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Entertainment Weekly (sometimes abbreviated as EW) is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture. Unlike celebrity-focused publications Us Weekly, People Weekly, and In Touch Weekly, EW's primary concentration is on entertainment media news and critical reviews. Unlike Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, which are aimed at industry insiders, EW targets a more general audience.

History[link]

Created by Jeff Jarvis and founded by David Morris, who served as publisher until October 2007^[1], the magazine's original television advertising soliciting pre-publication subscribers portrayed it as a consumer guide to popular culture, including movies, music, and book reviews, sometimes with video game and stage reviews, too. ("the post-modern Farmers' Almanac").^{[clarification needed]}

The first issue was published on February 16, 1990, and featured singer k.d. lang on its cover. The title word "entertainment" was not capitalized on the cover until mid-1992 and has remained so since. By 2003, the magazine's weekly circulation averaged 1.7 million copies per week. In March 2006, managing editor Rick Tetzeli oversaw an overhaul of EW's graphics and layout to reflect a more-modern look.^{[citation needed]}

Typical content and frequency[link]

The magazine features celebrities on the cover and addresses topics such as television ratings, movie grosses, production costs, concert ticket sales, ad budgets, and in-depth articles about scheduling, producers, showrunners, etc.

It publishes several "double issues" each year (usually in January, May, June and/or August) that are available on newsstands for two weeks; because the magazine numbers its issues sequentially, it counts each double issue as "two" issues so that it can fulfil its marketing claim of 52 issues per year for subscribers.

Layout[link]

Entertainment Weekly follows a typical magazine format by featuring a letters to the editor and table of contents in the first few pages, while also featuring advertisements. While many advertisements are unrelated to the entertainment industry, the majority of ads are typically related to up-and-coming television, film or music events.

News and Notes[link]

These beginning articles open the magazine and as a rule focus on current events in pop culture. The whole section typically runs eight to ten pages long, and features short news articles, as well as several specific recurring sections:

• "The Must List" is a two-page spread highlighting ten things (books, movies, songs, etc.) that the staff loves from the week; it usually features one pick from EW readers.
• "First Look", subtitled "An early peek at some of Hollywood's coolest projects", is a two-page spread with behind-the-scenes or publicity stills of upcoming movies, television episodes or music events.
• "The Shaw Report" is a small sidebar feature, written by Jessica Shaw that rates several trios of related trends: one that is "in"; one that is "five minutes ago" (recently fashionable but no longer so); and one that is "out".
• "The Hit List", written each week by critic Scott Brown, highlights ten major events, with short comedic commentaries by Brown. Typically, there will be some continuity to the commentaries. This column was originally written by Jim Mullen and featured twenty events each week, and Dalton Ross later wrote an abbreviated version.
• "The Hollywood Insider" is a one-page section that reports breaking news in entertainment. It gives details, in the separate columns, on the most-current news in television, movie and music.
• "The Style Report" is a one-page section devoted to celebrity style. Because its focus is on celebrity fashion or lifestyle, it is graphically rich in nature, featuring many photographs or other images. Recently,^{[clarification needed]} the page converted to a new format: five pictures of celebrity fashions for the week, graded on the magazine's review "A"-to-"F" scale (see Reviews section below). A spin-off section, "Style Hunter", which finds reader-requested articles of clothing or accessories that have appeared in pop culture recently, appears frequently.
• "The Monitor" is a two-page spread devoted to major events in celebrity lives with small paragraphs highlighting events such as weddings, illnesses, arrests, court appearances, and deaths. Deaths of major celebrities are typically detailed in a one-half- or full-page obituary titled "Legacy". This feature is nearly identical to sister publication People's "Passages" feature.
• The "celebrity" column, the final section of "News and Notes", is devoted to a different column each week, written by two of the magazine's more-prominent writers:

• "The Final Cut" is written by former executive editor and author Mark Harris. Harris' column focuses on analyzing current popular-culture events, and is generally the most serious of the columns. Harris has written about the writer's strike and the 2008 presidential election, among other topics.
• "Binge Thinking" was written by screenwriter Diablo Cody. After several profiles of Cody in the months leading up to and following the release of her debut film, Juno (2007), she was hired to write a column detailing her unique view of the entertainment business.
• If You Ask Me..." Libby Gelman-Waxer (Paul Rudnick) was brought in to write his former Premiere column for Entertainment Weekly in 2011.^[2]

Feature articles[link]

There are typically four to six major articles (one to two pages each) within the middle pages of the magazine. These articles are most commonly interviews, but there are also narrative articles as well as lists. Feature articles tend to focus mostly on movies, music and television and less on books and the theatre. In the magazine's history, there have only been a few cover stories (e.g., John Grisham, Stephen King) devoted to authors; there has never been a cover solely devoted to the theater.

