and been shot at to try to get stories out. I’m not quite sure what she’s done to be a journalist. Having said that, we only show her words in this play. We don’t tell people what to think. It’s not out of context. We don’t manipulate it.

LuPone on what it was like seeing “Sunset Boulevard,” in which she starred as Norma Desmond in the 1993 London production:

“I was very interested to see ‘Sunset Blvd.,’ because I heard terrific things about it. And I like to see directors that have very strong, very unusual concepts. I didn’t know anything about Jamie Lloyd at all. I knew who Nicole Scherzinger was, but I had never seen her before. And I was thrilled to death to see this production, which was a complete departure from the original, which I was in…I liked it so much better. I wish I had been in that kind of production…It wasn’t beholden to the movie. Clearly, it’s the story, but it’s not, you know, unfolding in a Spanish villa on Sunset Boulevard, right? It’s brand-new. I mean, I had quibbles; I would love to have seen costumes. I don’t know why they went outside on the street to sing ‘Sunset Boulevard.’ But I thought the whole cast was spectacular, especially Nicole…I don’t think she knew I was there. I took my son, and he said to me, ‘Mom, people think they’ve seen a ghost.’ Because they saw me. And then some woman filmed me watching it, which was crazy. But it’s audacious. It’s heartbreaking. Nicole’s mad scene is spectacular.”

Clooney and LuPone on the relevance of “Good Night and Good Luck”:

Clooney is making his Broadway debut as Edward R. Murrow in the stage version of his 2005 film “Good Night, and Good Luck.” The play, which pits the broadcaster against Joseph McCarthy, has taken on new resonance in the Trump era.

Clooney: “I’m also passionate about it because this play is not just about 1954. It’s about these recurrences that we go through in our government. There’s this feeling that we’re part of a conversation that the audience really wants to have. You can feel everybody leaning forward. Edward R. Murrow was us at our best. He was the first guy into the death camps. He was standing on the roof during the bombings of London. And he delivered us the truth, even as he was risking his life or his career.”

LuPone: “It’s so necessary in these times to hear that elegance, to hear that articulation of an idea and a noble delivery of it. Because where are we? We’re only getting stupider.”

LuPone on what she does when cellphones go off in the audience: “I’ve got eagle eyes, because I’m playing to an audience, therefore I look at audiences. If you see a cellphone, you go to your stage manager. The stage manager calls the house manager. The house man- ager sends an usher down. And audiences don’t know how many times that occurs before actors actually stop a show. We were doing ‘Shows for Days’ at Lincoln Center, and there was a woman who was texting from the very first minute of the show, and everybody could see her. We all came offstage: ‘Do you see that woman texting?’ ‘She won’t be there for the second act.’ Sure enough, she never left her seat; she was still texting. And at some point I make an exit, and in this part of the play, I would shake the first row’s hands. So I skipped them, went up to her, she put the phone down. I put my right hand on her shoulder and my left hand in her lap and palmed her phone, and the audience saw it. Some of them gasped; some of them applauded. I gave it to the assistant stage manager who gave it to the house manager. What I should have done is held onto it and said, ‘If you want that phone, you need to come down and talk to me.’”

Clooney on the backlash he faced when he wrote the film: “When I wrote the film 20 years ago, I was being called a traitor to my country. They were picketing my movies. I remember calling my dad and saying, ‘I think I’m in a little trouble.’ And he’s like, ‘Do you have money?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ And he goes, ‘Shut up. Because you can’t demand freedom of speech and then say, “Don’t say bad things about me.” If you’re going to stick your neck out and say something, be prepared and take it.’”

Clooney on his hope for the future of democracy: “I’m an optimist…We’ve been in much worse places. The only thing that’s different is the source of information and how much and how many different sources. It’s the only thing that’s different. But it’s not nearly as vio- lent, even though it feels violent. It’s not nearly as hopeless as it was at that moment in time. And we’ve done this before. From President Jackson to McCarthy to this, the authoritarian, the demagogue, it goes away when they go away. And he will go away. They don’t have anybody that’s as charis- matic as him. He’s charismatic. There’s no taking that away from him. He’s a television star. But eventually we’ll find our better angels. We have every other time…If you’re a Democrat, we have to find some people to represent us better, who have a sense of humor and who have a sense of purpose. I think we’ll get the House back in a year and a half, and I think that’ll be a check and balance on power.”

LuPone on working with Mia Farrow in “The Roommate”: “We were friends up in Connecticut. And we are now much deeper friends because we went through this experience together. We had a blast backstage though. I always look at the audience before I play to them. I want to see who I have to convince. I look out because I’m going to find the guy that hates me. And Mia started looking out backstage with me, and we would say a little prayer, we would hug each other and we would just say, ‘Let’s go have fun.’”

[Photo Credit: Emilio Madrid for Variety]

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