My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman (2018) s01e02 Episode Script
George Clooney
1
[Letterman] What's it--
Like, why? Honestly, why?
Are you just doing this out of friendship?
- [Clooney] I had nothing to do.
- I know that feeling.
Here's the thing, I've had twins,
and I'll take any excuse to get out
of the house, you know.
Look at this. This is another
- It's another Airbus.
- It's an Airbus?
Do you know all your planes?
- Well, do you know all your planes?
- I don't.
My family and I were in Tokyo a year ago.
- Right.
- On a 767.
- Triple sevens. Triple seven.
- Sure.
- And--
- That's a 777.
That's right.
And I was talking to the pilot about
what an amazing machine it is,
- and the guy says, "From Tokyo--" Hi.
- I hear you want some chocolate shakes.
- Are you with the restaurant?
- I am with the restaurant.
- What's your name?
- My name is Travis.
- Travis, nice to see you.
- Hi, Travis.
Mr. Clooney.
- What is that, is that a milkshake?
- Chocolate milkshake.
- Oh, that's good.
- Take care.
I noticed you didn't dig down
to give the guy a gratuity.
[jazzy theme music plays]
A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES
[audience applauding]
Thank you.
Thank you.
Oh, no.
Please.
Thank you.
Nothing is more gratifying than a phony
standing ovation. Thank you.
By the way, did you get the free
hot buffet before you came in?
That was my idea. Thank you.
So you know-- Does everybody know
who's on the show tonight?
[audience] No.
What if I told you it was just me?
[audience laughs, cheers]
[Letterman] Oh, no.
[man in audience] Yeah!
Then you're screwed.
It's gonna be a pleasant evening.
A very pleasant evening.
And if you're ready
We're all ready? Everybody's ready.
Ladies and gentlemen, do me a favor,
please welcome my next guest,
George Clooney.
[Clooney] Hey, guys.
Hi.
- George, how are you?
- I'm good.
Thank you very much.
Where did he go?
Nice.
- Have a seat.
- I'm gonna sit down.
Hi, guys.
George, it's very nice of you to do this.
- Thank you very much.
- Well, I felt sorry for you.
[audience laughs]
- I--
- You're just sitting at home,
you got nothing to do.
Yeah. I have spent a lot of time
thinking about you.
Perhaps too much time thinking about you.
And I think it's apparent,
but if you don't mind,
I'll just go ahead and underline
what is apparent about the two of us.
We're similar. Very similar.
- Yes.
- I mean, more than
From the same geographic part
of the country.
- Indiana and Kentucky.
- Indiana and Kentucky.
- Separated by the Ohio River.
- Sure.
Kentucky owns the river
up to the shore of Indiana.
Are you aware of that?
In fact, when they call it the Ohio River,
it's actually much more
- It belongs to Kentucky.
- More than Kentucky.
- Yeah. Well, we can talk about that later.
- It's our river.
- Leave our river alone.
- Yeah.
We're both top stars of the day.
Huge.
Of a day.
And we couldn't be more handsome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like this, you know,
Soggy Bottom Boys look you got going.
- Making fun of the beard?
- No, I'm not.
- Making fun of the beard.
- You could have cleaned up a little.
You come back. You've been gone for--
I get it. You go away,
you're fishing, you want to grow
a beard. I get it.
- You're back. Clean it up a little.
- That's right.
It's the aging vagrant look.
- Is that what it is?
- Yeah.
Yeah, it's good. You got it.
Now, let me
Tell me about your childhood.
And if you don't want to tell me
about your childhood,
- I will tell you about your childhood.
- That's what I was afraid of.
I grew up--
I was born in Lexington, Kentucky.
Tobacco town, and a horse racing town.
And then my father was a broadcaster.
- He did some news, and--
- Nick Clooney.
He had the Nick Clooney Show.
We moved to Cincinnati, Ohio,
and he had his own television show,
live TV show.
And my mother was the first runner-up
in the Miss Kentucky Pageant,
and had two kids,
my sister Ada and myself,
and we spent most of our time
growing up in the Midwest. We--
I went to five different grade schools,
'cause we moved a lot.
Because of your dad's job changing?
We moved when the rent was due.
That's what my dad used to say.
We
We moved from Lexington to Cincinnati,
and then around the Cincinnati area,
and up to Columbus.
When I was aware of your father,
he was working in Dayton, Ohio.
- Is that correct?
- Or maybe Columbus.
Probably Columbus, Ohio.
'Cause you were doing the weather,
I believe.
- In Indianapolis.
- That's right.
Your father and I--
I don't know that we overlapped,
but we worked for the same corporation
for a period of time.
And your dad, as a newsman, what did--
Did that mean anything to you?
Did you like the idea
that he was a journalist,
a reporter, an anchorman?
It's a funny thing, in between
doing the news when he was younger,
and doing the news when he was older,
for about ten years there
my dad had the show,
and he had a band, and he'd sing.
Now, a guy with a talk show
would jump in here and say,
"Is that where you decided
you wanted to be a performer?"
No, I didn't ever--
I mean, always sort of--
There was this magical place at WKRC
in Cincinnati. I remember the show.
This was the actual station, it was WKRC.
And there was this room, a prop room,
that had all these costumes.
Had giant rabbit suits and robot costumes
from, probably, the '50s.
And so, I would always just go back there,
and I'd just put some--
I'd put on a rabbit suit,
and I'd go sit there,
and my dad would see me
in the rabbit suit for Easter,
and then he'd put me on the show,
and he'd interview me
as, you know, the Easter Bunny.
And then I had a leprechaun outfit,
and I would be interviewed,
but it would be a sit-down interview,
where my dad would--
I'm literally like eight,
and I've got a leprechaun outfit,
and my dad goes,
"So, St. Patrick is a big day
for you, right?"
And I'd be like, "Yeah, it's a big day.
It's a big day for me.
Got a lot of things I got to do.
Got to get the green beer--"
- It was-- That was all I did.
- You had to get the green beer.
It was basically the same interview,
only just different characters.
Yeah, but the presence of mind for a kid
to perform like that in character
and be a bit of a wise guy
is pretty good at eight.
Well, it's a funny thing.
We had a very strict household,
and I remember at a very young age
being able to say something outlandish.
This is in the old day when you had
cocktail parties all the time.
Everybody had grasshoppers
and was drinking Harvey Wallbangers
and things like that.
And I remember I could--
My dad would tell sort of a risqué joke,
and he wouldn't quite say the punch line
because it would be a little too much.
And I would, at eight, say the punch line,
and everyone would laugh,
and my dad would kick me under the table.
And I always sort of understood that
there was an advantage to being eight.
You know, that you could get away
with stuff, be it eight or 80,
that you can't get away with
anywhere in between.
There's something that I discovered
frequently in the research,
and it indicates that you were given--
And I know this is a typo or a lie.
You were given a tryout
with the Cincinnati Reds.
Now, I know this is-- What is it, a lie?
Do-- You use this to impress your wife.
Is that what it is?
She really doesn't even understand
what baseball is,
so it wouldn't work with her.
I had-- In Cincinnati, two years in a row,
the Reds tryouts came,
and they took all the guys who were good
baseball players and brought us out.
- From, like, area high schools?
- Yeah.
It was a funny thing,
when you go to an actual tryout--
And I really thought
my whole life growing up
I was gonna be
a professional baseball player.
Now honestly, were you that good?
I was a good baseball player, yeah.
And I was a re--
You're sure this wasn't--
You're sure this wasn't
- Fan Appreciation Day?
- Exactly.
No, I really thought
that was gonna be my future.
And then I remember
being sent home the first year,
and the second year I came back
and I got past the first round,
which was the arm and the speed.
And then I got to take some hits.
And I remember standing in--
The guy starts-- He's a semi-pro
baseball player, you know.
He's a minor league pitcher up there,
and he's throwing us pitches,
and he's throwing us, you know,
87-mile-an-hour fastballs or something.
You know, decent speed.
And I'm just jacking these balls.
I'm just hitting everything,
and I'm feeling like a king,
and I'm like, "I'm gonna be playing
for the goddamn Cincinnati Reds.
Look out, baby."
And I was just jacking it.
And the guy's kind of looking at me like,
"You're an idiot.
- I'm just throwing you meatballs to hit."
- It's batting practice.
And so he throws a curveball
at my head, you know.
- And the sound that it made
- Yeah.
coming towards my head,
and how embarrassingly bad
I fell backwards, like
- [grunts comically]
- [audience laughs]
And how far on the outside of the plate
the ball ended up.
And I remember--
It was a wild moment, because I remember
standing up and thinking,
"Oh, I'm never gonna be
a professional baseball player."
The curveball does make that sound.
It's menacing.
- It's scary.
- Because it shouldn't be
[both buzz]
When I was a kid,
I remember Rosemary Clooney
being a very common name
in my parents' home.
How successful was your aunt?
- She was huge.
- What was that for you?
She was huge.
- She was a worldwide star.
- Right.
She had She was on the cover
of Time m agazine.
She was a big deal.
I didn't really know her.
They were the California family,
and we lived in Kentucky.
I knew her a little bit, but she was
sort of just this iconic figure.
Did this make an impression on you?
Again, looking for a theme here.
Did this do anything to a kid?
I-- I-- You know,
I wasn't gonna be a singer,
and I didn't really
She was just famous, and I'd--
You know, I--
Because by the time
I was really aware of things,
I was into rock 'n' roll,
and she'd been a pop singer.
And she had a nervous breakdown
after Bobby Kennedy was killed
and got into drugs pretty heavily,
mostly the Dr. Feelgood kind, you know,
where they give you a lot of,
you know, whatever it is.
- Percocet.
- You don't need to tell me.
Yeah, exactly. You're doing it now.
I've never felt better.
My Aunt Rosemary came to Kentucky.
She was doing a show called "4 Girls 4"
with Helen O'Connell and Margaret Whiting
and Martha Raye, and all these
They called themselves--
So don't bust me for it.
"These old broads,"
they would call themselves,
and they would sing and fill up
auditoriums. Huge ones.
And Rosemary asked me to drive her.
And I was literally working
in tobacco fields for $3.33 an hour.
And I thought,
"Yeah, I'll be their driver."
I got an education from these women.
Like-- Like, you know. I
They would get-- They'd fill glasses up
with vodka, Smirnoff,
like this, just before like-- The overture
is playing, and they're, you know,
"Ladies and gentlemen, live from Harrah's
in Las Ve--" You know, "Helen O'Connell."
And she'd go bam,
and I'd hand her a glass of Smirnoff
And then
Tangerine does a lady proud ♪
You're like, "Wow."
But then-- And then, you know,
driving them home to their hotels
I remember Martha Raye,
who some of you guys may know, and--
She-- She would just keep
her sequins dress on,
wouldn't even change in the dressing room.
