A scientist and a young girl race across the Arctic to prevent an impending disaster in Director George Clooney’s sci-fi drama, The Midnight Sky.
Clooney also stars in this post-apocalyptic tale as Augustine Lofthouse, a scientist who opted to remain at his station following an extinction level event that has devasted Earth. When he discovers that a spaceship that was sent to find a new home for humanity is on its way to back to a planet that is no longer habitable, he and the girl make a perilous venture through the top of the world to find a signal strong enough to warn the ship to turn back.
In a DGA Virtual Q&A on January 9, Clooney discussed the making of The Midnight Sky in an online conversation moderated by Director Scott Cooper (Hostiles). During the conversation, he elaborated on why he chose to direct the film and how its meaning has evolved given the COVID-19 Pandemic.
“Everything that we do to ourselves, whether it’s global warming or a nuclear catastrophe — having grown up in the sixties and seventies that was the possibility then — whatever it is, we’ve done it to ourselves,” said Clooney. “It’s man-made and so the idea that what we are capable of doing to one another and how ridiculous that would be was such an interesting theme. I loved the idea of talking about it. Then the Pandemic hit and you realize it’s also about our inability to communicate and to be home to be with family and friends and the people you love. You know those VR [virtual reality] moments where Kyle [Chandler] is there with his family or Tiffany [Boone] is there with her sister… those end up having a very different vibe than they did when we shot them.”
In addition to The Midnight Sky, Clooney’s directorial credits include the feature films Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Leatherheads, The Ides of March, The Monuments Men and Suburbicon; and episodes of the mini-series Catch-22 and the series Unscripted. Clooney was nominated for DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures for his 2005 feature, Good Night, and Good Luck. He has been a DGA member since 2001.
You can listen to Clooney's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.
About the DGA Virtual Q&A Program
Mirroring the ever-popular DGA Membership Screening Q&A program in the virtual space, DGA Members can now learn more about films directly from the filmmakers in this series of livestreamed conversations.