(Credits: Far Out / Nicolas Genin)
Fri 19 December 2025 21:30, UK
If there’s one thing actors love to do, it’s to make films about acting.
The latest in a long line of meta-performances comes from George Clooney in the new film from Noah Baumbach, Jay Kelly. As the eponymous fictional movie star, Kelly takes a break from life of glitz and glamour to reflect on how he got to the top and try to figure out just who the hell he actually is.
The cuteness of Clooney playing an ageing matinee idol is not lost on anyone. However, it wasn’t just his own life from which he drew inspiration. At a red carpet event for the film, Vanity Fair asked the silver fox who his favourite movie stars of all time were. In true Clooney style, he stuck to the classics.
“I would say that there are two that I was friends with that I think of as two of the greatest of all time,” he said, before dropping two names so hard it’s amazing they didn’t go through the floor.
“I was great friends with Paul Newman,” he continued. “I was great friends with Gregory Peck. And y’know, she only did a few films, but, the entire time she was on screen you couldn’t take your eyes off of Grace Kelly. So I’ll go with those three.”
Clooney’s close relationship with Newman is well-documented. When he first burst onto the scene, many comparisons were drawn between this newcomer and the star of The Sting. They were both handsome, charming leading men who embodied a certain intangible quality that simply couldn’t be taught. Newman acted as something of a mentor for Clooney, with the current icon revealing that the departed one was part of the reason why he won’t be kissing any of his female co-stars anymore. Clooney even played a version of Newman in the docuseries The Last Movie Stars.
His friendship with Peck is less chronicled, but no less important. He enjoyed many holidays with the Oscar winner in Italy. When news broke of Peck’s death in 2003, his friend made everyone he was with sit down and watch To Kill a Mockingbird out of respect for the fallen hero. Both Newman and Peck exuded that same old-world cool, an ability to generate intrigue and respect simply by walking into frame. Both were giant stars in their own time and continue to fly the flag for that era of Hollywood to this day.
As for the third and final member of Clooney’s trio, she is still held up as the epitome of femininity on screen. Kelly (that’s Grace, not Jay) accomplished more in her five years of stardom than most actors do in their entire lives. She is credited with ushering in an entirely new type of female presence in the movies, helping Hollywood move away from the femme fatales of the noir era and into a new age of glamorous, perky blondes. A favourite of Hitchcock, a staunch philanthropist, and a real-life princess, she was truly one of a kind.
They might not be particularly obscure names, but Clooney’s choices are well known for a reason. Between the three of them, they cover pretty much everything that encapsulated movie stardom in the 1940s, 1950s, and beyond. Absolute legends every day of the week.
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