In the 2010 Nicole LaPorte book The Men Who Would be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks, LaPorte recounts a story about Steven Spielberg immediately seeing George Clooney’s potential for greatness on the set of ER. “If you stop moving your head around, you’ll be a movie star!” Spielberg allegedly claimed after seeing Clooney’s ER performance on a monitor.
By the end of the 1990s, Clooney was well on his way to realizing Spielberg’s dream. Nearly three decades later, Clooney still stands as a one-of-a-kind leading man. With his distinctively grave yet compelling voice, those piercing eyes, and an aura that just exudes confidence, Clooney epitomizes a “movie star”. It doesn’t hurt that he’s demonstrated incredible range. He’s inhabited everything from Coen Brothers doofuses to mournful drama protagonists like Michael Clayton to romantic leads sweeping moviegoers off their feet. With his new film Wolfs (which reunites him with Ocean’s Eleven star Brad Pitt) set to hit Apple TV+ soon, one’s mind can’t help but wander to Clooney’s past. Specifically, it’s impossible not to consider what the man’s best role is in his long line of acting credits.
“The greatest George Clooney performance is the one where he’s never ever on-screen.”
Even with so many impressive turns under his belt, there’s really no contest. The greatest George Clooney performance is the one where he’s never ever on-screen. Thank goodness, too, given how difficult he is on the eyes. How on earth could anyone stand looking at Clooney for too long?? Luckily, this actor found a role that solved that problem back in 2009. I’m talking, of course, about his lead turn as Mr. Fox in Fantastic Mr. Fox.
After Robin Williams in Aladdin, celebrity voice-over work in animated children’s movies has become an irritating fixture of American cinema. Whether it’s Drake in Ice Age: Continental Drift, Michael Madsen in Arctic Dogs, or James Corden in countless animated features, stars are trotted out for voice work to ensure they can promote these titles on late-night shows. Whether or not they fit their characters, let alone the quality of their voice-over work, is immaterial. Leave it to Wes Anderson and his gift for assembling such precisely orchestrated casts to subvert this phenomenon.
Fantastic Mr. Fox was Anderson’s first stop-motion animated feature. However, it saw him reuniting with several acting fixtures of his filmography. Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and others all returned from earlier Anderson exploits. Clooney was a newcomer to both the Anderson troupe and voice acting in general. Save for a cameo in 1999’s South Park: Bigger, Long, and Uncut, he’d never provided simply his vocals to a feature film character. You’d never realize those facts absorbing his Mr. Fox performance, though. Clooney embraces Anderson’s style of comedy and voice acting as if he’s inhabited them all his life.
