George Clooney Says He's 'Embarrassed' When Amal Shows Him Her Red Carpet Looks (Exclusive)

The director and producer of 'The Boys in the Boat' speaks with ET at the premiere of his new historical film.

George Clooney Says He's 'Embarrassed' When Amal Shows Him Her Red Carpet Looks (Exclusive)

Published:

4:51 AM PST, December 12, 2023

George Clooney is used to playing second fiddle to his dazzling wife, Amal Clooney. On Monday night, the 62-year-old Oscar winner spoke with ET's Nischelle Turner at the Los Angeles premiere of his new film, The Boys in the Boat, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, where the topic of his glamorous wife came up.

Amal walked the red carpet with George, wearing a neon yellow gown and a big smile. 

"She cleans up," the film's director and producer tells ET of his attorney wife. "I'm always embarrassed because I'm wearing something that I've worn, like, 1,000 times."

The proud husband jokes that he feels "slighted" by the attention Amal, a  human rights lawyer, receives. 

"My entire career has been reduced to a plus-one now," he quips. "I did one of those Women in Film things a couple years ago, and I had to introduce myself as 'Amal Clooney's husband' because, honestly, I was dead otherwise."

Kayla Oaddams/FilmMagic

As for whether Amal had any say in his new film, George cracks jokes about her involvement. 

"I didn't want to say it, but now that you brought it up, she directed the film," he teases. "The flair, the British flair."

The couple are parents to 6-year-old twins, Alexander and Ella, whom he says visited him on the set of the movie, which follows the 1936 Olympic rowing team.

"Yeah, the kids came to visit. They think that all I do is play in the water," George says, laughing. "I did a movie a couple years ago called The Midnight Sky, and I had to shoot stuff in a tank and they came to visit and I'm in clothes, but I'm in a tank. So whenever I go to work, they think I'm swimming." 

And while George is tackling serious dramas in his recent directorial role, he's also taking the time to have a little fun. This year he briefly returned to play Batman in a cameo in The Flash movie alongside Ezra Miller. 

Warner Bros. Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

"There was such a clamor for me to come back as Batman, as you know," George jokes. "They were like, 'Can we do it without the rubber nipples?' I was like, 'Well, it's not really my Batman, is it?'"

As for whether fans can expect a more sustained return to him playing Bruce Wayne, George says, "I don't think there's enough drugs in the world for me to go back to Batman… It was fun to do because, you know, it was a bit. It was supposed to be funny."

The Boys in the Boat is in theaters on Dec. 25, Christmas Day.  

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