George Clooney Misses ‘Jay Kelly’ Press Events in Venice Due to Sinus Infection, but Co-Stars Praise His “Amazing, Raw, True Performance”
Film fans in Venice — as well as Netflix‘s entire publicity team — breathed a disappointed sigh Thursday as George Clooney was a no-show on the Lido for the first press conference to promote his buzzy new movie, Jay Kelly. The actor also cut short some media commitments the day prior — and reportedly bailed on a swanky private dinner held with his director, Noah Baumbach, and fellow castmembers — due to a bad sinus infection.
“Even movie stars get sick,” Baumbach quipped, as news of Clooney’s no-show was revealed.
A close source to the film tells The Hollywood Reporter that the team still hopes Clooney will recover enough to walk the red carpet for Jay Kelly‘s Venice world premiere, but that he is unlikely to sit through the film and not expected to travel to the upcoming Telluride Film Festival to support its next screening.
In a role as tailor-made for him as one of his characteristic, beautifully crafted Italian suits, Clooney stars in Jay Kelly as a world-famous actor facing a late-career reckoning while crisscrossing Europe with his fiercely loyal manager and best friend, played by Adam Sandler. Co-written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, the film blends sharp humor with aching self-reflection as the pair navigates a whirlwind of public tributes, old grudges and family estrangements, forcing both men to confront the choices, compromises and identities that have defined their lives.
Judging from the effusive early reception at the first press screenings in Venice, the film will instantly project Clooney and Sandler into this fall’s awards season conversation.
Although Clooney’s absence was palpably felt, Baumbach and Jay Kelly‘s other stars, including Sandler, Laura Dern and Mortimer, were nonetheless on hand in Venice to discuss the creation of the film.
Baumbach revealed that he and Mortimer indeed wrote the starring part specifically for Clooney.
“It was really important that the audience watching the movie have a relationship with the actor,” Baumbach explained. “We all watching it have a history with George, just the way the people in the movie have a history with Jay.”
Clooney carries into the role all the baggage of being George Clooney — the charisma, the public familiarity, even the critiques — and Baumbach cleverly leverages that throughout the film to enrich the character of Jay Kelly.
The director said that watching Clooney perform this part left him uncommonly emotional on set.
“The character, Jay Kelly, is running from himself for so much of the movie — deflecting and trying to hide. And what essentially I was asking of George is to reveal more and more of himself as he does that,” Baumbach explained. “I’m not one to get emotional on set, generally, watching things, but I really did on this movie.”
Dern added that she was “devastated” Clooney couldn’t be with them, but gushed over how he delivered “such a gift in his amazing, raw, true performance” in the film.
Although Jay Kelly is about one of the world’s most famous people coming to terms with the life choices he has made, Baumbach stressed the film’s universal elements: “I feel like if you make a movie about the mob, you’re always making a movie about family. If you make a movie about space, you’re always making a movie about religion. And if you make a movie about an actor, you’re making a movie about identity and performance.”
“So, it was fun to have all of the environment of the movie star and the world and around him,” he explained. “But it was always about the search for selfhood.”
Sandler said he was especially proud of the work he’s done on Jay Kelly.
“All our characters have ways, as you watch them, that they give you a moment to laugh and give you a moment to feel pain,” Sandler explained. “As an actor, when you read a script like this, you say, ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe that I’m getting this gift.’”
“I’m just very proud of this one, and I can’t wait for people to see it,” he said.
Baumbach, who worked previously with Sandler on his 2017 Netflix feature, The Meyerowitz Stories, said he wrote the character of the movie star’s doggedly loyal manager, Ron, specifically for the comedy icon to highlight his real-life decency and reputation as a family man.
“Adam really does have such grace, loyalty and generosity and heart — around the people he works with, and also his family, whom he really does make an effort to involve,” Baumbach said. “What was exciting to me about him playing Ron, was to have him play somebody that represents Adam — that generosity of spirit and love that comes from him, and that the character feels for Jay.”
The 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival runs Aug. 27-Sept. 6. Jay Kelly will launch worldwide on Netflix on Dec. 5.
