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One year later, Clooney, 65, is back at the Venice Film Festival for a spin in the spotlight on the opening night for a bit of life imitating art as he will take the stage inside Sala Grande on Wednesday evening to receive the fest’s highest honor — a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. As is tradition for such a moment, Clooney braved the international media for an opening day press conference on Wednesday afternoon – and because of who he is and the variety of his art and activism over a 40-plus-year career, he fielded questions on a wide variety of subjects including Hollywood, politics, climate change, the proposed Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) merger, the state of journalism, AI, deep fakes and more.

Getting into the thick of the tough questions, Clooney was asked to deliver his take on the status of the United States, a broad question relating to the current political landscape. “Look, I’m always very optimistic about things, and we’re at a moment in time that’s unfortunate — I think that’s an understatement. I do believe that we’re going to get through all of this.”

He said that November’s elections “should be a check and balance,” adding that in 2028 “with any luck, we’ll have some restoration into some normalcy.” Clooney then took a moment to call out Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s recent controversial social media post that featured women from the military in Canada. “Where’s the sense of decency in all of this? I’m ashamed of all of that. But we will get through it, and we will come out better on the other side.”

Clooney was asked to respond to Paramount’s criticism of Mark Ruffalo, who has come out against the proposed WBD merger. The studio took the position that his recent comments were antisemitic, and Clooney stood up for Ruffalo and for free speech.

“I support Mark Ruffalo’s ability to speak freely. I think that that’s ridiculous. We’re not going to ban speech,” Clooney said during the Venice press event. “I believe in free speech even when I completely disagree with it. That’s important, right? In fact, it’s part of how a democracy works. There are going to be people tonight in the room that are going to disagree with most everything I say or stand for. Fair enough. That’s how it’s supposed to be. We’re supposed to argue these things out and come to a conclusion based on the information that we take in.”

He continued: “I will always support Mark Ruffalo’s ability to speak freely. I like him. He’s a good man.” As for the merger itself, Clooney called it a “complicated thing” that he doesn’t quite foresee going through or benefiting the deal architects like David Ellison.

“I don’t know how this goes through. There are so many issues involved,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how much money you have; it’s going to be very tricky to do. So, my opinion on the merger is: I always worry whenever big companies are consolidating because it usually means a lot of people lose their jobs. That’s the truth.”

He then pivoted to talking about the “revolution in our industry” as it relates to artificial intelligence. “It’s going to hurt us in a lot of ways. If you’re a visual effects supervisor, you’re going to have trouble coming up because that’s going to be a lot of jobs are going to be taken away. Probably about 30 percent of the jobs. I don’t know what the real number is, but there’s going to be a big number of jobs are going to be taken away, and we’re kind of on our back foot on it. We’re not on taking the lead on it.”

As for how AI impacts him personally, Clooney quipped, “Well, I would like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after I’m dead. I would like to avoid that.”

Clooney was also asked to give his take on the state of journalism today as well, a relevant question for him considering he’s the son of a journalist and he’s married to Amal Clooney, the daughter of a journalist. “We have nothing but admiration and support for journalism,” he said, pointing out the work that their foundation does to help support and free jailed journalists that have stood up against various regimes. “The state of journalism is always in flux, always challenged. It was that way in the 1700s. It is that way now. It’s a concern for a moment, but I do believe that information will find its way out.”

That said, he called it “a concern” that “the richest people in the world right now are owning the Washington Post and [Twitter aka X], most of the places we get our information,” referencing Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, respectively. “I think five or six of the biggest outlets for information are owned by the richest people in the world. That’s a concern, but there’s still a lot of room for good journalism.”

He was also asked to reflect on the art imitating life piece of it all with Jay Kelly and whether today feels like his arc in the film, which was described as “romantic but also melancholy.”

“It’s a little bit similar to the tribute I get in the movie, which is kind of funny. You know, I’m 65 years old; everything is melancholy. Literally, you brush your teeth, and you’re like, oh, my teeth used to be so much nicer. Everything about getting older, you get a little melancholy,” he explained. “I also feel very lucky. I have an incredible wife who I love very much and loves me, and I have great kids … I continue to be able to work when I want to. You know, life is pretty good.”

Clooney continued by saying that while he’s in a good place, there’s a lot of stuff in the world that isn’t. While that takes a lot of focus at times, as it should, “we also have to remember to celebrate the good things that are happening in our lives.”

One good thing that’s about to happen in his life is reteaming with close friends like Brad Pitt and Matt Damon in another Ocean’s Eleven installment. Clooney teased that project, which has already been announced by saying, “We have an Ocean’s film that we’re going to shoot as soon as we get our schedules worked.”

Clooney is just about as beloved as they come here in Venice. The actor has a long history with the festival both as an actor and filmmaker dating back several decades to the world premiere of Steven Soderbergh’s 1998 drama Out of Sight opposite Jennifer Lopez. His history also includes the Coen brothers’ film Intolerable Cruelty opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones, the Clooney-directed Good Night and Good Luck, Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton, another Coen effort, Burn After Reading with Brad Pitt, another Clooney special with The Ides of March, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity co-starring Sandra Bullock, Clooney’s Suburbicon, and more recently with Jon Watts’ Wolfs, also opposite Pitt.

But he’s also treated as a sort of countrywide hero as well thanks to his longtime residency of Lake Como with wife, Amal Clooney and their twins. Amal has accompanied him to this year’s festival. She got a lot of attention from the podium from Clooney today. “I will say I have had a love story with Venice for about 30 years, and in fact was married here, and so I would say that my greatest moment here was obviously my wedding because I would get in a lot of trouble if I don’t say that,” he quipped.

But he spread the love to the festival as well. “This is a film festival that has been very dear to me. My first big directing gig was Good Night, and Good Luck. I’ve had immense successes and I’ve had massive failures. I remember I was here with Catherine Zeta-Jones for Intolerable Cruelty, and none of the jokes played here, and it was over. Usually, people stand up and applaud, and everybody just turned and looked at us. I looked at Catherine and I said, ‘Run!’ And we ran out of the theater.”

But there have been plenty of “wonderful” moments as well. “Careers are really funny. It’s so many different accidents that get you here, so many different lefts and rights, and things that could have gone wrong or right. It’s hard to sustain all of that, and you have to rely on kindness of friends and kindness of people you work with,” he said. “But it really requires luck all the way through.”