George Clooney Adjusts Venice Schedule as He’s Feeling Under the Weather

One of the world’s biggest movie stars is feeling under the weather on the eve of his Venice Film Festival world premiere.

The Hollywood Reporter has learned that George Clooney unexpectedly had to scale back his festival itinerary Wednesday by cutting short a press junket for his competition film Jay Kelly from Noah Baumbach and skipping a dinner with the film’s talent. According to multiple sources close to the film and its press schedule, Clooney started to feel unwell Wednesday and was advised to head straight home and rest up ahead of a packed Thursday, which will deliver the official press conference for the Netflix competition title in the afternoon followed by the anticipated world premiere in the late evening.

While it’s said to be nothing serious, news of Clooney’s condition started to become a topic of conversation among journalists in the early evening on the Lido. The veteran A-lister is beloved among the press for always honoring his obligations and routinely stopping to chat with every media outlet on packed red carpets at his premieres. So when he was forced to bail and recover, it caused the festival rumor mill to start churning. But a source indicated that Clooney had no choice but to take the night off out of an abundance of caution in the hope that he could rebound to 100 percent by the time Jay Kelly hits the screen inside Sala Grande as he’s proud of the film and the work of Baumbach and his co-stars.

A THR staffer spotted Clooney boarding a boat to head out of Hotel Excelsior close to 4 p.m. on his way home to rest. THR also learned that Clooney pulled out of a private dinner with the team from Jay Kelly that was expected to host Baumbach, the film’s fellow stars like Adam Sandler and Laura Dern and top Netflix executives including Ted Sarandos, Bela Bajaria and Dan Lin, among others.

Clooney is back in the Lido for a second straight year after last year’s world premiere of Jon Watts’ Wolfs co-starring his good pal Brad Pitt. Coincidentally, Watts was forced to miss his film’s Venice debut as he contracted COVID-19 and had to recuperate. As for Clooney, he’s headlining a parade of A-listers here in Venice for what is shaping up to be one of the starriest festivals in recent memory.

Netflix is responsible for infusing a healthy dose of movie stars to the festival courtesy of Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein starring Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz, and Kathryn Bigelow‘s A House of Dynamite with Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Anthony Ramos and Jared Harris. Jay Kelly will be the first out of the gate with its competition unveiling Thursday. The film casts Clooney as a famous movie actor who is on a whirlwind and unexpectedly profound journey through Europe with his devoted manager, Ron, played by Sandler. It traffics in weighty themes, best described by its writer-director.

Here’s how Baumbach describes the film in his official director’s statement: “Jay Kelly is about a man looking back at his life and reflecting on the choices, the sacrifices, the successes, the mistakes he’s made. When is it too late to change the course of our lives? Jay Kelly is an actor and as such the movie is about identity. How we perform ourselves. Who are we as parents, children, friends, professionals? Are we good? Are we bad? What is the gap between who we’ve decided we are and who we might actually be? What makes a life? Jay Kelly is about what it means to be yourself.”

Chris Gardner contributed to this report.