Is George Clooney OK? Actor hospitalized after losing 30 pounds 'too fast' for 'The Midnight Sky' role
George Clooney was hospitalized after suffering from pancreatitis, due to which he lost 30 pounds, "too fast" for his role in his latest film, 'The Midnight Sky'. The 59-year-old actor, who also directed the new Netflix movie, revealed that he “wasn’t taking care” of himself as he dropped the weight.
While Clooney was promoting the sci-fi drama film, he confirmed that he was hospitalized just four days before he was set to join the set. The two-time Oscar winner told The Mirror: “I think I was trying too hard to lose the weight quickly and probably wasn’t taking care of myself. It took a few weeks to get better and as a director, it’s not so easy because you need energy. We were out on this glacier in Finland, which made it a lot harder work. But it certainly helped with the character.”
Clooney has not only donned the actor's hat but is also directing the film. 'The Midnight Sky' revolves around his character, Augustine, a lonely scientist in the Arctic who races to stop astronauts from returning home to a “mysterious global catastrophe.” The 'Ocean's 11' star will be joined by a stellar cast including, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo and Kyle Chandler.
Apart from losing weight, he admitted that he was forced to grow out facial hair for the film as well. “I grew a big ugly beard and my son loved it because he’d hide things in it, which I wouldn’t know about until I got to work and I’d be like, ‘Oh, there’s a popsicle stuck in my beard.' But my wife and daughter were really happy when it came off because it was very hard to find a face underneath all that mess,” he told the outlet.
'The Midnight Sky' is the seventh feature-length film directed by Clooney and will release on Netflix on December 23, 2020. Clooney has known for films like, 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' (2000), 'The Perfect Storm' (2000), and 'Ocean's Eleven' (2001) and its two sequels: 'Ocean's Twelve' (2004) and 'Ocean's Thirteen' (2007). In 2002, Clooney made his directorial debut with 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' (2002), an adaptation of TV producer Chuck Barris's autobiography.
Clooney last grabbed headlines when he pitched his own E! reality show to replace 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' with 'Keeping up with the Clooneys'. "So, I've got a new idea," he told Daily Pop co-host Morgan Stewart. "It's E!, so I think this will fit perfectly. Just pitching it right now: Keeping Up With the Clooneys." Morgan responded, saying, "Listen, we will take it any second. Any time you want to give us that, done."