George Clooney is reflecting on his career and revealed that he doesn’t want to work with David O. Russell again.
In a joint interview with Brad Pitt, the pair discussed “time allotment” and deciding who they want to spend time with while working.
“The older you get, time allotment is very different,” Clooney told GQ. “Five months out of your life is a lot.”
Russell is not someone Clooney would like to spend five months of his life filming with.
“And so it’s not just like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go do a really good film, like Three Kings, and I’m going to have a miserable f*** like David O Russell making my life hell. Making every person in the crew’s life hell,’” Clooney added. “It’s not worth it. Not at this point in my life. Just to have a good product.”
Three Kings is a 1999 comedy war film written and directed by O. Russell. It starred George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze. The film is based on a story by John Ridley about four American soldiers on a gold heist during the 1991 uprisings in Iraq against Saddam Hussein following the First Gulf War.
Clooney has talked about his experience on the movie set and his feud with Russell. Things were heightened when the director allegedly got physical with an extra on set, with The Washington Post reporting Clooney stepped in to intervene.
In a 2005 interview with EW, Clooney said Russell was “a weirdo, and he’s hard to talk to,” adding, “but that’s what makes his writing unique and interesting.”