Literally, I was driving,
and she and Rosemary were in the back,
and she's like,
"Pull over, I got to take a whiz."
And you're like, "Really?"
And she's like one leg out of the car,
you know.
And my Aunt Rosemary's like,
"Don't turn around. You'll learn too much
about the aging process, George."
God.
Wow.
- One leg out the car.
- One leg. And
And then I ended up
My cousin, Miguel Ferrer, who just died
of throat cancer recently
He was a wonderful actor,
and he and his father,
- who was an actor named Jose Ferrer
- Yes.
they came to Kentucky to do a movie.
And It was a horse racing movie.
And I'd never met Jose,
and I knew Miguel only a little bit.
They got me a part as an extra,
and it seemed like a lot of fun,
and Miguel said,
"You ought to come to Hollywood
and be an actor." And I was like, "Okay."
So I got in my '76 Monte Carlo
with rust all over it,
and I drove it all night for two nights.
I couldn't turn it off
'cause it wouldn't start again. And
You know, I did
You'll understand this, I did
a lot of television for a long time.
I did one TV show called Sunset Beat
where I played an undercover cop
on a Harley during the day
- and a rock star at night.
- Yeah.
[audience laughs]
Seven wonderful episodes.
"Get that guy!"
- Then you go to the ER, and suddenly
- Everything.
you're on after Seinfeld on NBC,
- everything goes crazy.
- Yeah.
And I was-- Steven Spielberg is there.
He comes in to direct an episode
or something like that.
- Yeah.
- And he has things to say to you.
And I'm almost embarrassed
to say what I read he said to you
- back to you sitting here.
- He told me to hold my head still.
He said to you--
The quote that I saw was,
"George, if you would just
hold your head still--
If you would stop moving your head"
- Yeah.
- "You could be a movie star."
Yeah. And you know how he said it to me?
"If you could stop moving your head"
I-- Let me ask you this, 'cause this is
To me, this is the interesting part.
You were young. You started in comedy?
Did you want to do comedy?
Did you start with comedy
- and then became a weatherman?
- Let me ask a general question first.
By you asking me a question
- Yes.
- will this cut into my pay?
Yes.
I think-- Here's what's
an interesting thing.
People don't know much about you
and people are very interested in
In you and how you became David Letterman.
Well, you're very flattering
to say those things, but
And I'll tell you just a couple of things.
My father was very, very funny.
Very demonstrative.
My mother was taciturn,
just had nothing to say, not emotive.
And as I used to say, was fond of saying,
when my father walked through the house,
the lamps would rattle.
He was a big presence in the house.
And he tried to get a job
as the organist for,
I believe it was WHAS
in Louisville, I think,
50,000 clear-channel watt
radio AM station,
and did not get that job,
and as a result became a retail florist,
but that was only to bring in money
to feed us kids.
Everything else for him was show business.
He-- In fact, later in life
turned out he was an alcoholic.
And even the AA meetings
became a stage for him to do comedy.
- Right.
- And it was like
- it saved his life in two ways.
- Right.
It kept him alive from alcohol,
and also gave him a club, a place to go
and tell jokes. "Hey. How you doing?
Nice to see you."
"Hey, guys. How you doing?"
So I was around it all of the time.
But not to the extent that you were.
I mean, being seen on TV and stuff
is pretty cool for a kid.
It was-- There was some fun parts of it,
but there-- It was tricky.
When we finally moved where we landed,
where my parents still live,
is a little town called Augusta, Kentucky.
1,100 people in the town.
And there you were trying to make
your own identity.
You know, because I was always
Nick Clooney's son.
[jazzy piano music plays]
[doorbell rings]
[man] Hello, and welcome to our house.
- How are you?
- Hi, Dave Letterman.
- Good to see you, David.
- Hi. How are you?
I am better for seeing you. Come on in.
This is Nina, you'll remember.
You've met a couple of times.
How do you do? You were on the show--
It was a Mother's Day Top Ten.
- Mothers of famous--
- Yes.
Famous people. Not famous mothers.
I have old photos
of the sexiest man alive
- in a pink tutu.
- [man] Yeah!
- You lived through the experience.
- I did.
- Yeah.
- You were delightful.
Oh, please. Now
- This is my daughter, Ada.
- Ada, how are you? Dave Letterman.
On behalf of everybody,
thank you for allowing us into your home.
This is very, very generous,
and also quite exciting.
We're very excited to have you here,
and we've been looking forward to it.
This house,
the rest of the family calls this
the house of too many pictures.
You're about to find out why.
I think a home can't have
too many pictures.
There's a picture when George
was deciding for the first time
to grow a mustache.
He was 20, Ada was 21.
There's Nina, and I was already
middle-aged obviously.
This must have been his Tom Selleck years.
You know, if he still looked that way,
he could have made something of himself.
Come with me, if you don't mind.
George got this made up for us.
I was interviewing President Ford
many, many years ago,
and George was interviewing
President Obama.
He thought it would be interesting
to juxtapose.
I don't mean to nitpick, but in fact,
here it looks like
you are interviewing President Ford.
- I am indeed.
- Up here, it looks like George
is just being bored silly
by President Obama.
You know what's nice?
I don't know that I have
any parallel evidence
of my life to my father's life,
so it's great to see this
with you and George.
- I think it's fantastic.
- Yeah, we're very lucky people.
The pictures in here,
I have been able to salvage
only two George and two Ada pictures.
- This is one, and I'm keeping it--
- No.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Academy Award
for Best Beatle Wig goes to
- What age are we looking at there?
- Twelve.
This is the TV show I did
in Cincinnati on Channel 9.
This, whatever they call
that representation,
is eerily similar to your son's face.
Well, we still hope he'll grow out of it.
- Now Now, Nick.
- We have hopes.
Yeah.
Now, this kind of thing
didn't happen in my household,
but every Christmas,
this fund, the Clooney fund,
was used for the purpose of
My father and mother
are really good people,
and they pay attention to the community.
It's not fun being the child of people
who do really good things, you know.
You're like-- You hate it.
And my father would get letters
from people who'd had a bad year.
You know, it was a coal mining area--
- Because he was famous.
- Because he was famous.
And we didn't have money,
but I remember
my father would get letters from people.
Somebody would say,
"We're not gonna have Christmas this year
'cause I lost my job."
So, every year, my dad would collect
these letters and he'd pick one.
And we'd have to go shopping
and buy presents
for the kids of this family.
My parents would bring presents.
And Christmas morning, before we could
open any presents or anything,
which I just hated,
we'd drive for like an hour
to some stranger's home.
And I remember going in and cleaning
their kitchen for an hour and a half,
just my sister and I,
cleaning their kitchen, strangers,
and then brought their kids presents.
At the time, begrudgingly.
- Yeah, of course.
- But here later in life,
it has formed what you do
with your time and money.
It informs how you're going
to continue on.
- Yeah.
- It, at the time, seems sort of awful,
'cause you're thinking,
"I'd like to just, one Christmas,
come downstairs and, you know,
see what Santa brought" You know.
The reason that I like
helping people is selfish,
- because it makes me feel good.
- Yeah.
Is-- That's okay?
I think it's probably why
most people do it. I think you do it
That or you're absolving yourself
of some, you know, guilt.
I mean, I grew up in
You know, I was raised Catholic,
and, you know
I remember reading how a saint
put a pebble in her shoe
and would walk around for penance.
And, you know, in a small town,
the priest knows everybody,
and he'd recognize your voice,
and by fifth grade, you don't really want
to confess all your sins. You got some
you know, some private ones
you may not want him to know.
So, I would only confess what I deemed
was important for him to know,
and then I would fill my shoes
with gravel,
and I'd jump off the top of my bunk beds
to cleanse the rest of my--
Oh, George, you're breaking my heart.
So I feel this is a version
of walking around--
- No, you actually did that?
- Yeah.
How long did that go on?
I stopped a week ago.
[audience laughs]
Still happening?
Wow, that's
That's some powerful guilt.
There was a time, when you were a kid,
tell me the age,
you came down with Bell's Palsy.
I was-- It was my freshman year
in high school. I had Bell's Palsy.
The worst possible time
- Bad timing. Yeah.
- Yeah.
for a kid to be calling attention
to his-- How he looks.
You know, Bell's Palsy is a--
They're not quite sure what it is,
but it's But half your face paralyzes.
And so the first six months
of high school was--
You know, half of my face--
Well, now, this is horrifying at any age.
It's embarrassing.
Mostly because you just--
You look like you've had a stroke at 13.
So how did you cope with that at school?
You know, it's a funny thing.
I made jokes.
There's a great, you know
Those kind of things
sort of give you personality.
They teach you how to make fun of yourself
and not take yourself too seriously.
Well, you're right about that,
but you look okay now.
I'm doing all right, now.
You met your wife
And excuse me if I get this wrong.
And I just started twitching
when I heard this.
She came over to the house.
- You didn't even have to leave the house.
- I didn't leave the house. No, no.
- Oh, God.
- You know, it's the wildest thing.
A mutual friend of ours said,
"I'm stopping by,
and can I bring my friend?"
And I was like, "Of course."
And, you know, in Italy,
we sort of have
Someday you'll come visit.
You know.
[audience laughs]
Someday.
And we like to have people over,
and so I said, "Of course."
And I got a call from my agent,
who called me and said,
"I met this woman who's coming
to your house who you're gonna marry."
- Whoa.
- Yeah.
Now, this was arranged by an agent,
your talent agent?
Had done all the paperwork ahead of time.
- It really worked out that way.
- Yeah.
And the funniest thing
was my mom and dad were visiting,
so my parents were there.
And we just talked, and we stayed up
all night talking,
and then, you know,
I got her e-mail address,
'cause she was gonna send me
some pictures of my parents, and then
we started writing.
I didn't really have a
I didn't really-- I didn't know
if she wanted to go out with me.
I just thought we were buddies.
- Who would, George?
- Yeah.
Let's be frank, who really
would want to go out with you?
Well, I'm 17 years older than her, too,
and I was just
And I didn't-- And I have--
Had this dog, Einstein, and so I--
And she was a human rights lawyer,
so I would write letters
from Einstein to her.
You know, saying, "I'm being held hostage,
and I--" You know.
- You know.
- Very cute.
"And I need, you know, a lawyer
to get me out of the room, and"
That was in the summer,
and then October,
I went to London to score--
To do the score of a movie
at Abbey Road
which is a pretty cool thing,
you got 150-piece orchestra, and
And I thought if you're ever
gonna impress anybody
- I said, "You should come to Abbey Road."
- Sure.
And Amal's like, "Well, I'm at
the Muslim Brotherhood right now,
but I'll come over right after."
