George Clooney: All at sea in The Perfect Storm

Why did you want to play Bobby Shatford originally?


Because Mel Gibson was going to play the role of Billy Tyne and I wanted to work with Mel. And then Mel's schedule started to fall apart and Wolfgang called me and said, "Do you want to play Billy Tyne?" I said, "Yeah. Who are you thinking about for Bobby? He named a couple of actors and I said, "What about Mark Wahlberg?"

This is the second time you've worked with Wahlberg, after Three Kings and you'll be shooting the Oceans 11 remake together too. Why do you like working with him?


I don't like working with him. I'm stuck working with him. I've tried to get away from him, I can't. He's fun to work with. I like him. He doesn't have much of a jump shot and he can't go to his right. That makes me feel better.

What did you learn about the lives of the Gloucester fishermen?


I don't have any concept of what it's like to have to do something like this. I grew up in a very poor town [Maysville, Kentucky] and we would make money doing things like cutting tobacco and mowing lawns, but no one was going to get killed doing it so it's a whole different level.

Are you going fishing again any time soon?


Not for a while, I don't think. I lived on the Ohio River, so we'd go out in old-timers, get out on a tugboat. It's really fun. But it's the Ohio River and you could see both banks. There's something good about always being able to see a little bit of land. Every time in the film that we'd take the boat out you couldn't see land any more and I'd say, "Hah! Get a little bit closer in."

Have you felt the extreme power of nature in your own life?

I remember I was about 10 or 11 years old when we were living on a farm in Mason, Ohio, and a tornado went through and destroyed this town of Xenia and flattened our barn. If you've grown up in the Midwest you've seen pretty much everything. We had the good earthquake, the beauty, back in LA. It scared the shit out of me. I came running out naked with my pig. My pig was naked as well. And my buddy Ben, who was living in the guesthouse down below, came running out and he was naked and he had a gun. He thought someone was breaking in. My biggest fear was that we would end up getting killed and they'd just find two naked guys, a gun and a pig.