Talking #Tomorrowland with George Clooney Part 1 #TomorrowlandEvent #ad

Disclosure: I was provided an all-expense paid trip to the #TomorrowlandEvent in order to facilitate this post; however all opinions expressed are my very own.

 “What if there was a place, a secret place where nothing was impossible? Miraculous place where you could actually change the world. You wanna go?” -Frank Walker played by Academy Award winner George Clooney in the movie Tomorrowland. I had the opportunity to be a part of the press junket for the movie Tomorrowland with 24 bloggers. Here’s part one of Talking #Tomorrowland with George Clooney.

Photo Credit: Louise Bishop of MomStart.com

The press junket was held at the beautiful Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills. As he walked into the room you could tell this was going to be an amazing interview. George Clooney came in smiling, as he came to his seat he reached over and touched Rachel from Acadiana’sThriftyMom shoulder. I have always heard that he was a very nice person so I knew we were in for a treat!

 Hold on to your seats folks, Tomorrowland is coming! 

Tomorrowland

When asked about the message behind Tomorrowland, Clooney answered, “Well, here’s the funniest thing about this. It’s a summer movie, right, and what you don’t want it to be, you know, “eat your spinach” kind of, kind of thing. “Or eat your broccoli”. I’ve been in those kind of movies before and you don’t want that, because it is a summer movie. The truth of the matter is, the idea is that, the future is yours and the future is yours to decide what it will be. As you look at the world, and you see how sort of, tragic it can feel, and it always has been that way. I feel as if we have to get to that point where, we all understand that, the individual is not helpless.  And I think that’s a really important part of this. You have to participate or you don’t have to just accept how it ends.”

In regards to working the special effects and stunts in Tomorrowland, “You know, I’ve done it a few times, you know.  In Gravity, I had to do it, and I’ve done it in a few films. I’m never particularly in love with it. Green screen is tricky ’cause you just have to sort of make things up. But, the thing about being an actor is you really don’t ever have to grow up, right?  We’re still playing make believe.  I’m 54 and I’m playing make-believe. So when they put you in a contraption, and say now you’re gonna fly, I mean, you’re still a 12 year old and you go really, am I gonna fly from here to there?  Oh yeah, let’s go, it’s fun.  I’ve always found that part to be magical, you know. I just wish the jet pack really worked.”

The mention of the jetpack totally led me to my question, “Would you say that that would be one of the futuristic items or things that would be awesome to have?” His response was very comical, “Let me put it to you this way.  You’re at LAX, you get your bags and think I’ve got to get to Studio City, it’s 4:30 on a Friday. It would be the greatest moment ever, just blasting right over all the traffic. I think it would be fantastic, although, you know, I don’t know that I want everybody to have one ’cause they’d just be circling my house. “Hey! What’s Amal gonna wear to the MET Ball?” We shared a great laugh with Clooney and were pleasantly surprised he mentioned his wife.

Photo Credit: Louise Bishop of MomStart.com

When asked about movie memorabilia, we shared another good laugh with what he had to say, “Now here’s the thing,  Disney is very, “ah” they’ve got like, armed guards around all that stuff.  And Brad is very, possessive of all those things as well and so I will not answer what I stole, because they will come take it away from me, but it shoots rays and it’s a gun.” -He was totally kidding.. or was he? 🙂

In regards to the beautiful Tomorrowland pin, Clooney said, “I love that pin.  It’s fantastic.”

A photo posted by Candy Olivares (@candyolivares) on May 7, 2015 at 12:37pm PDT

I love it too Mr. Clooney.

Working with Brad Bird & Damon Lindelof

Tomorrowland was the first film Clooney worked with Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof. “I wanted to work with Brad Bird. I think he doesn’t make bad films, and I just love the kind of films he makes. Brad and Damon Lindelof called me and said “we’ve written a part for you in a movie.” And I’d been trying to work with Brad for a long time. I was like wow, that’s amazing! And they send me the script and I open it up and the description of me is a 55 year old angry, bitter guy.  I’m like, “thanks guys. Thank you so much. When I read the screenplay, what I loved about it was that we sort of are inundated with lots of bad news. You turn on the television, it hurts because it’s a bad time and what I loved was the idea of what the script said, their future isn’t just automatically inevitable.”

Photo Credit: Louise Bishop of MomStart.com

His Voice & Influence

“An advantage since I’ve become successful, I understand that I have a voice that I can amplify things, so I can make Darfur louder or we can, there’s things that you can do that you can try to affect change with.  But I was like that when I was 10, because I was told, that your voice has to matter and has to participate, even if two people hear you, because those two people may change, you know.” He gave us a personal memory from his youth on the impact of media. “My father was an anchorman in Cincinnati, Ohio. He covered a story about, some skinheads at Fountain Square.They were saying horrible things, he had to cover the story, so he goes out and in front of the camera. There was about 2,000 people yelling at them.”  The crew including his father “head upstairs to Carew Tower, the tallest building in Cincinnati, and took the shot down on to the park with these seven little tiny people in a town of 400,000, that are just yelling and being jerks. And it was just, a town that otherwise is functioning perfectly and people are getting along and working together,  you realized in perspective it meant nothing.  It meant absolutely nothing.  And I feel that we’re losing perspective of the things that are going on in our world, and we think oh it’s just nothing but apocalyptic stuff, and I don’t believe that necessarily is true.  I mean, there’s an awful lot of good and it’s hard to report good because it doesn’t sell.  So I think that maybe along the way, it would be nice to remind ourselves that there’s an awful lot of good that’s being done too, you know. It wasn’t particularly great in 1968 either.  There were assassinations and there was wars and there was civil unrest and riots, but we weren’t as inundated with it, and so there was always still a hopefulness that the future was still gonna be alright.”

The entire interview with Clooney was very authentic and honest. I have to say that when he spoke on the power of an actor’s voice I truly feel that he meant every word. We have seen Clooney’s humanitarian side on his projects outside of Hollywood. This was truly the cherry on top for me.

Photo Credit: Louise Bishop of MomStart.com

Visit the official TOMORROWLAND website and follow Disney’s Tomorrowland on Facebook & Twitter

Check out the official trailer for Tomorrowland:

Photo Credit: Louise Bishop of MomStart.com

Stay tuned for more posts on the amazing time I shared with the ladies in this picture during the #TomorrowlandEvent in Los Angeles and of course the movie Tomorrowland!

Opens everywhere May 22nd! 

Question:

Are you ready for Tomorrowland?!

Candy