And so she left this meeting
where she's trying to hold
the Muslim Brotherhood
to account for something, and--
And we're just doing a dumb movie score.
I was like, "Yeah, this is very important
stuff we're working on here."
Now, let's define some terms here.
Okay.
What is under the category "human rights"?
Is that everything we're entitled to,
being carbon-based life-form
and breathing oxygen?
That seems fair, don't you think?
I think those would be
fair starting points,
where you say life, liberty,
pursuit of happiness.
I think you would also put the idea that
perhaps not killing your family
or raping you
would probably fall into those same
categories of human rights.
For instance, the Yezidis,
basically, ISIS has been trying
to commit genocide on them,
saying that they shouldn't exist.
And Amal's--
She's sort of the first one now
to be able to bring ISIS to court,
because strangely that hasn't happened.
You know, we kill them all,
we try to kill them all
but if you're a victim,
they want to be able to say,
"I want charges brought against you,
and I want my day in court,
because I want this not to just
end with your death.
I want us to be able to record this,
and I want evidence against you."
[jazzy piano music plays]
So much of his interest,
including here at your home,
- has been refugee work.
- Yes.
A refugee found you,
you found a refugee from Iraq
- What a moment.
- and is now part of the community.
- How did that begin? How did that happen?
- Amal.
Amal.
She decided she was going to take
a young woman
who had been brutalized by ISIS,
and she decided that
she was going to take Nadia Murad
on as a client, and take her to the UN,
and to try to make sure that
somebody answered for this.
And with Nadia was a young man.
He and Nadia are part of
a very small group called Yezidi
and they are not Muslim,
and for that and other reasons,
- they're horribly treated.
- Yezidi?
Is a religion.
- Religion.
- It's a small religion.
And we started right then,
George and Amal and Nina and I,
doing everything we could do
to get him out of there
and into this country.
He was clearly smart,
clearly loved the whole idea of America.
Good-looking kid.
- Look who I found.
- Hey.
Hey. How's it going?
Hi, kid.
- What time did you get in?
- Like two in the morning.
- This is Haz.
- Haz, how are you?
I'm doing well, thank you. How about you?
- Dave Letterman.
- Pleasure to meet you.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you met already.
I have not met, no.
So, Nick has told us much about you.
You tell us how this all happened for you.
Well, so the Iraq War started 2003.
I was nine years old at the time.
In the year 2007,
I had a cousin and his father,
both were killed.
He was working as a translator
with the American troops,
and al-Qaeda killed him for that reason.
And then in August of the same year,
they killed about 1,000 individuals,
and over a thousand were injured.
Every day after that,
my life was just terror.
Like, just fear.
How did you folks get out of there?
My brother and I were working
in a different town
when the genocide took place
so ISIS, like, started attacking
the region, like, town by town.
My family made it, you know,
like ten minutes before ISIS came.
So, you're out-- You have to outrun
this horrible storm of death.
Exactly. It was exactly the way
you describe it, as a storm.
- Like, you have to escape
- Yeah.
make your way out.
If you don't, you're gone, so
Unfortunately, the people
who could not make it in time
most of my friends basically
they were either killed
or taken as captives.
Could you go back there now if you wanted?
- To Iraq?
- To your hometown.
It's It's completely destroyed.
So far, seven mass graves
have been discovered in my town,
which is called Herdan, by the way.
Are your parents still alive?
My father died when I was three,
and my mom, she is alive
and she lives in Germany now.
I have a 13-year-old son,
and when he was nine years old,
if I thought he was carrying with him
the fear that you described
when you were nine years old,
I would be beside myself.
Living through that, it's imponderable.
Your wife must have known of your activity
and your humanitarian work.
And again, what a perfect match.
She is sort of this remarkable
human being,
and now mother, which is something
I suppose you should assume
she would be wonderful at as well,
but when you see it in person,
it makes you feel,
you know, incredibly proud
and also incredibly small.
Twins.
- Twins.
- Twins.
And
[audience laughs]
Sounds fun, doesn't it?
One wakes the other one--
This one's asleep. He's asleep.
Oh, he's asleep.
That one. You're like, "Oh, shit."
But you have a pair,
and as they grow together,
they'll take care of one another.
- That's the hope.
- And you can have hobbies again.
Yeah, in 20 years, when I'm--
When I'm your age. Yeah, exactly.
He had You--
- Your son was born when you were 50
- Fifty-seven.
- Fifty-seven. And I was 56, so
- Yeah.
And I wish I had a family earlier,
- sooner.
- Yeah.
I was preoccupied
with my little dinky show.
So that is a true regret.
But people
And I buy into this.
they say, "Oh, yeah,
but you're a better parent now
than you would have been then."
I don't know that that's true,
but that's how I'm living my life.
Would you think
Would you-- If given the chance,
- would you have had more children?
- Yes. Yes.
- By the way, now that you have kids
- Yeah.
do you still drink?
Not like I used to.
Now, when you say "like I used to,"
give me an example.
Well, I--
I never was--
It was never a problem for me.
I've had a couple of bad weeks
over the years,
but in general, not a problem for me.
I can have a couple of drinks and stop.
I have other family members who couldn't,
- so I had that lesson in life.
- Right.
You know, now that--
It wasn't just that,
it was when Amal was pregnant, too.
There was that sense that
you have to really have
your wits about you.
I think that's smart.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Yeah, because for God sakes
the purpose of your life is now not you.
- It's the-
- It's very odd.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- And I have to say,
before I had the twins,
I felt that about her.
I felt that I'd met someone
who I would absolutely, you know,
trade my life for.
You know, I would
I'd met someone that her life
meant more to me than my life,
and I'd never had that experience before.
And I'd, you know, had some lovely people
in my life, but this was--
The thing that really amazed me
And everybody knows this,
and forgive me,
and everybody told me this.
I went through desperate anxiety
for nine months,
and I would have these fears, and I--
I can remember one day
we were outside grilling,
and my wife was in the house,
and I'm grilling
and still possessed with this anxiety,
and she was like six
or seven months along.
And I said, "Oh, my God."
And she says, "What's the matter?"
And I said, "What if we have the baby,
and the baby is outside,
and I lose my mind and I kick it?"
- Right.
- Yeah.
- That's where I was.
- Yeah.
Yeah. And my wife says,
"Dave, just turn the hamburgers
and come back inside."
- But now, when they-- When he was born
- When he was born,
boom, it all vanished.
And did you feel
Did you feel immediately
that you were needed in that situation?
I tell you what I felt, George.
I felt like, oh, now
I firmly, fully, first time, know love.
Yeah.
You can tell yourself
that you love this or that,
or your wife, your friends, your mother,
but to be--
To feel it just wash up in you
- Yeah.
- that's what happens.
Yeah, that's a nice one.
That's a nice one.
[jazzy piano music plays]
[Clooney] Hi, Hazim. Hi, Dave.
- [Amal] Hi, Haz.
- Hi.
What are you guys doing this morning?
Apparently,
we're FaceTiming our family
with 50 cameramen or so
in the kitchen, which is
Yeah.
tomething that happens a lot.
George, you and Amal
have heard this story before.
I'm hearing it from him
for the first time.
And can you imagine?
Yeah, well, David, I've had the privilege
of representing a number of Yezidis
who've ben the victims of genocide
perpetrated by ISIS
over the last couple of years.
That's how I met Hazim.
And when I met him, I remember
being so struck by his courage,
but also just this amazing spirit,
and how he spoke about--
Even after everything he'd lost,
he spoke about a desire for justice,
not revenge.
And he talked about the future
and what his dreams were,
and I remember him telling us--
We were all in New York,
I was with George and Nick and Nina,
and he spoke about his dream
of one day studying in the US,
and I know we all had the same thought,
which was, well, maybe there's something
we can do to help with that.
What I'm beginning to think and learn
from talking to you,
to your father and Haz
Even to a guy like myself.
I attended Ball State,
which is the Harvard of Muncie.
Living one's life in this arena
by example,
and this will spread.
Haz living here,
going to university in Chicago,
this will not just be a one-off,
this will bear greater and greater fruit.
- From your mouth.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- Guys, ready for an adventure?
- Yeah.
Did you drive in Iraq?
I did not.
So far, so good, I must say.
Okay, before I start,
I might be good in many things,
but driving is not one of them, so
- So--
- It's not that important.
If you ride with me,
it means it's at your own risk, so
Nick, what would it take for you
to give me a home here?
Could that be worked out?
Let me think about that.
Nina, I wouldn't make trouble.
Oh, yes, you would. Oh, God.
- This is your home?
- Yep.
Oh, come on.
- Isn't it beautiful?
- Oh, come on.
Yeah, good for you.
What was your initial impression
when you walked in?
So, the moment I got in the house,
these shades were open
so I could see this beautiful view
from the river.
And I just fell in love with it,
- like, the very--
- Immediately.
- Immediately, yeah.
- Yeah.
And it's a beautiful house.
I enjoy it every day, living in this house
for, like, the last seven months.
It's so peaceful just to sit outside,
and so I would do that, like,
in the evening.
Just read and look at the river.
Obviously, here's a young man
5,000 miles from home.
And while this is a very
attractive place, he's all by himself.
So I thought it was proper to hang out,
so I slept on the couch.
And then George came,
stayed down here maybe a week.
Has George mentioned the house in Italy,
and maybe go visit the
Has that come up?
Maybe at some point
I will go and visit them.
Yeah, but has it come up?
Has he actually extended the invitation?
- Well--
- No, me either.
Did you go to the wedding?
No, neither did I.
Did you know there was a wedding?
You're not an American now,
is that correct?
I'm on a refugee status, yeah.
Yeah. So you will become an American?
It would be an honor,
like, in the future
if I'm eligible to receive
American citizenship, yeah.
Much easier than the driver's test.
I don't know about that, so
I'm so impressed by what I know
of you and your wife,
and there's not a person in this room
who wouldn't want to help
genocide refugees.
Nobody in here who would argue
with that desire.
- Right.
- I want to. I can't do it.
Certainly not on the level
that you have done it.
What I started with was Darfur
which was the thing that
Nick Kristof was writing about.
It was a slow-rolling genocide.
And the Sudanese government
was killing a lot of people
because they wanted their land
because, unfortunately, they found oil.
Now, this was a great inspiration for you.
A series of articles written
by this man for the New York Times.
That's right. Yeah.
The failing New York Times.
The failing New York-- Well, what ha--
I mean, it was an interesting thing.
He was writing these stories,
and, you know, he's winning a Nobel--
Or a Pulitzer.
- But the story wasn't playing.
- Yeah.
And I remember saying to him--
I took my father the first trip I went,
at 75 years old,
to 120-degree heat, and
And my dad had done a bunch of stories
in the '70s as a newsman,
and one of the stories he'd done
got bumped for a Liz Taylor story.
