By Gavin Mackintosh-
VENICE — George Clooney(pictured) arrived at the Venice Film Festival to collect one of cinema’s most coveted lifetime honours. He left the press conference talking about something rather more contentious: free speech, Hollywood’s growing concentration of power and the controversy engulfing fellow actor Mark Ruffalo.
Clooney, 65, defended Ruffalo after the Avengers star was accused of antisemitism over his criticism of the proposed $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros by Paramount Skydance, calling the controversy “ridiculous” and insisting that Ruffalo should be able to express his views.
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“I support Mark Ruffalo’s ability to speak freely,” Clooney told reporters in Venice on Wednesday. “We’re not going to ban speech. I believe in free speech even when I completely disagree with it. That’s important. In fact, it’s part of how democracy works.”
The remarks came on a day when Clooney himself was being celebrated as one of Hollywood’s most accomplished figures. The Venice Film Festival awarded him its Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, an honour recognising a career that has taken him from television heartthrob to Oscar-winning actor, director and produce
Clooney’s intervention over Ruffalo was therefore not simply a celebrity weighing into another celebrity’s dispute. It was the latest expression of a long-established willingness to use his position in Hollywood to speak about politics, journalism, war and civil liberties.
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And on this occasion, the subject was particularly close to his professional world: who controls the companies that make, distribute and report the stories that audiences consume.
Ruffalo has emerged as one of the most outspoken opponents of Paramount Skydance’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros. He has rejected accusations that his criticism of the deal relied on antisemitic tropes, arguing that criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a military technology contract or executives associated with it should not be conflated with hostility towards Jewish people.
Ruffalo has also stressed that he has “deep love and respect” for Jewish people. More than 180 Jewish figures from the entertainment industry subsequently signed an open letter supporting Ruffalo, including Joaquin Phoenix, Hannah Einbinder and filmmaker Joel Coen.
Clooney’s own view of the proposed merger was more cautious than his defence of Ruffalo.He described the deal as complicated and said he did not understand how it ultimately made financial sense for those pursuing it. His bigger concern was the effect of consolidation on workers.
“I worry when a big company swallows up another company,” he said. “I always worry whenever big companies are consolidating because it means a lot of people are going to lose their jobs.”
That concern fits neatly into the broader mood surrounding Clooney’s appearance in Venice. The actor has become increasingly vocal about the threats posed by concentrated media ownership and, more recently, artificial intelligence and deepfakes.
He warned at the festival that AI-generated material could make it increasingly difficult for audiences to distinguish fact from fiction, potentially damaging trust in both journalism and cinem et Clooney’s career gives him an unusual platform from which to make such arguments.
He first became a household name not through cinema but through television, playing Dr Doug Ross on the medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999. The role turned him into an international star and established the charm, wit and effortless screen presence that would later become hallmarks of his film career. Then came the movies.
Clooney became a major Hollywood leading man through films including Out of Sight, Three Kings and the Ocean’s trilogy, while simultaneously building a reputation for choosing more politically and socially ambitious material.
His breakthrough as an Oscar-winning dramatic actor came with Syriana, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He later received Oscar nominations for Michael Clayton, Up in the Air and The Descendants. He won a second Oscar as a producer of Argo, which took the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2013.
The breadth of those achievements is unusual. Clooney has received eight Academy Award nominations across six different categories — a record-setting range that reflects his work not merely in front of the camera but also as a director, writer and producer. The American Film Institute notes that his eight nominations span more categories than any living individual in Oscar history.
His awards cabinet extends well beyond the Oscars. He has received Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards and a BAFTA, as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the AFI Life Achievement Award and the Kennedy Center Honors. The Venice Golden Lion now adds another of cinema’s great career prizes.
The festival has a particular claim on Clooney. His first appearance there came nearly three decades ago, when Out of Sight screened at Venice in 1998. Since then, the festival has accompanied several important chapters of his career, including appearances connected with Good Night, and Good Luck, Michael Clayton, Gravity and, most recently, Jay Kelly.
There is also a more personal connection. Venice was where Clooney married Amal Alamuddin in 2014, and the city has since become a recurring backdrop to both his professional and personal life. At Wednesday’s ceremony, his longtime connection with the festival gave the lifetime achievement award something of the feel of a homecoming But Clooney’s Venice appearance has been about considerably more than nostalgia.
He also took aim at US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after Hegseth posted what Clooney described as a cruel social-media message appearing to mock Canadian military cadets.“You’re going, ‘What’s wrong with you?’” Clooney said. “Where’s the sense of decency in all of this?”
He described himself as optimistic about America’s future despite what he called an extraordinarily difficult political moment, invoking the word “kakistocracy” — government by the least qualified people — to describe his view of the current political climate.
Clooney has never been shy about crossing the invisible boundary Hollywood stars are sometimes expected to observe between entertainment and politics. In 2008 he became a United Nations Messenger of Peace, while his humanitarian work has included campaigning on issues involving conflict, refugees and mass atrocities. Alongside Amal Clooney, he later co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice.
His political intervention has occasionally been unusually direct. In 2024, he wrote publicly urging President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, citing concerns about his age and ability to defeat Donald Trump. Now, as he collects a prize marking the achievements of his own career, Clooney is using the Venice spotlight to make another argument: that Hollywood’s power should not become so concentrated that individual voices disappear. That puts his defence of Ruffalo in a wider context.
The dispute began with a proposed corporate merger, moved into an argument over Israel and antisemitism, and arrived in Venice as a debate about free expression. Clooney’s position was that the answer to controversial speech should be more speech, not censorship.
“I believe in free speech even when I completely disagree with it,” he said.
An actor who has spent much of his career playing men navigating political crises, moral compromises and institutional power, it was a distinctly Clooney-like role to assume in real life.There was also an irony to the timing. On the very day that Venice celebrated Clooney for a career built on the power of storytelling, he was warning about what happens when too few companies gain control over the stories themselves.
The Golden Lion recognised the man who became one of Hollywood’s most recognisable stars.His remarks in Venice suggested that, at 65, George Clooney has no intention of quietly becoming part of Hollywood’s history.He still wants to argue with it.
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