George Clooney would like Quentin Tarantino to “f–k off.”
The actor, 63, seems to have some beef with the Oscar-winning director, 61, about whether he qualifies as a movie star.
Clooney spoke about Tarantino while promoting his upcoming movie “Wolfs” alongside co-star, friend and frequent collaborator Brad Pitt, 60 in a cover story for GQ’s September Issue. When the conversation with the stars turned to the filmmaker, Clooney let a few things off his chest.
“Quentin said some shit about me recently, so I’m a little irritated by him,” the “Oceans Eleven” actor revealed.
“He did some interview where he was naming movie stars, and he was talking about you,” he said, referring to Pitt, “and somebody else.”
“And then this [interviewer] goes, ‘Well, what about George?’ [Tarantino] goes, ‘He’s not a movie star,’” Clooney continued.
“And then he literally said something like, ‘Name me a movie since the millennium.’ And I was like, ‘Since the millennium? That’s kind of my whole f–king career.’”
With more than a bit of umbrage, Clooney added, “So now I’m like, all right, dude, f–k off. I don’t mind giving him s–t. He gave me s–t.”
Perhaps backtracking, he stated, “But no, look, we’re really lucky we got to work with these great directors. Director and screenplay is what keeps you alive.”
Both Clooney and Pitt have worked with Tarantino. Clooney co-starred alongside Tarantino in the 1996 film, “From Dusk Till Dawn.”
Pitt, for his part, has starred in two Tarantino movies, “Inglourious Basterds” (2009) and “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” (2019). His performance in the latter won him an Oscar.
Referring to Tarantino’s acting in “From Dusk Till Dawn,” Pitt told GQ he was “pretty good.” Clooney hedged a bit, saying, “He was okay in it.”
“There’s a scene, I’m blanking on it. But he’s really good,” Pitt interjected.
It’s not clear at this time which of Tarantino’s interviews Clooney is referring to in his GQ profile.
In a separate GQ piece focused solely on Pitt, Tarantino did provide a comment about the actor’s work, calling him “one of the last remaining big-screen movie stars.”
In 2022, the director equated Pitt with Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Steve McQueen.
“It’s just a different breed of man,” Tarantino said. “And frankly, I don’t think you can describe exactly what that is because it’s like describing starshine. I noticed it when we were doing ‘Inglourious Basterds.’”
“When Brad was in the shot, I didn’t feel like I was looking through the viewfinder of the camera,” he added.
“I felt like I was watching a movie. Just his presence in the four walls of the frame created that impression.”
Elsewhere, Tarantino, who is in many ways a historian of Hollywood, caught flak for saying that Marvel stars aren’t movie stars.
“Part of the Marvel-ization of Hollywood is…you have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters,” the director remarked in a 2022 interview on the “2 Bears, 1 Cave” podcast.
“But they’re not movie stars. Right? Captain America is the star. Or Thor is the star. I mean, I’m not the first person to say that. I think that’s been said a zillion times…but it’s like, you know, it’s these franchise characters that become a star.”