And I remember he was really
pissed off about it.
And so, I called my dad up,
and I said, "You know, Pop,
remember when Liz Taylor got you bumped?"
And he said "Yeah,"
and I said, "Well, why don't we go,
and you be the newsman,
and I'll be Liz Taylor,
and we'll get this story out?"
And And he said okay.
And, you know, we got there
That was the first trip we took.
And it morphed into working on
To give you an idea,
I had a satellite that we were renting,
and it would take shots of people
in real time
over areas that we can't get cameras to,
to be able to keep up with
mass atrocities, troop build-ups,
mass graves, that kind of stuff.
And for about two years,
we were really successful.
Front page of the New York Times,
we got some unbelievable stories.
But nobody does-- Did anything.
And so if you don't do anything after--
Now, what--
Weren't you dumbfounded by that?
Dumbfounded by it.
So then you're like,
"Well, then what's the other--"
How do you go after them? You go
after them by going after their money.
Because they have--
They're spending their money,
it's pounds, it's euros, it's dollars.
And those go into the same banks
that we all do business with.
Period. End of story.
So, we would-- We hired these
forensic accountants from the FBI.
We followed these guys, the president
of South Sudan, the vice president,
Salva Kiir and Riek Machar.
We follow them,
and not only do we follow them,
we find that they've changed
a company's name two times,
and they have, you know, 18 million,
$200 million at a bank.
And then we go to the banks,
and we sit down, and we go,
"Here's the evidence.
Now you can say you didn't know,
we're gonna say you didn't know.
I'm gonna say you didn't look hard enough,
but we're gonna say you didn't know.
Fair enough. Fair deal.
You know now.
So either you're going to work with
the Justice Department-- The Treasury
Not the Justice,
but the Treasury Department.
and you're going to help us
freeze these assets,
or we're gonna go public
and tell them about you,
and that'll be a problem for you."
'Cause you can shame the banks.
But it can--
Is it ever satisfying? Is it--
When I was there, I remember
we tried to get to a town called Kadugli,
which was a very
dangerous place to get to.
Interestingly, there is a real sense
of adventure
in someone saying
you can't get to Kadugli.
You can't get there 'cause--
I wish I had a nickel for every time
someone has said that to me.
It's funny though,
there is that moment where you go,
"I can get there, and we'll get there."
And that drive up the road
where they pull you over
and, you know, a 14-year-old kid
pulls you out of the car,
and he's got an AK-47,
and he makes you kneel down,
puts a gun to your chest.
And it's not because
they're Northern Sudanese militia,
it's because they want your truck
and all the things in it.
And there's nobody around.
And so many times,
that's how you get killed.
Not because he saw Batman?
No. If he'd seen Batman,
he would have shot me right there.
[audience laughs]
Right on the spot.
He'd be like, "I know you."
No, no, no.
- "You put nipples on the Batsuit."
- Okay.
[audience laughs, cheers]
"Give me the director,
I'm gonna shoot him, too."
[jazzy theme music plays]
[Letterman] Tell me again
where you learned English.
Remember I told you
about my cousin who got killed?
Who was a translator
with the American troops?
- Yes.
- So he sent me a dictionary
as a gift for me to start reading it.
I think I was, like, in sixth grade.
- Like ten or nine years old at the time.
- I'm sorry. Excuse me.
[man] Slow down, walk a little slower.
I'm an enormous man, I walk how I walk.
All right.
[engine starts]
[man] Cue the lawnmower.
I'll take care of this. Hey.
Hey.
It's no surprise that this would be
what we call a red area
- predominantly.
- Exactly.
But there's been no resistance to the idea
of you having another son from Iraq here.
That's exactly right, and I--
I learned something myself
as we went through this process.
On a one-on-one,
this is a very generous community.
- [Hazim] It is.
- [Letterman] Hi.
Hey, guys. We're here.
Thank you.
Seriously.
Seriously.
In his own hometown.
Haz, I know you don't know who I am.
I know you don't care who I am,
but it was a great pleasure meeting you.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you for visiting.
- Thank you very much.
Nina.
Nick, you guys
will take care of this, right?
You bet. Absolutely. Yeah.
Sure thing.
Drive safely but as fast as you can.
Could you have had-- Let's say your
- Work at a Dairy Queen.
- Right.
Which is not a bad gig.
Could you have done that if you were--
"It's George
the guy that'll get you
the double-dipped chocolate cone"?
Well, you know,
here's the truth about that.
I'm able to do it
because I can afford to do it, you know.
There's an awful lot of people
that have two or three jobs
just to make ends meet to survive,
and they look at doing
something like that and think,
"I'd do it if I could,"
or they'll do it--
Some involvement at their church.
Whatever way they can, they get involved.
I think people are basically good,
and I think most people do what they can.
I really do. And I think that
You know, I do have
this Irish Catholic guilt
that feels like I got--
I hit the jackpot, you know.
A million versions of this probably
wouldn't have ended up where it did,
so you should spread some luck around.
Let me ask you,
I know that you--
And maybe I shouldn't know this.
You live in Clark Gable's house.
- Yeah, it was his hunting lodge.
- Hunting lodge.
It was a little thing, and they made it
into a little bit bigger
Yeah. Now, this says to me
that you're a student of your craft.
- Sure.
- So tell me,
like '30s and '40s,
who did you like as a leading man?
I think in general,
my favorite actor on screen
- '40s and '50s, would be Spencer Tracy.
- Mm-hmm.
There was always a sense of
we could live through him, our eyes.
There was a sense of logic to him,
- and a sense of decency.
- Yeah.
Actors, part of what you're doing
is kind of lying for a living,
you're pretending to be someone else,
and he never-- You never felt like that.
He would look at his mark--
If you watch--
If you watch Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,
you can actually watch Spencer Tracy
look at his mark.
You know, you get a mark on the ground?
And he's doing this scene
with Katharine Hepburn where he says,
"If you loved her as much--"
You know, "If you loved your--
My daughter half as much as I love
my wife--" It's a beautiful scene.
And you see him standing across the thing,
and he's waiting like this,
you know, he's--
He dies a couple months later,
he's really old.
And he kind of goes like this,
and he just
He looks like this,
and he walks over like this,
in the middle of the scene,
and he goes
And the funniest thing is, as an actor,
you would be lying. I would be--
You're lying to look--
You're not supposed to have a mark.
So if you, as an actor, do this
"Well, you know"
And you just do that,
that glance down is a tell. I'm a liar.
I'm lying to you.
I'm not-- This is all fake.
So the idea that you just
look right at it
[audience laughs]
There you go.
And he would look at lights.
"There's a light."
You're supposed to be looking at the moon,
and he's like,
"There's Joe on the light."
Do you know-- How come I--
Nobody ever came to me and said,
"Let's buy a tequila company."
Yeah.
Now, what is the difference
between you and me there?
Who was that?
That's just
That's just dumb luck.
You answered an ad--
- An ad in the paper.
- Let me just put it to you this way.
- This one was one where Rande and I--
- Rande?
- Rande Gerber.
- What's he doing now?
Well, he's married to Cindy Crawford,
so he doesn't have to do shit.
- God.
- You know. Honestly.
Good God. He's got two beautiful kids,
and now he's got
a billion-dollar tequila company.
So he comes to you and he said,
"Let-- I know some guys
who are making tequila--"
We had these adjoining houses
that we built
in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
called casamigos, the houses.
And we're very good friends,
and we were drinking tequila,
and we thought,
well, let's have our own house tequila.
How much tequila were you drinking?
Enough to have our own
goddamn house tequila.
About a billion dollars' worth, Dave.
So, no, we went down to Jalisco,
which is where they make tequila,
and we, for about two years,
tried and sampled different kinds
and different flavors
and different styles,
and eventually we got one, and we made
Christmas presents for our friends,
and we would drink it
whenever we went down there.
And then somebody came to us and said,
"Well, you know you could sell this."
And we were like, "Okay, yeah, whatever."
And
And so we started selling it.
And we didn't really do any commercials,
it just started selling,
and then it started selling fast,
and then, you know,
it's a four-year-old company.
You know, that's pretty crazy.
And it's a handshake deal,
and we all put--
You know, we put our own money in it.
I so desperately
want to be part of your family.
Yes.
I like you.
I'm not sure it's being returned,
but I want to be
I have nothing but admiration for you
your wife, whom I probably
will never meet.
She loves you.
And And Rande.
- Yeah.
- Now
You said that maybe now
you'll do more writing,
more directing, more producing.
- Is that-- That's not true necessarily?
- Yeah
I mean
If I find a great part, I'll do it,
but, you know--
You're not gonna run. Nobody really
wants you to run, because that would--
You could do less running
- than you can as a private citizen.
- Yeah.
And doesn't it look like fun
once you get there?
George, you're an awfully nice man.
You're an awfully ni-- I'm--
I'm so happy to see you.
- Happy to see you.
- I really am.
Very impressive.
And thank you for being here.
Well, thank you.
And thank you guys for--
Everybody coming out.
George Clooney, ladies and gentlemen.
[audience applauds]
[jazzy theme music plays]
When I was a kid,
I used to hear jokes all the time.
And now, for some reason,
I don't hear jokes all the time.
- Oh, you don't?
- And I heard one two week ago,
and so as a reason to get--
To tell this joke, I'm gonna ask you
if you've heard any jokes lately,
and then I'm gonna tell this joke.
You mean it's a full joke? Like a--
It's a full joke,
like an actual thing with a setup.
- Like "three guys walk into a bar"
- That's right.
- Oh, with a setup.
- That's exactly right.
I have to think about "joke" jokes.
Not really. I have
- I like punch lines.
- Yeah.
Just punch lines.
Ping-pong balls. I thought you said
King Kong's balls.
- No, I don't know that one.
- I don't know
I don't know, it's just a punch line--
Have you ever heard
"the light lunch was my idea"?
- No.
- Oh, man.
Or the bear that says,
"You know, you're not just
coming here for the hunting"?
Yeah, I think it may be the same joke.
A friend of mine told me this joke
like a week ago.
- Okay.
- And it's a complete
- beginning, middle, and end.
- Okay, let's hear it.
- A company is hiring.
- Right.
So a guy wants the job.
And the employment guys says,
"Tell me a little bit about yourself.
What are your three
strongest characteristics?"
And he said, "Well, I'm a hard worker.
I'm always on time,
and I'm a problem solver."
And the guy says,
"Well, that's fantastic.
Now, give me something
negative about you."
And he says, "Well, I gotta tell you,
I'm brutally honest."
And the guy hiring says,
"Well, I don't think that's much--"
"I don't care what you think!"
You just wanted the punch line.
- Yeah, that's right.
- You just wanted to yell at me.
Yeah, but that's not bad, is it?
