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Matt Lauer: George, good morning!
George Clooney: Good morning.
Matt Lauer: Welcome back.
George Clooney: Thank.
Matt Lauer: I like the fact we get to talk about movie like this because it appears to me it's a labor of love. (en, sure. ) And so often actors come through here and they're talking about their big paycheck or their, or their blockbuster. Tell me why you made this movie exactly.
George Clooney: Money. (haha. . . ) Is that , that's where it would be, there is some,big money in the,(in the black and white film) in the black and white film about something that happened 50 years ago. Em, I did. My father is an anchorman . I grew up with the idea of how great the Fourth Estate is and how important it is , especially in broadcast journalism. And this was the high point one of the, probably the High Water Marks, this and when Cronkite came back from Vietnam, were two times you could point directly to a policy change and sort of an attitude change on the country. And I thought it was a great time to talk about those things again. I don't, er, I don't think it's necessarily the same issues any more. But I think it's always a good time to talk about responsibility.
Matt Lauer: When you screened this movie I was reading that you were somewhat surprised by how few people or what percentage of the people, knew the story of McCarthy, knew who he was, knew who Edward R. Murrow was .
George Clooney: Murrow was, but most people knew of McCarthyism. They asked us who the actor played McCarthy was and(Which in the movie is him) who is Joe McCarthy . I would say fifty percent of the people didn't know who Murrow was .
Matt Lauer: You talk about so many things in this movie that, that when you are a viewer of it, you are watching it, you have to say , ok, there's got to be a message for journalists today. It seems to me as if there is a bit of a shot across the bow here. Maybe a call to arms would be a better way to describe it. That you've been somewhat disappointed with what you see on television today. And you'd like us, those of us in the media to maybe hold ourselves and our art to a better standard.
George Clooney: I don't think it's for me, it's, I am not a journalist. I'm a son of a journalist and I've grown up around it. I don't think it's for me to try and say: "Hey, straighten up!" I think that everyone(Is it about your potential, would that maybe. . ) I would argue that over the past couple, 3 years, we do this you know every thirty forty years we get a little scared you know, we get a little beat up by somebody and, or something and we start to worry if it's unpatriotic to ask tough questions. And I find that I don't know a journalist that doesn't want to ask the tough questions. It's usually the issues, my father's fights were never about. With reporters to ask tough questions, he asked tough questions of the Carter administration. He asked tough questions of the Ford administration. His job was to question power that's what the Fourth Estate does.
Matt Lauer: Murrow says at the end of the movie. And I love the speech he gets at the Salute Dinner, but part of that speech is, when talking about television and its potential and its power. This instrument can teach can illuminate and yes it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it towards those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.
Matt Lauer: Was that the real speech by the way?
George Clooney: Every word of it, yeah, we use , we are very careful with this because of the way that people can marginalize uh... things. If you get one thing wrong now, people throw the whole thing out. (whole thing is going)So we double-sourced every scene, every single scene in the film happened and that was important to us. We had the people who are still alive: Don Hewitt, Joe and Shirley Wershba , M , Those're the ones who are still around. On the set and we'd say tell us what we got wrong , tell us what we are doing wrong 'cause it was important not to get it wrong.
Matt Lauer: So the message to journalists maybe do a better job, the messages to viewers and the general public hold your journalists to higher standards?
George Clooney: Maybe , you know. I love when Morrow says, "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves". (Right) This is about saying all power must always be checked, all power, by anyone, whoever is in charge. And the best people to do that is the press.
Matt Lauer: The movie is uh obviously near and dear to you right now but your health has been in the headlines as well, you had a, I mean, a real bump-back spinal cord raging headache type situation. So how do you feel now?
George Clooney: It's all fine now.
Matt Lauer: Is it fine, completely fine?
George Clooney: Sure. Oh , yeah it's good . (Yeah?...)Yeah. It's actually pretty good. It's not so bad . It's..
Matt Lauer: You can hold you head this way rather than that.
George Clooney: It's fine. Here, turn me away. Turn me.
Matt Lauer: Yeah. You're right. yeah. Very scary?
George Clooney: It was scarier when I didn't know what it was and I thought I was having aneurism, which our family, you know.
Matt Lauer: And technically what it is now is?
George Clooney: It's a spinal leak.
Matt Lauer: I am not gonna let you go without congratulating you, because you are recently named to the very first list of uber sexuals, at what I would say you are straight , actually, which is , you know . . .
George Clooney: Uber? Is that like a German sexual ? Is that what it is?
Matt Lauer: As a ultra sexual. That is, it was you and Clinton, (right. )and Bono, (really? ) (in) good company , congratulations.
George Clooney: I didn't know that.
Matt Lauer: Yeah. You feel uber?
George Clooney: Well, I'm just, I am excited about the after party.
Matt Lauer: Yeah, beautiful lies. Good seeing you. All right, the movie is great.
George Clooney: Thank you.
Matt Lauer: Thank you so much.
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