George Clooney the bachelor relishes playing family man in ‘Descendants’

TORONTO – George Clooney is one of the world’s most eminently eligible bachelors, but he says he relished portraying a family man in the new drama “The Descendants.”

Especially since he wasn’t actually responsible for his young co-stars.

“It was like having children, only I got to give them away at the end of the day, and it was much nicer,” Clooney grinned during a press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday.

It was a moment of levity from an uncommonly earnest Clooney, who a day prior had joked and mugged through a media gathering for the other film he’s promoting at this year’s festival, “The Ides of March.”

He struck a different tone on Saturday, joined by the movie’s Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne and fledgling cast members Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller and Nick Krause.

Clooney stars as a Hawaiian lawyer whose wife is dying after sustaining head injuries in a freak boating accident. Still consumed with grief, he seeks to reconnect with his two troubled daughters, he seethes over the news that his wife was having an affair and he has to decide what to do with a valuable piece of Hawaiian land that he’s inherited.

It’s a rich, demanding role, and stands as a stark contrast to Clooney’s turn as a slick politician in “Ides,” a film he also directed. He was asked on several occasions to compare the experiences.

“This was obviously a lot more challenging to do as an actor, because when you’re directing yourself, you’re really only doing a part (and) I know exactly what I need done in it,” he said.

“Obviously, this was a much more difficult part – but I also had a much better director,” he added slyly, to a round of laughter.

Clooney resisted other attempts to compare the two films or to speak in terms of the movies competing against one another for attention at the festival. But as far as his press rounds promoting the two films, it was a stark contrast; where he was funny and flippant one day, he was thoughtful and genuine the next.

He said that he had wanted to collaborate for Payne for years and knew he was interested in “The Descendants” without reading the script. The rapport between star and director was obvious, and at one point Payne took over the role of questioner from a roomful of journalists, grilling Clooney on his influences as a director (Sidney Lumet and Steven Soderbergh were two that were mentioned).

Both men saved plenty of praise for their cast while poking fun at their inexperience. Miller, who plays Clooney’s youngest daughter in the film, had never acted in so much as a school play before joining the movie, while Payne said that an enthusiastic Krause awarded the director a bag of Cheetos at one of his auditions (“I figured he’d be hungry after a long day of casting,” Krause shrugged).

Still, Clooney managed to crack up the room a couple times.

After the precocious Miller praised Clooney and Payne as “so cool” and “masters at what they do,” Clooney cracked: “She’s 32.” Later, a reporter informed Payne that the film had made him cry, and Payne struggled to find the words to react.

“I broke into tears after ‘Batman & Robin,'” Clooney interjected, referring to his critically panned 1997 superhero caper.

But he says that since then, he’s honed his sense of which films are worth making. And he’s no longer guided by box-office returns.

“I want to do projects that last longer than an opening weekend – that’s it,” he said.

“When they do that thing for you when you’re 75 and they bring you out in a wheelchair and you’ve got a colostomy bag hanging off the side of you, you don’t want them to say: ‘You had 20 films that opened No. 1.'”

“The truth is, I want to make things that people remember. And if you’re able to do five or 10 of those in your life that last, then you win.

“You know, unless someone steps on your colostomy bag.”

The Toronto International Film Festival runs to Sept. 18.