I like that one.
[Letterman] What's it--
Like, why? Honestly, why?
Are you just doing this out of friendship?
- [Clooney] I had nothing to do.
- I know that feeling.
Here's the thing, I've had twins,
and I'll take any excuse to get out
of the house, you know.
Look at this. This is another
- It's another Airbus.
- It's an Airbus?
Do you know all your planes?
- Well, do you know all your planes?
- I don't.
My family and I were in Tokyo a year ago.
- Right.
- On a 767.
- Triple sevens. Triple seven.
- Sure.
- And--
- That's a 777.
That's right.
And I was talking to the pilot about
what an amazing machine it is,
- and the guy says, "From Tokyo--" Hi.
- I hear you want some chocolate shakes.
- Are you with the restaurant?
- I am with the restaurant.
- What's your name?
- My name is Travis.
- Travis, nice to see you.
- Hi, Travis.
Mr. Clooney.
- What is that, is that a milkshake?
- Chocolate milkshake.
- Oh, that's good.
- Take care.
I noticed you didn't dig down
to give the guy a gratuity.
[jazzy theme music plays]
A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES
[audience applauding]
Thank you.
Thank you.
Oh, no.
Please.
Thank you.
Nothing is more gratifying than a phony
standing ovation. Thank you.
By the way, did you get the free
hot buffet before you came in?
That was my idea. Thank you.
So you know-- Does everybody know
who's on the show tonight?
[audience] No.
What if I told you it was just me?
[audience laughs, cheers]
[Letterman] Oh, no.
[man in audience] Yeah!
Then you're screwed.
It's gonna be a pleasant evening.
A very pleasant evening.
And if you're ready
We're all ready? Everybody's ready.
Ladies and gentlemen, do me a favor,
please welcome my next guest,
George Clooney.
[Clooney] Hey, guys.
Hi.
- George, how are you?
- I'm good.
Thank you very much.
Where did he go?
Nice.
- Have a seat.
- I'm gonna sit down.
Hi, guys.
George, it's very nice of you to do this.
- Thank you very much.
- Well, I felt sorry for you.
[audience laughs]
- I--
- You're just sitting at home,
you got nothing to do.
Yeah. I have spent a lot of time
thinking about you.
Perhaps too much time thinking about you.
And I think it's apparent,
but if you don't mind,
I'll just go ahead and underline
what is apparent about the two of us.
We're similar. Very similar.
- Yes.
- I mean, more than
From the same geographic part
of the country.
- Indiana and Kentucky.
- Indiana and Kentucky.
- Separated by the Ohio River.
- Sure.
Kentucky owns the river
up to the shore of Indiana.
Are you aware of that?
In fact, when they call it the Ohio River,
it's actually much more
- It belongs to Kentucky.
- More than Kentucky.
- Yeah. Well, we can talk about that later.
- It's our river.
- Leave our river alone.
- Yeah.
We're both top stars of the day.
Huge.
Of a day.
And we couldn't be more handsome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like this, you know,
Soggy Bottom Boys look you got going.
- Making fun of the beard?
- No, I'm not.
- Making fun of the beard.
- You could have cleaned up a little.
You come back. You've been gone for--
I get it. You go away,
you're fishing, you want to grow
a beard. I get it.
- You're back. Clean it up a little.
- That's right.
It's the aging vagrant look.
- Is that what it is?
- Yeah.
Yeah, it's good. You got it.
Now, let me
Tell me about your childhood.
And if you don't want to tell me
about your childhood,
- I will tell you about your childhood.
- That's what I was afraid of.
I grew up--
I was born in Lexington, Kentucky.
Tobacco town, and a horse racing town.
And then my father was a broadcaster.
- He did some news, and--
- Nick Clooney.
He had the Nick Clooney Show.
We moved to Cincinnati, Ohio,
and he had his own television show,
live TV show.
And my mother was the first runner-up
in the Miss Kentucky Pageant,
and had two kids,
my sister Ada and myself,
and we spent most of our time
growing up in the Midwest. We--
I went to five different grade schools,
'cause we moved a lot.
Because of your dad's job changing?
We moved when the rent was due.
That's what my dad used to say.
We
We moved from Lexington to Cincinnati,
and then around the Cincinnati area,
and up to Columbus.
When I was aware of your father,
he was working in Dayton, Ohio.
- Is that correct?
- Or maybe Columbus.
Probably Columbus, Ohio.
'Cause you were doing the weather,
I believe.
- In Indianapolis.
- That's right.
Your father and I--
I don't know that we overlapped,
but we worked for the same corporation
for a period of time.
And your dad, as a newsman, what did--
Did that mean anything to you?
Did you like the idea
that he was a journalist,
a reporter, an anchorman?
It's a funny thing, in between
doing the news when he was younger,
and doing the news when he was older,
for about ten years there
my dad had the show,
and he had a band, and he'd sing.
Now, a guy with a talk show
would jump in here and say,
"Is that where you decided
you wanted to be a performer?"
No, I didn't ever--
I mean, always sort of--
There was this magical place at WKRC
in Cincinnati. I remember the show.
This was the actual station, it was WKRC.
And there was this room, a prop room,
that had all these costumes.
Had giant rabbit suits and robot costumes
from, probably, the '50s.
And so, I would always just go back there,
and I'd just put some--
I'd put on a rabbit suit,
and I'd go sit there,
and my dad would see me
in the rabbit suit for Easter,
and then he'd put me on the show,
and he'd interview me
as, you know, the Easter Bunny.
And then I had a leprechaun outfit,
and I would be interviewed,
but it would be a sit-down interview,
where my dad would--
I'm literally like eight,
and I've got a leprechaun outfit,
and my dad goes,
"So, St. Patrick is a big day
for you, right?"
And I'd be like, "Yeah, it's a big day.
It's a big day for me.
Got a lot of things I got to do.
Got to get the green beer--"
- It was-- That was all I did.
- You had to get the green beer.
It was basically the same interview,
only just different characters.
Yeah, but the presence of mind for a kid
to perform like that in character
and be a bit of a wise guy
is pretty good at eight.
Well, it's a funny thing.
We had a very strict household,
and I remember at a very young age
being able to say something outlandish.
This is in the old day when you had
cocktail parties all the time.
Everybody had grasshoppers
and was drinking Harvey Wallbangers
and things like that.
And I remember I could--
My dad would tell sort of a risqué joke,
and he wouldn't quite say the punch line
because it would be a little too much.
And I would, at eight, say the punch line,
and everyone would laugh,
and my dad would kick me under the table.
And I always sort of understood that
there was an advantage to being eight.
You know, that you could get away
with stuff, be it eight or 80,
that you can't get away with
anywhere in between.
There's something that I discovered
frequently in the research,
and it indicates that you were given--
And I know this is a typo or a lie.
You were given a tryout
with the Cincinnati Reds.
Now, I know this is-- What is it, a lie?
Do-- You use this to impress your wife.
Is that what it is?
She really doesn't even understand
what baseball is,
so it wouldn't work with her.
I had-- In Cincinnati, two years in a row,
the Reds tryouts came,
and they took all the guys who were good
baseball players and brought us out.
- From, like, area high schools?
- Yeah.
It was a funny thing,
when you go to an actual tryout--
And I really thought
my whole life growing up
I was gonna be
a professional baseball player.
Now honestly, were you that good?
I was a good baseball player, yeah.
And I was a re--
You're sure this wasn't--
You're sure this wasn't
- Fan Appreciation Day?
- Exactly.
No, I really thought
that was gonna be my future.
And then I remember
being sent home the first year,
and the second year I came back
and I got past the first round,
which was the arm and the speed.
And then I got to take some hits.
And I remember standing in--
The guy starts-- He's a semi-pro
baseball player, you know.
He's a minor league pitcher up there,
and he's throwing us pitches,
and he's throwing us, you know,
87-mile-an-hour fastballs or something.
You know, decent speed.
And I'm just jacking these balls.
I'm just hitting everything,
and I'm feeling like a king,
and I'm like, "I'm gonna be playing
for the goddamn Cincinnati Reds.
Look out, baby."
And I was just jacking it.
And the guy's kind of looking at me like,
"You're an idiot.
- I'm just throwing you meatballs to hit."
- It's batting practice.
And so he throws a curveball
at my head, you know.
- And the sound that it made
- Yeah.
coming towards my head,
and how embarrassingly bad
I fell backwards, like
- [grunts comically]
- [audience laughs]
And how far on the outside of the plate
the ball ended up.
And I remember--
It was a wild moment, because I remember
standing up and thinking,
"Oh, I'm never gonna be
a professional baseball player."
The curveball does make that sound.
It's menacing.
- It's scary.
- Because it shouldn't be
[both buzz]
When I was a kid,
I remember Rosemary Clooney
being a very common name
in my parents' home.
How successful was your aunt?
- She was huge.
- What was that for you?
She was huge.
- She was a worldwide star.
- Right.
She had She was on the cover
of Time m agazine.
She was a big deal.
I didn't really know her.
They were the California family,
and we lived in Kentucky.
I knew her a little bit, but she was
sort of just this iconic figure.
Did this make an impression on you?
Again, looking for a theme here.
Did this do anything to a kid?
I-- I-- You know,
I wasn't gonna be a singer,
and I didn't really
She was just famous, and I'd--
You know, I--
Because by the time
I was really aware of things,
I was into rock 'n' roll,
and she'd been a pop singer.
And she had a nervous breakdown
after Bobby Kennedy was killed
and got into drugs pretty heavily,
mostly the Dr. Feelgood kind, you know,
where they give you a lot of,
you know, whatever it is.
- Percocet.
- You don't need to tell me.
Yeah, exactly. You're doing it now.
I've never felt better.
My Aunt Rosemary came to Kentucky.
She was doing a show called "4 Girls 4"
with Helen O'Connell and Margaret Whiting
and Martha Raye, and all these
They called themselves--
So don't bust me for it.
"These old broads,"
they would call themselves,
and they would sing and fill up
auditoriums. Huge ones.
And Rosemary asked me to drive her.
And I was literally working
in tobacco fields for $3.33 an hour.
And I thought,
"Yeah, I'll be their driver."
I got an education from these women.
Like-- Like, you know. I
They would get-- They'd fill glasses up
with vodka, Smirnoff,
like this, just before like-- The overture
is playing, and they're, you know,
"Ladies and gentlemen, live from Harrah's
in Las Ve--" You know, "Helen O'Connell."
And she'd go bam,
and I'd hand her a glass of Smirnoff
And then
Tangerine does a lady proud ♪
You're like, "Wow."
But then-- And then, you know,
driving them home to their hotels
I remember Martha Raye,
who some of you guys may know, and--
She-- She would just keep
her sequins dress on,
wouldn't even change in the dressing room.
