Even before the news conference for “Jay Kelly” began on Thursday afternoon at the Venice Film Festival, the Italian journalist near me let out a sigh. Nameplates had just been set out for the director Noah Baumbach and members of the film’s ensemble, including Adam Sandler, Laura Dern and Billy Crudup, but no placard was placed on the dais for George Clooney, the film’s unambiguous star.
It’s true that the Venice Film Festival has had some conspicuous no-shows in the past: Who can forget four years ago, when Florence Pugh skipped the “Don’t Worry Darling” news conference amid speculation that she was feuding with the director Olivia Wilde? (Wilde insisted that Pugh was busy with filming commitments outside the country, though her star soon posted a video from Venice brandishing an Aperol spritz.)
Still, Clooney’s not the type to duck and run. A Venice regular, he’d done news conference duties just last year for “Wolfs,” where he faced tricky questions about the presidential election and his film’s aborted theatrical release. What could have kept him off the dais this time?
A punishing sinus infection, it turns out. “Even movie stars get sick,” Baumbach deadpanned.
If there was a meta quality to Clooney’s absence at the news conference, it’s only because you can imagine the same kind of incident happening in “Jay Kelly.” Co-written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, the film follows the titular movie star as he puts his A-list career on hold to crash his teenage daughter’s European vacation, hoping to cram in the family bonding that his high-flying life has largely precluded.
Still, for a long-coddled celebrity, Jay’s efforts to put someone else first still smack of self-absorption, especially when he forces his manager (Sandler) and publicist (Dern) to drop everything to follow him to Europe. Can he ever surrender his spot on the top of life’s call sheet, or is Jay simply too set in his ways to change?
At the news conference, Baumbach said that he and Mortimer had created the role with Clooney in mind.
“It was really important that the audience watching the movie has a relationship with the actor playing the character,” Baumbach said. “We all have a history with George, like the people in the movie have a relationship with Jay.”
And just like Dern and Sandler have a history with the people who serve as the harried representatives of a movie star. For Dern, who has been working with publicists since she began acting at the age of 11, playing Jay Kelly’s rep was like “playing the role of the people who have helped raise me,” she said. “My publicists have taught me how to self-respect or learn to protect myself or navigate boyfriends.”
Kelly’s manager is more of a family man than Jay, which suits Sandler, who has often conscripted family members to appear in his own movie. “I’ve always tried to bring the family where we go,” Sandler said. “It can’t happen every time and when it can’t, your heart’s broken, you miss them. FaceTime is nice, too.”
At the end of the news conference, the actors were asked what the final line of the movie of their life would be. Crudup offered a suggestion: “Nice try.” But as the other people on the dais demurred, it was hard not to imagine how Clooney would have made hay with such a question. Luckily, Sandler jumped in.
“I got one,” he said. “Last line of my movie: ‘What the hell just happened?’”
Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and also serves as The Projectionist, the awards season columnist for The Times.
The post Selling a George Clooney Movie Without George Clooney at the Venice Film Festival appeared first on New York Times.
