George Clooney says he couldn’t handle the pressure that young Hollywood stars face today.
“If I were as famous as some of those kids who are on the magazines right now at 21 years old, I’d be shooting crack under my eyeball,” the 46-year-old actor says in an interview in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine, on newsstands Monday.
Clooney and Brad Pitt, his co-star in “Ocean’s Thirteen,” aim to keep a low profile in their everyday lives. In present-day celebrity culture, however, a younger generation of media magnets courts the cameras — and often delivers the most tantalizing — and unflattering — headlines.
“We are always going to be that society that slows down to look at the car wreck on the side of the road,” says Clooney. “I think we’re just in one of those places right now, and it seems to be focused on younger kids. Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and people like that.”
“They’ll get through it, but I wouldn’t want to be growing up around that.”
Says Pitt: “But being that is our nature, you have to focus on other, more important issues too, because those (car wreck) tendencies can be very disruptive and aren’t a good guide on how to live your life.”
“No, it’s a terrible guide,” Clooney says.
When the actors are asked how they are able to deal with media attention, Pitt, 43, replies: “You adjust. You keep your sanity. You find your moments alone.”
Says Clooney: “I’ll say, too, we’ve been doing this for a while now. I was in no shape at 21 to be dealing with fame.”
“... But the younger breed seems to be groomed for it and accept it in a way,” says Pitt, and Clooney responds: “Right, because now fame is more an (end in and of itself rather) than working, necessarily.”