Literally, I was driving,
and she and Rosemary were in the back,
and she's like,
"Pull over, I got to take a whiz."
And you're like, "Really?"
And she's like one leg out of the car,
you know.
And my Aunt Rosemary's like,
"Don't turn around. You'll learn too much
about the aging process, George."
God.
Wow.
- One leg out the car.
- One leg. And
And then I ended up
My cousin, Miguel Ferrer, who just died
of throat cancer recently
He was a wonderful actor,
and he and his father,
- who was an actor named Jose Ferrer
- Yes.
they came to Kentucky to do a movie.
And It was a horse racing movie.
And I'd never met Jose,
and I knew Miguel only a little bit.
They got me a part as an extra,
and it seemed like a lot of fun,
and Miguel said,
"You ought to come to Hollywood
and be an actor." And I was like, "Okay."
So I got in my '76 Monte Carlo
with rust all over it,
and I drove it all night for two nights.
I couldn't turn it off
'cause it wouldn't start again. And
You know, I did
You'll understand this, I did
a lot of television for a long time.
I did one TV show called Sunset Beat
where I played an undercover cop
on a Harley during the day
- and a rock star at night.
- Yeah.
[audience laughs]
Seven wonderful episodes.
"Get that guy!"
- Then you go to the ER, and suddenly
- Everything.
you're on after Seinfeld on NBC,
- everything goes crazy.
- Yeah.
And I was-- Steven Spielberg is there.
He comes in to direct an episode
or something like that.
- Yeah.
- And he has things to say to you.
And I'm almost embarrassed
to say what I read he said to you
- back to you sitting here.
- He told me to hold my head still.
He said to you--
The quote that I saw was,
"George, if you would just
hold your head still--
If you would stop moving your head"
- Yeah.
- "You could be a movie star."
Yeah. And you know how he said it to me?
"If you could stop moving your head"
I-- Let me ask you this, 'cause this is
To me, this is the interesting part.
You were young. You started in comedy?
Did you want to do comedy?
Did you start with comedy
- and then became a weatherman?
- Let me ask a general question first.
By you asking me a question
- Yes.
- will this cut into my pay?
Yes.
I think-- Here's what's
an interesting thing.
People don't know much about you
and people are very interested in
In you and how you became David Letterman.
Well, you're very flattering
to say those things, but
And I'll tell you just a couple of things.
My father was very, very funny.
Very demonstrative.
My mother was taciturn,
just had nothing to say, not emotive.
And as I used to say, was fond of saying,
when my father walked through the house,
the lamps would rattle.
He was a big presence in the house.
And he tried to get a job
as the organist for,
I believe it was WHAS
in Louisville, I think,
50,000 clear-channel watt
radio AM station,
and did not get that job,
and as a result became a retail florist,
but that was only to bring in money
to feed us kids.
Everything else for him was show business.
He-- In fact, later in life
turned out he was an alcoholic.
And even the AA meetings
became a stage for him to do comedy.
- Right.
- And it was like
- it saved his life in two ways.
- Right.
It kept him alive from alcohol,
and also gave him a club, a place to go
and tell jokes. "Hey. How you doing?
Nice to see you."
"Hey, guys. How you doing?"
So I was around it all of the time.
But not to the extent that you were.
I mean, being seen on TV and stuff
is pretty cool for a kid.
It was-- There was some fun parts of it,
but there-- It was tricky.
When we finally moved where we landed,
where my parents still live,
is a little town called Augusta, Kentucky.
1,100 people in the town.
And there you were trying to make
your own identity.
You know, because I was always
Nick Clooney's son.
[jazzy piano music plays]
[doorbell rings]
[man] Hello, and welcome to our house.
- How are you?
- Hi, Dave Letterman.
- Good to see you, David.
- Hi. How are you?
I am better for seeing you. Come on in.
This is Nina, you'll remember.
You've met a couple of times.
How do you do? You were on the show--
It was a Mother's Day Top Ten.
- Mothers of famous--
- Yes.
Famous people. Not famous mothers.
I have old photos
of the sexiest man alive
- in a pink tutu.
- [man] Yeah!
- You lived through the experience.
- I did.
- Yeah.
- You were delightful.
Oh, please. Now
- This is my daughter, Ada.
- Ada, how are you? Dave Letterman.
On behalf of everybody,
thank you for allowing us into your home.
This is very, very generous,
and also quite exciting.
We're very excited to have you here,
and we've been looking forward to it.
This house,
the rest of the family calls this
the house of too many pictures.
You're about to find out why.
I think a home can't have
too many pictures.
There's a picture when George
was deciding for the first time
to grow a mustache.
He was 20, Ada was 21.
There's Nina, and I was already
middle-aged obviously.
This must have been his Tom Selleck years.
You know, if he still looked that way,
he could have made something of himself.
Come with me, if you don't mind.
George got this made up for us.
I was interviewing President Ford
many, many years ago,
and George was interviewing
President Obama.
He thought it would be interesting
to juxtapose.
I don't mean to nitpick, but in fact,
here it looks like
you are interviewing President Ford.
- I am indeed.
- Up here, it looks like George
is just being bored silly
by President Obama.
You know what's nice?
I don't know that I have
any parallel evidence
of my life to my father's life,
so it's great to see this
with you and George.
- I think it's fantastic.
- Yeah, we're very lucky people.
The pictures in here,
I have been able to salvage
only two George and two Ada pictures.
- This is one, and I'm keeping it--
- No.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Academy Award
for Best Beatle Wig goes to
- What age are we looking at there?
- Twelve.
This is the TV show I did
in Cincinnati on Channel 9.
This, whatever they call
that representation,
is eerily similar to your son's face.
Well, we still hope he'll grow out of it.
- Now Now, Nick.
- We have hopes.
Yeah.
Now, this kind of thing
didn't happen in my household,
but every Christmas,
this fund, the Clooney fund,
was used for the purpose of
My father and mother
are really good people,
and they pay attention to the community.
It's not fun being the child of people
who do really good things, you know.
You're like-- You hate it.
And my father would get letters
from people who'd had a bad year.
You know, it was a coal mining area--
- Because he was famous.
- Because he was famous.
And we didn't have money,
but I remember
my father would get letters from people.
Somebody would say,
"We're not gonna have Christmas this year
'cause I lost my job."
So, every year, my dad would collect
these letters and he'd pick one.
And we'd have to go shopping
and buy presents
for the kids of this family.
My parents would bring presents.
And Christmas morning, before we could
open any presents or anything,
which I just hated,
we'd drive for like an hour
to some stranger's home.
And I remember going in and cleaning
their kitchen for an hour and a half,
just my sister and I,
cleaning their kitchen, strangers,
and then brought their kids presents.
At the time, begrudgingly.
- Yeah, of course.
- But here later in life,
it has formed what you do
with your time and money.
It informs how you're going
to continue on.
- Yeah.
- It, at the time, seems sort of awful,
'cause you're thinking,
"I'd like to just, one Christmas,
come downstairs and, you know,
see what Santa brought" You know.
The reason that I like
helping people is selfish,
- because it makes me feel good.
- Yeah.
Is-- That's okay?
I think it's probably why
most people do it. I think you do it
That or you're absolving yourself
of some, you know, guilt.
I mean, I grew up in
You know, I was raised Catholic,
and, you know
I remember reading how a saint
put a pebble in her shoe
and would walk around for penance.
And, you know, in a small town,
the priest knows everybody,
and he'd recognize your voice,
and by fifth grade, you don't really want
to confess all your sins. You got some
you know, some private ones
you may not want him to know.
So, I would only confess what I deemed
was important for him to know,
and then I would fill my shoes
with gravel,
and I'd jump off the top of my bunk beds
to cleanse the rest of my--
Oh, George, you're breaking my heart.
So I feel this is a version
of walking around--
- No, you actually did that?
- Yeah.
How long did that go on?
I stopped a week ago.
[audience laughs]
Still happening?
Wow, that's
That's some powerful guilt.
There was a time, when you were a kid,
tell me the age,
you came down with Bell's Palsy.
I was-- It was my freshman year
in high school. I had Bell's Palsy.
The worst possible time
- Bad timing. Yeah.
- Yeah.
for a kid to be calling attention
to his-- How he looks.
You know, Bell's Palsy is a--
They're not quite sure what it is,
but it's But half your face paralyzes.
And so the first six months
of high school was--
You know, half of my face--
Well, now, this is horrifying at any age.
It's embarrassing.
Mostly because you just--
You look like you've had a stroke at 13.
So how did you cope with that at school?
You know, it's a funny thing.
I made jokes.
There's a great, you know
Those kind of things
sort of give you personality.
They teach you how to make fun of yourself
and not take yourself too seriously.
Well, you're right about that,
but you look okay now.
I'm doing all right, now.
You met your wife
And excuse me if I get this wrong.
And I just started twitching
when I heard this.
She came over to the house.
- You didn't even have to leave the house.
- I didn't leave the house. No, no.
- Oh, God.
- You know, it's the wildest thing.
A mutual friend of ours said,
"I'm stopping by,
and can I bring my friend?"
And I was like, "Of course."
And, you know, in Italy,
we sort of have
Someday you'll come visit.
You know.
[audience laughs]
Someday.
And we like to have people over,
and so I said, "Of course."
And I got a call from my agent,
who called me and said,
"I met this woman who's coming
to your house who you're gonna marry."
- Whoa.
- Yeah.
Now, this was arranged by an agent,
your talent agent?
Had done all the paperwork ahead of time.
- It really worked out that way.
- Yeah.
And the funniest thing
was my mom and dad were visiting,
so my parents were there.
And we just talked, and we stayed up
all night talking,
and then, you know,
I got her e-mail address,
'cause she was gonna send me
some pictures of my parents, and then
we started writing.
I didn't really have a
I didn't really-- I didn't know
if she wanted to go out with me.
I just thought we were buddies.
- Who would, George?
- Yeah.
Let's be frank, who really
would want to go out with you?
Well, I'm 17 years older than her, too,
and I was just
And I didn't-- And I have--
Had this dog, Einstein, and so I--
And she was a human rights lawyer,
so I would write letters
from Einstein to her.
You know, saying, "I'm being held hostage,
and I--" You know.
- You know.
- Very cute.
"And I need, you know, a lawyer
to get me out of the room, and"
That was in the summer,
and then October,
I went to London to score--
To do the score of a movie
at Abbey Road
which is a pretty cool thing,
you got 150-piece orchestra, and
And I thought if you're ever
gonna impress anybody
- I said, "You should come to Abbey Road."
- Sure.
And Amal's like, "Well, I'm at
the Muslim Brotherhood right now,
but I'll come over right after."
