George Clooney (right) with Matt Damon and Hugh Bonneville in the Monuments Men. The movie's reviews were of concern to the star. Photo / Columbia Pictures
George Clooney (right) with Matt Damon and Hugh Bonneville in the Monuments Men. The movie's reviews were of concern to the star. Photo / Columbia Pictures
He's the most admired and desired man in Hollywood - but George Clooney is deeply hurt by bad reviews, the latest tranche of leaked Sony emails revealed yesterday.
The recently-married actor was so appalled by the critical reaction to his Second World War film The Monuments Men earlier this yearthat he wrote to Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal saying he needed "protection from all the reviews".
In an email sent on January 29 with the subject line "it's getting worse", Clooney wrote: "Let's just make it a hit. I haven't slept in 30 hours. And it's 7am." Pascal's reassuringly bullish response - "We will protect you by making money ... that's the best revenge" - didn't seem to restore the star's self-confidence, as he sent another anguished email the next day expressing remorse about his work on the film, which told the story of an Allied unit tasked with saving artistic treasures from the Nazis.
"I fear I've let you all down. Not my intention. I apologise. I've just lost touch ... Who knew? Sorry. I won't do it again," he wrote.
The Independent's review of the film, which Clooney also directed and co-wrote, described it as a "profoundly frustrating and unsatisfying film". It has an average score of just 31 per cent on the influential Rotten Tomatoes review aggregation website.
The Clooney emails are the latest embarrassing revelation to emerge from the cache of emails stolen from Sony in a mass cyber-attack, with suspected links to North Korea, thought to have been staged in revenge for Sony's production of the soon-to-be released The Interview - a comedy about a CIA plot to kill Kim Jong-un.
In another email released yesterday, Ms Pascal apparently described Leonardo DiCaprio as "despicable" for pulling out of the proposed film about the life of Apple's founder Steve Jobs.
Separately, it emerged that Sony executives had jokingly warned staff about casting Will Smith or his children in any more films after the publication of a bizarre interview of Willow and Jaden in November, in which they revealed they had been home-schooled.
An email dated November 18, apparently sent to Ms Pascal by Tom Rothman, chair of Sony's joint venture TriStar Productions, contained a link to the article with two clear instructions. "1. Read this. 2. they r home schooled: don't let this family date your movies!!!"
