Hollywood star George Clooney once turned down an offer of $35 million (approximately Rs 280 crore, by current exchange rates) for a day’s work, promoting an airline brand. When the Gravity actor was asked about the same by Bollywood star Anil Kapoor at a recent media event, Clooney said that his reputation was more important than the money.
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He said that people give a lot of money to whitewash things and he didn’t want to associate himself with brands and campaigns that he knew to be morally dubious. He said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2022, “Yeah, you know what, I had a conversation about it and the main conversation was if you’re gonna (going to) be paid… there is a reason why people want to pay a lot of money and usually it is to sort of whitewash. There were some amazing people, who were put in jail for saying something about women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. And these guys were taking money from these same people and, taking hundreds of millions of dollars to whitewash it. And I find that to be hard to do,”
Clooney said that he had a conversation with his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, about taking the job and giving the money to charity, but they decided against it. “And I find that when your employer is the person, who is also ruining the civil and human rights of the people, I find it hard to take that money, using my reputation to try and clean their own. I feel like my reputation is worth better than that,” he added.
Earlier, talking about the same subject with the Guardian, Clooney had said, “I was offered $35 million for one day’s work for an airline commercial, but I talked to Amal about it and we decided it’s not worth it. It was with a country that, although it’s an ally, is questionable at times, and so I thought: ‘Well, if it takes a minute’s sleep away from me, it’s not worth it’.”
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The 61-year-old actor was last seen in the romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise, which was a commercial success despite receiving middling reviews. He is currently working on his directorial venture The Boys in the Boat, which is based on the non-fiction of the same name. Actors Callum Turner and Joel Edgerton are part of the upcoming project.