And so she left this meeting
where she's trying to hold
the Muslim Brotherhood
to account for something, and--
And we're just doing a dumb movie score.
I was like, "Yeah, this is very important
stuff we're working on here."
Now, let's define some terms here.
Okay.
What is under the category "human rights"?
Is that everything we're entitled to,
being carbon-based life-form
and breathing oxygen?
That seems fair, don't you think?
I think those would be
fair starting points,
where you say life, liberty,
pursuit of happiness.
I think you would also put the idea that
perhaps not killing your family
or raping you
would probably fall into those same
categories of human rights.
For instance, the Yezidis,
basically, ISIS has been trying
to commit genocide on them,
saying that they shouldn't exist.
And Amal's--
She's sort of the first one now
to be able to bring ISIS to court,
because strangely that hasn't happened.
You know, we kill them all,
we try to kill them all
but if you're a victim,
they want to be able to say,
"I want charges brought against you,
and I want my day in court,
because I want this not to just
end with your death.
I want us to be able to record this,
and I want evidence against you."
[jazzy piano music plays]
So much of his interest,
including here at your home,
- has been refugee work.
- Yes.
A refugee found you,
you found a refugee from Iraq
- What a moment.
- and is now part of the community.
- How did that begin? How did that happen?
- Amal.
Amal.
She decided she was going to take
a young woman
who had been brutalized by ISIS,
and she decided that
she was going to take Nadia Murad
on as a client, and take her to the UN,
and to try to make sure that
somebody answered for this.
And with Nadia was a young man.
He and Nadia are part of
a very small group called Yezidi
and they are not Muslim,
and for that and other reasons,
- they're horribly treated.
- Yezidi?
Is a religion.
- Religion.
- It's a small religion.
And we started right then,
George and Amal and Nina and I,
doing everything we could do
to get him out of there
and into this country.
He was clearly smart,
clearly loved the whole idea of America.
Good-looking kid.
- Look who I found.
- Hey.
Hey. How's it going?
Hi, kid.
- What time did you get in?
- Like two in the morning.
- This is Haz.
- Haz, how are you?
I'm doing well, thank you. How about you?
- Dave Letterman.
- Pleasure to meet you.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you met already.
I have not met, no.
So, Nick has told us much about you.
You tell us how this all happened for you.
Well, so the Iraq War started 2003.
I was nine years old at the time.
In the year 2007,
I had a cousin and his father,
both were killed.
He was working as a translator
with the American troops,
and al-Qaeda killed him for that reason.
And then in August of the same year,
they killed about 1,000 individuals,
and over a thousand were injured.
Every day after that,
my life was just terror.
Like, just fear.
How did you folks get out of there?
My brother and I were working
in a different town
when the genocide took place
so ISIS, like, started attacking
the region, like, town by town.
My family made it, you know,
like ten minutes before ISIS came.
So, you're out-- You have to outrun
this horrible storm of death.
Exactly. It was exactly the way
you describe it, as a storm.
- Like, you have to escape
- Yeah.
make your way out.
If you don't, you're gone, so
Unfortunately, the people
who could not make it in time
most of my friends basically
they were either killed
or taken as captives.
Could you go back there now if you wanted?
- To Iraq?
- To your hometown.
It's It's completely destroyed.
So far, seven mass graves
have been discovered in my town,
which is called Herdan, by the way.
Are your parents still alive?
My father died when I was three,
and my mom, she is alive
and she lives in Germany now.
I have a 13-year-old son,
and when he was nine years old,
if I thought he was carrying with him
the fear that you described
when you were nine years old,
I would be beside myself.
Living through that, it's imponderable.
Your wife must have known of your activity
and your humanitarian work.
And again, what a perfect match.
She is sort of this remarkable
human being,
and now mother, which is something
I suppose you should assume
she would be wonderful at as well,
but when you see it in person,
it makes you feel,
you know, incredibly proud
and also incredibly small.
Twins.
- Twins.
- Twins.
And
[audience laughs]
Sounds fun, doesn't it?
One wakes the other one--
This one's asleep. He's asleep.
Oh, he's asleep.
That one. You're like, "Oh, shit."
But you have a pair,
and as they grow together,
they'll take care of one another.
- That's the hope.
- And you can have hobbies again.
Yeah, in 20 years, when I'm--
When I'm your age. Yeah, exactly.
He had You--
- Your son was born when you were 50
- Fifty-seven.
- Fifty-seven. And I was 56, so
- Yeah.
And I wish I had a family earlier,
- sooner.
- Yeah.
I was preoccupied
with my little dinky show.
So that is a true regret.
But people
And I buy into this.
they say, "Oh, yeah,
but you're a better parent now
than you would have been then."
I don't know that that's true,
but that's how I'm living my life.
Would you think
Would you-- If given the chance,
- would you have had more children?
- Yes. Yes.
- By the way, now that you have kids
- Yeah.
do you still drink?
Not like I used to.
Now, when you say "like I used to,"
give me an example.
Well, I--
I never was--
It was never a problem for me.
I've had a couple of bad weeks
over the years,
but in general, not a problem for me.
I can have a couple of drinks and stop.
I have other family members who couldn't,
- so I had that lesson in life.
- Right.
You know, now that--
It wasn't just that,
it was when Amal was pregnant, too.
There was that sense that
you have to really have
your wits about you.
I think that's smart.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Yeah, because for God sakes
the purpose of your life is now not you.
- It's the-
- It's very odd.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- And I have to say,
before I had the twins,
I felt that about her.
I felt that I'd met someone
who I would absolutely, you know,
trade my life for.
You know, I would
I'd met someone that her life
meant more to me than my life,
and I'd never had that experience before.
And I'd, you know, had some lovely people
in my life, but this was--
The thing that really amazed me
And everybody knows this,
and forgive me,
and everybody told me this.
I went through desperate anxiety
for nine months,
and I would have these fears, and I--
I can remember one day
we were outside grilling,
and my wife was in the house,
and I'm grilling
and still possessed with this anxiety,
and she was like six
or seven months along.
And I said, "Oh, my God."
And she says, "What's the matter?"
And I said, "What if we have the baby,
and the baby is outside,
and I lose my mind and I kick it?"
- Right.
- Yeah.
- That's where I was.
- Yeah.
Yeah. And my wife says,
"Dave, just turn the hamburgers
and come back inside."
- But now, when they-- When he was born
- When he was born,
boom, it all vanished.
And did you feel
Did you feel immediately
that you were needed in that situation?
I tell you what I felt, George.
I felt like, oh, now
I firmly, fully, first time, know love.
Yeah.
You can tell yourself
that you love this or that,
or your wife, your friends, your mother,
but to be--
To feel it just wash up in you
- Yeah.
- that's what happens.
Yeah, that's a nice one.
That's a nice one.
[jazzy piano music plays]
[Clooney] Hi, Hazim. Hi, Dave.
- [Amal] Hi, Haz.
- Hi.
What are you guys doing this morning?
Apparently,
we're FaceTiming our family
with 50 cameramen or so
in the kitchen, which is
Yeah.
tomething that happens a lot.
George, you and Amal
have heard this story before.
I'm hearing it from him
for the first time.
And can you imagine?
Yeah, well, David, I've had the privilege
of representing a number of Yezidis
who've ben the victims of genocide
perpetrated by ISIS
over the last couple of years.
That's how I met Hazim.
And when I met him, I remember
being so struck by his courage,
but also just this amazing spirit,
and how he spoke about--
Even after everything he'd lost,
he spoke about a desire for justice,
not revenge.
And he talked about the future
and what his dreams were,
and I remember him telling us--
We were all in New York,
I was with George and Nick and Nina,
and he spoke about his dream
of one day studying in the US,
and I know we all had the same thought,
which was, well, maybe there's something
we can do to help with that.
What I'm beginning to think and learn
from talking to you,
to your father and Haz
Even to a guy like myself.
I attended Ball State,
which is the Harvard of Muncie.
Living one's life in this arena
by example,
and this will spread.
Haz living here,
going to university in Chicago,
this will not just be a one-off,
this will bear greater and greater fruit.
- From your mouth.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- Guys, ready for an adventure?
- Yeah.
Did you drive in Iraq?
I did not.
So far, so good, I must say.
Okay, before I start,
I might be good in many things,
but driving is not one of them, so
- So--
- It's not that important.
If you ride with me,
it means it's at your own risk, so
Nick, what would it take for you
to give me a home here?
Could that be worked out?
Let me think about that.
Nina, I wouldn't make trouble.
Oh, yes, you would. Oh, God.
- This is your home?
- Yep.
Oh, come on.
- Isn't it beautiful?
- Oh, come on.
Yeah, good for you.
What was your initial impression
when you walked in?
So, the moment I got in the house,
these shades were open
so I could see this beautiful view
from the river.
And I just fell in love with it,
- like, the very--
- Immediately.
- Immediately, yeah.
- Yeah.
And it's a beautiful house.
I enjoy it every day, living in this house
for, like, the last seven months.
It's so peaceful just to sit outside,
and so I would do that, like,
in the evening.
Just read and look at the river.
Obviously, here's a young man
5,000 miles from home.
And while this is a very
attractive place, he's all by himself.
So I thought it was proper to hang out,
so I slept on the couch.
And then George came,
stayed down here maybe a week.
Has George mentioned the house in Italy,
and maybe go visit the
Has that come up?
Maybe at some point
I will go and visit them.
Yeah, but has it come up?
Has he actually extended the invitation?
- Well--
- No, me either.
Did you go to the wedding?
No, neither did I.
Did you know there was a wedding?
You're not an American now,
is that correct?
I'm on a refugee status, yeah.
Yeah. So you will become an American?
It would be an honor,
like, in the future
if I'm eligible to receive
American citizenship, yeah.
Much easier than the driver's test.
I don't know about that, so
I'm so impressed by what I know
of you and your wife,
and there's not a person in this room
who wouldn't want to help
genocide refugees.
Nobody in here who would argue
with that desire.
- Right.
- I want to. I can't do it.
Certainly not on the level
that you have done it.
What I started with was Darfur
which was the thing that
Nick Kristof was writing about.
It was a slow-rolling genocide.
And the Sudanese government
was killing a lot of people
because they wanted their land
because, unfortunately, they found oil.
Now, this was a great inspiration for you.
A series of articles written
by this man for the New York Times.
That's right. Yeah.
The failing New York Times.
The failing New York-- Well, what ha--
I mean, it was an interesting thing.
He was writing these stories,
and, you know, he's winning a Nobel--
Or a Pulitzer.
- But the story wasn't playing.
- Yeah.
And I remember saying to him--
I took my father the first trip I went,
at 75 years old,
to 120-degree heat, and
And my dad had done a bunch of stories
in the '70s as a newsman,
and one of the stories he'd done
got bumped for a Liz Taylor story.
