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Spoiler alert! The following post discusses the finale of the dramedy “Jay Kelly” (streaming now on Netflix) so beware if you haven’t seen it yet.
Call it a Cloon-ception.
Director Noah Baumbach’s new movie “Jay Kelly” stars George Clooney as A-list movie star Jay Kelly, who goes on a long journey of self-reflection that ends at an Italian film festival where he’s getting a lifetime achievement award. The end scene finds Jay crying while watching a tribute to his career, and it’s a sizzle reel of previous Clooney roles, from older stuff like “Combat Academy” and “Sunset Beat” to greatest hits such as “ER” and “Syriana.”
So how was it being George playing Jay watching George on screen? Clooney answers by adding another meta layer.
“Imagine this, we took it to the Venice Film Festival. So we're at an Italian film festival watching myself watch myself at an Italian film festival,” Clooney says with a grin. “I didn't know he was going to use clips from my real films and I didn't know that was what was coming up. So the take in the movie is the first take when I'm watching.”
Baumbach pushes back on that account a smidge. “I mean, it was always in the script. I think he probably just lived in some form of denial,” the filmmaker says, laughing. “But what I was very clear about was I put together the montage sort of on the side while we were shooting and knew that I would not show it to him and that we were going to show it live in the room.”
On screen, it’s emotional for Jay watching the reel after gaining new perspective on his life and career. (After it rolls, he looks at the camera in closeup and says, “Can I go again? I’d like another one.” It’s a callback to the beginning of the film, where Jay wants another take on the final scene of a movie he’s filming.)
Off screen, it’ll be emotional for longtime fans of Clooney to see the actor’s evolution and revisit favorite characters. And it was also emotional for Clooney himself in the moment. (The tears were real.)
“When you're 64 years old, everything's emotional,” Clooney quips. “When I see a movie, I remember the time I spent with the director or the actors. I don't really see the movie as a movie. I see it as pieces of time.”
Baumbach was grateful to Clooney that “he allowed himself to be that vulnerable and to watch this thing for the first time on camera, because he's having a real reaction watching his actual life go in front of him. That's got to have an emotional effect on George Clooney,” the director says. “At the same time, he knows he has to tell the story of the movie, and he is still playing the character.”
Clooney’s costar Billy Crudup was in the crowd of the film festival scene as well and thought it was an “extremely clever” idea with many cool frames of reference.
Crudup also quotes an earlier line from the movie where a fan tells Jay, “When I look at you, I see my whole life” while on the train to Italy. “For people who go to movies, enjoy movies and have actors that they follow and have been there at different points in their life, it really is moving to see a reel like that," Crudup says.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: George Clooney's tears were real in 'Jay Kelly' finale. The actor explains.
Reporting by Brian Truitt, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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