Jay (George Clooney, left) has a heart-to-heart with oldest daughter Jessica (Riley Keough) in "Jay Kelly."
George Clooney plays an A-list movie star in the twilight of his career in Netflix's "Jay Kelly."

Everybody at some point has wrestled with whether to prioritize their professional life or personal life. Even George Clooney.

“Listen, I'm a father of two 8-year-olds at 64 years old, so clearly I put some stuff off,” he cracks.

Admittedly, his title character in the new meta dramedy “Jay Kelly” (in select theaters now, streaming Dec. 5 on Netflix) is much, much worse at the whole work/life balance thing. In the twilight of his career, Jay wrestles with his A-list legacy and how he’s treated friends and loved ones while also dealing with his youngest daughter (Grace Edwards) going to college soon and his oldest (Riley Keough) holding some deep-seated resentment.

“This guy lives with a lot of regret, and I don't have that,” Clooney says. “I mean, certainly I have regrets. Obviously, there's things I wish I'd done better – ‘Batman & Robin,’ for one. But overall, what I liked was the idea of exploring this guy had my journey been earlier or had my decisions been to divorce myself from family and friends and chase stardom in a very different pursuit. I was interested in seeing how this could have gone if I'd made other decisions."

One thing Clooney never did was “kick all my friends and family out of my life,” he says. ”I always made space for that. Richard Kind, who's a really good friend of mine, said that somehow I was prepared for fame because I surrounded myself with really good friends that I kept close.”

But for several years, Clooney had the reputation for being one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, mainly because he “didn’t have a great interest in having a family,” he says. “That all happened because I met Amal.”

Clooney recalls an important conversation with his dad 25 years ago: “I remember saying, ‘Having kids is a version of living forever. Well, my version is the movies that I do, those are my children.’ And my dad was like, ‘How many stars could you name from 1920?’ I named five or something. He goes, ‘That's five. That's how many you can name, and that's 80 years ago.’

“He goes, ‘You're not buying forever with these movies. You're buying maybe 80 years.’ And it was a funny thing. I disagreed with him at the time, and now I completely understand what he was saying because I'm so happy in my life.”

Clooney married wife Amal, a human rights lawyer, in 2014 and they have two children, daughter Ella and son Alexander. Neither of his youngsters have big dreams of being a movie star or a high-profile attorney, mainly because they don’t understand celebrity yet.

“We've kept them away from it,” Clooney says. “Alexander said to me the other day, ‘Pop, what's famous?’ And I go, ‘Why are you asking?’ He goes, ‘Well, because my friend's mom says you're famous.’ And I said, ‘Tell her I'm very famous.’

“I was happy that that wasn't something that they were completely bombarded with. It's important to me because they actually didn't choose this sort of lifestyle. And I want them to have the best version of growing up that they possibly can. I want them to learn compassion and looking out for people who can't look out for themselves and all those kind of things.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: George Clooney recalls the moment he chose fatherhood over fame

Reporting by Brian Truitt, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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