And I remember he was really
pissed off about it.
And so, I called my dad up,
and I said, "You know, Pop,
remember when Liz Taylor got you bumped?"
And he said "Yeah,"
and I said, "Well, why don't we go,
and you be the newsman,
and I'll be Liz Taylor,
and we'll get this story out?"
And And he said okay.
And, you know, we got there
That was the first trip we took.
And it morphed into working on
To give you an idea,
I had a satellite that we were renting,
and it would take shots of people
in real time
over areas that we can't get cameras to,
to be able to keep up with
mass atrocities, troop build-ups,
mass graves, that kind of stuff.
And for about two years,
we were really successful.
Front page of the New York Times,
we got some unbelievable stories.
But nobody does-- Did anything.
And so if you don't do anything after--
Now, what--
Weren't you dumbfounded by that?
Dumbfounded by it.
So then you're like,
"Well, then what's the other--"
How do you go after them? You go
after them by going after their money.
Because they have--
They're spending their money,
it's pounds, it's euros, it's dollars.
And those go into the same banks
that we all do business with.
Period. End of story.
So, we would-- We hired these
forensic accountants from the FBI.
We followed these guys, the president
of South Sudan, the vice president,
Salva Kiir and Riek Machar.
We follow them,
and not only do we follow them,
we find that they've changed
a company's name two times,
and they have, you know, 18 million,
$200 million at a bank.
And then we go to the banks,
and we sit down, and we go,
"Here's the evidence.
Now you can say you didn't know,
we're gonna say you didn't know.
I'm gonna say you didn't look hard enough,
but we're gonna say you didn't know.
Fair enough. Fair deal.
You know now.
So either you're going to work with
the Justice Department-- The Treasury
Not the Justice,
but the Treasury Department.
and you're going to help us
freeze these assets,
or we're gonna go public
and tell them about you,
and that'll be a problem for you."
'Cause you can shame the banks.
But it can--
Is it ever satisfying? Is it--
When I was there, I remember
we tried to get to a town called Kadugli,
which was a very
dangerous place to get to.
Interestingly, there is a real sense
of adventure
in someone saying
you can't get to Kadugli.
You can't get there 'cause--
I wish I had a nickel for every time
someone has said that to me.
It's funny though,
there is that moment where you go,
"I can get there, and we'll get there."
And that drive up the road
where they pull you over
and, you know, a 14-year-old kid
pulls you out of the car,
and he's got an AK-47,
and he makes you kneel down,
puts a gun to your chest.
And it's not because
they're Northern Sudanese militia,
it's because they want your truck
and all the things in it.
And there's nobody around.
And so many times,
that's how you get killed.
Not because he saw Batman?
No. If he'd seen Batman,
he would have shot me right there.
[audience laughs]
Right on the spot.
He'd be like, "I know you."
No, no, no.
- "You put nipples on the Batsuit."
- Okay.
[audience laughs, cheers]
"Give me the director,
I'm gonna shoot him, too."
[jazzy theme music plays]
[Letterman] Tell me again
where you learned English.
Remember I told you
about my cousin who got killed?
Who was a translator
with the American troops?
- Yes.
- So he sent me a dictionary
as a gift for me to start reading it.
I think I was, like, in sixth grade.
- Like ten or nine years old at the time.
- I'm sorry. Excuse me.
[man] Slow down, walk a little slower.
I'm an enormous man, I walk how I walk.
All right.
[engine starts]
[man] Cue the lawnmower.
I'll take care of this. Hey.
Hey.
It's no surprise that this would be
what we call a red area
- predominantly.
- Exactly.
But there's been no resistance to the idea
of you having another son from Iraq here.
That's exactly right, and I--
I learned something myself
as we went through this process.
On a one-on-one,
this is a very generous community.
- [Hazim] It is.
- [Letterman] Hi.
Hey, guys. We're here.
Thank you.
Seriously.
Seriously.
In his own hometown.
Haz, I know you don't know who I am.
I know you don't care who I am,
but it was a great pleasure meeting you.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you for visiting.
- Thank you very much.
Nina.
Nick, you guys
will take care of this, right?
You bet. Absolutely. Yeah.
Sure thing.
Drive safely but as fast as you can.
Could you have had-- Let's say your
- Work at a Dairy Queen.
- Right.
Which is not a bad gig.
Could you have done that if you were--
"It's George
the guy that'll get you
the double-dipped chocolate cone"?
Well, you know,
here's the truth about that.
I'm able to do it
because I can afford to do it, you know.
There's an awful lot of people
that have two or three jobs
just to make ends meet to survive,
and they look at doing
something like that and think,
"I'd do it if I could,"
or they'll do it--
Some involvement at their church.
Whatever way they can, they get involved.
I think people are basically good,
and I think most people do what they can.
I really do. And I think that
You know, I do have
this Irish Catholic guilt
that feels like I got--
I hit the jackpot, you know.
A million versions of this probably
wouldn't have ended up where it did,
so you should spread some luck around.
Let me ask you,
I know that you--
And maybe I shouldn't know this.
You live in Clark Gable's house.
- Yeah, it was his hunting lodge.
- Hunting lodge.
It was a little thing, and they made it
into a little bit bigger
Yeah. Now, this says to me
that you're a student of your craft.
- Sure.
- So tell me,
like '30s and '40s,
who did you like as a leading man?
I think in general,
my favorite actor on screen
- '40s and '50s, would be Spencer Tracy.
- Mm-hmm.
There was always a sense of
we could live through him, our eyes.
There was a sense of logic to him,
- and a sense of decency.
- Yeah.
Actors, part of what you're doing
is kind of lying for a living,
you're pretending to be someone else,
and he never-- You never felt like that.
He would look at his mark--
If you watch--
If you watch Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,
you can actually watch Spencer Tracy
look at his mark.
You know, you get a mark on the ground?
And he's doing this scene
with Katharine Hepburn where he says,
"If you loved her as much--"
You know, "If you loved your--
My daughter half as much as I love
my wife--" It's a beautiful scene.
And you see him standing across the thing,
and he's waiting like this,
you know, he's--
He dies a couple months later,
he's really old.
And he kind of goes like this,
and he just
He looks like this,
and he walks over like this,
in the middle of the scene,
and he goes
And the funniest thing is, as an actor,
you would be lying. I would be--
You're lying to look--
You're not supposed to have a mark.
So if you, as an actor, do this
"Well, you know"
And you just do that,
that glance down is a tell. I'm a liar.
I'm lying to you.
I'm not-- This is all fake.
So the idea that you just
look right at it
[audience laughs]
There you go.
And he would look at lights.
"There's a light."
You're supposed to be looking at the moon,
and he's like,
"There's Joe on the light."
Do you know-- How come I--
Nobody ever came to me and said,
"Let's buy a tequila company."
Yeah.
Now, what is the difference
between you and me there?
Who was that?
That's just
That's just dumb luck.
You answered an ad--
- An ad in the paper.
- Let me just put it to you this way.
- This one was one where Rande and I--
- Rande?
- Rande Gerber.
- What's he doing now?
Well, he's married to Cindy Crawford,
so he doesn't have to do shit.
- God.
- You know. Honestly.
Good God. He's got two beautiful kids,
and now he's got
a billion-dollar tequila company.
So he comes to you and he said,
"Let-- I know some guys
who are making tequila--"
We had these adjoining houses
that we built
in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
called casamigos, the houses.
And we're very good friends,
and we were drinking tequila,
and we thought,
well, let's have our own house tequila.
How much tequila were you drinking?
Enough to have our own
goddamn house tequila.
About a billion dollars' worth, Dave.
So, no, we went down to Jalisco,
which is where they make tequila,
and we, for about two years,
tried and sampled different kinds
and different flavors
and different styles,
and eventually we got one, and we made
Christmas presents for our friends,
and we would drink it
whenever we went down there.
And then somebody came to us and said,
"Well, you know you could sell this."
And we were like, "Okay, yeah, whatever."
And
And so we started selling it.
And we didn't really do any commercials,
it just started selling,
and then it started selling fast,
and then, you know,
it's a four-year-old company.
You know, that's pretty crazy.
And it's a handshake deal,
and we all put--
You know, we put our own money in it.
I so desperately
want to be part of your family.
Yes.
I like you.
I'm not sure it's being returned,
but I want to be
I have nothing but admiration for you
your wife, whom I probably
will never meet.
She loves you.
And And Rande.
- Yeah.
- Now
You said that maybe now
you'll do more writing,
more directing, more producing.
- Is that-- That's not true necessarily?
- Yeah
I mean
If I find a great part, I'll do it,
but, you know--
You're not gonna run. Nobody really
wants you to run, because that would--
You could do less running
- than you can as a private citizen.
- Yeah.
And doesn't it look like fun
once you get there?
George, you're an awfully nice man.
You're an awfully ni-- I'm--
I'm so happy to see you.
- Happy to see you.
- I really am.
Very impressive.
And thank you for being here.
Well, thank you.
And thank you guys for--
Everybody coming out.
George Clooney, ladies and gentlemen.
[audience applauds]
[jazzy theme music plays]
When I was a kid,
I used to hear jokes all the time.
And now, for some reason,
I don't hear jokes all the time.
- Oh, you don't?
- And I heard one two week ago,
and so as a reason to get--
To tell this joke, I'm gonna ask you
if you've heard any jokes lately,
and then I'm gonna tell this joke.
You mean it's a full joke? Like a--
It's a full joke,
like an actual thing with a setup.
- Like "three guys walk into a bar"
- That's right.
- Oh, with a setup.
- That's exactly right.
I have to think about "joke" jokes.
Not really. I have
- I like punch lines.
- Yeah.
Just punch lines.
Ping-pong balls. I thought you said
King Kong's balls.
- No, I don't know that one.
- I don't know
I don't know, it's just a punch line--
Have you ever heard
"the light lunch was my idea"?
- No.
- Oh, man.
Or the bear that says,
"You know, you're not just
coming here for the hunting"?
Yeah, I think it may be the same joke.
A friend of mine told me this joke
like a week ago.
- Okay.
- And it's a complete
- beginning, middle, and end.
- Okay, let's hear it.
- A company is hiring.
- Right.
So a guy wants the job.
And the employment guys says,
"Tell me a little bit about yourself.
What are your three
strongest characteristics?"
And he said, "Well, I'm a hard worker.
I'm always on time,
and I'm a problem solver."
And the guy says,
"Well, that's fantastic.
Now, give me something
negative about you."
And he says, "Well, I gotta tell you,
I'm brutally honest."
And the guy hiring says,
"Well, I don't think that's much--"
"I don't care what you think!"
You just wanted the punch line.
- Yeah, that's right.
- You just wanted to yell at me.
Yeah, but that's not bad, is it?
I like that one.