George Clooney Mortgaged His Home to Make 'Good Night, and Good Luck'

George Clooney says he mortgaged his own house to get "Good Night, and Good Luck" made, revealing at a recent Venice masterclass that the 2005 journalism drama almost didn't happen without him personally bankrolling it. The film, which Clooney co-wrote, directed and starred in, went on to earn six Academy Award nominations.

A House on the Line for a Passion Project

"I had to mortgage my house to make it, and the first place we screened it was in Venice," Clooney recalled at the festival, adding that the film was shot in just 22 days with a cast he described as fully committed to the project.

Clooney has said he made the movie partly in response to being labeled unpatriotic for opposing the Iraq War, drawing a parallel between that backlash and the McCarthy-era fear of speaking out that the film itself portrays.

Working for a Dollar a Job

On top of mortgaging his home, Clooney paid himself just $1 each for acting in, writing and directing the film, a total of $3 for three jobs, which helped keep the movie's roughly $7.5 million budget manageable, a breakdown of the deal shows. "I wrote because I was mad because I was being called a traitor to my country because I said we should ask questions before we send people to war," Clooney has said of his motivation for the project.

A Story Rooted in His Father's Career

Clooney has traced his connection to the material back to his father, Nick Clooney, a longtime television journalist who would recite Edward R. Murrow's famous speech on the responsibilities of broadcasting to his son as a kid. "I grew up in a household where my father was a newsman, so I have a deep respect for the role of journalism in society," Clooney has said.

Two decades after the film's release, Clooney brought the story to Broadway, stepping into the role of Murrow himself for the stage adaptation, after playing news producer Fred Friendly in the original film. The Broadway production, co-written by Clooney and longtime collaborator Grant Heslov and directed by Tony winner David Cromer, opened at the Winter Garden Theatre and marked Clooney's stage debut, more than 20 years after he first told the story on film.

Still Talking About It Two Decades Later

Clooney's remarks came during a masterclass appearance at the Venice Film Festival, where he also discussed his career and activism more broadly and offered an aspiring filmmaker in attendance a job. It's the same festival where "Good Night, and Good Luck" first screened two decades ago, giving Clooney's return there an especially personal note. The film remains one of the more personal entries in his directing career, and Clooney has continued to point to it as an example of the lengths he was willing to go to keep creative control over a project he believed in.

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