In the film, the heartthrob plays CBS-TV news pioneer and hero Fred Friendly, who produced barrier-breaking legend Edward R. Murrow, the only newsman to take on out-of-control Commie hunter Joe McCarthy, confronting everyone from the Air Force to CBS bosses to do it. Clooney, who co-wrote and directed the riveting film, yesterday said the current CBS chief, Les Moonves, isn't in the Friendly mold.
"I have friends who run big companies and they talk about very disturbing things at times," Clooney said in the British newspaper The Evening Standard.
"Les Moonves is a good friend of mine and he has been talking about making television news a bit more like MTV and pepping it up. I don't envy his position, because he has to go back to shareholders and tell them that they're not going to make as much money from the news as they could. It's a constant battle between entertainment and news."
In an interview Clooney probably would have loved, Moonves told The New York Times last month, "There's 'Naked News,' which is on cable in England [featuring] a woman giving the news as she's getting undressed. And then, on the other hand, you could have two boring people behind a desk. Our newscast has to be somewhere in between."
Meanwhile, Fred Friendly's widow, Ruth, surprised the star-studded audience at Time Warner Center Wednesday. "George got one thing wrong in his portrayal of my husband," she said. "He's much better-looking than Fred. But he doesn't let it get in the way."
Looks like even Warner Independent, the studio that took a chance on "March of the Penguins" and "Searching for Comedy in the Muslim World," won't go near "Strangers With Candy."
This likely comes as bad news to star Amy Sedaris and the rest of the blockbuster cast, which includes Sarah Jessica Parker, Justin Theroux, Kristen Johnston, Allison Janney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Stephen Colbert.
"It was so much fun" to film, gushed Matthew Broderick yesterday. Broderick plays a science teacher. "[Sedaris] is just the funniest person in the world."
An industry insider sniped that the delay might be due to Warner-wide overlawyering after the summer hit "Dukes of Hazzard" was socked with a series of lawsuits, mainly over rights — even though "Strangers" easily passed insurance standards. While the film has not left the studio yet, it might.
We hear that the film, which won accolades from audiences at Sundance (but was snubbed by indie filmmakers for being "too entertaining"), has other studios waiting in the wings.
Those Hilton sisters are so off Mary-Kate's buddy list. Paris ditched one Greek shipping heir for another in the form of Stavros Niarchos, who probably still has the Olsen twin's itty-bitty handprints all over him. And little sister Nicky has scooped up M-K castoff David Katzenberg, son of DreamWorks bigshot Jeff. The foursome met up at Nicky's 22nd-birthday party in West Hollywood the other night.
Even after hundreds of performances alongside Nathan Lane in "The Producers," Matthew Broderick still got stage fright when the duo debuted in "The Odd Couple" this week.
"It was very frightening," he admitted to us yesterday at the Marriott Marquis, where the Motion Picture Club made him its Man of the Year. "You do everything in this little room, and then on the set with the same six people watching, and then suddenly there are 600 people watching!"
Broderick performed the Neil Simon classic for the public for the first time Tuesday, with wife Sarah Jessica Parker in the audience. Does it feel familiar being onstage with Lane, we wondered?
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