Reviews[link]

There are seven sections of reviews in the back pages of each issue (together encompassing up to one half of the magazine's pages). In addition to reviews, each reviews section has a top-sellers list, as well as numerous sidebars with interviews or small features. Unlike a number of European magazines that give their ratings with a number of stars (with normally 4 or 5 stars for the best review), EW grades the reviews academic-style, so that the highest reviews will get a letter grade of "A" and the lowest reviews get an "F", with plus or minus graduations in between assigned to each letter except "F".

The sections are:

• "Movies" typically features all the major releases for that weekend, as well as several independent and foreign films that have also been released. Lisa Schwarzbaum and Owen Gleiberman are the two primary film critics, with occasional reviews by Scott Brown and Gregory Kirschling. It also includes "Critical Mass" - a table of the grades that have also been given by a number of noted movie reviewers in the American press (such as Ty Burr from The Boston Globe, Todd McCarthy from Variety and Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times). Additionally, this section includes the box-office figures from the previous weekend and some sort of infographic. The A+ rating is rarely awarded by EW. Two films to have received it are Citizen Kane and My Left Foot (1989). DVDs are now profiled in the one-page "Movies on DVD" section that follows.

• "Television" features reviews by chief critic Ken Tucker for made-for-television films and new television program or series, as well as some television specials. There is also a section of sound bites featuring quotations from various television shows. The section also includes the Nielsen ratings for the previous week. On the following page is typically a "TV on DVD" section, profiling releases of television films and specials or complete seasons of television shows.

• "What to Watch", currently written by Jessica Shaw, features brief, one- or two-sentence reviews of several television programs on each night of the week, as well as one slightly longer review, usually written by someone else, with a letter grade.

• "Music" reviews major album releases for the week, divided by genre. There is also typically at least one interview or feature, as well as a section called "Download This", highlighting several singles available for download from the Internet. A table displaying record sales and airplay for the previous week is also included.

• "Books" features reviews of books released during the week. Sometimes, authors will write guest reviews of other works. There is also typically one interview or spotlight feature in this section per issue. Bestseller lists appear at the end of this section.

• "Theater"* reviews productions currently playing, listed by the city where they are running.

• "Games"* reviews current video game releases.

• "Tech"* reviews new websites and products, and profiles current Internet or technology phenomena.

* Not in every issue.

The Bullseye[link]

This section occupies the back page of the magazine, rating the "hits" and "misses" from the past week's events in popular culture on a bullseye graphic. For example, the May 22, 2009, edition featured Justin Timberlake hosting Saturday Night Live in the center, while the then-drama between Eminem and Mariah Carey missed the target completely for being "very 2002". At the time when this was printed on a small part of a page, events that were greatly disliked were shown several pages away.

Specialty issues[link]

Every year the magazine publishes several specialty issues. These issues are often published as double issues (running for two consecutive weeks). Many times these features are so long that they replace all other feature articles.

Common specialty issues include:

• Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter Preview issues – Generally each quarter the magazine reports on upcoming releases in movies, music, television, live shows and books. Typically the summer issue's focus will be on upcoming movies only unless major television series or events, music releases or book releases are occurring then.
• The Photo issue – Once a year, an issue is dedicated to featuring (aside from the normal reviews and news content) only photographs of celebrities. Unlike tabloid issues, these photographs done with the celebrities' cooperation, and often they use some form of artistic expression. A wide variety of celebrities have been used, including Green Day, Reese Witherspoon, Morrissey, the cast of the television series Arrested Development, Tobey Maguire and Cameron Diaz. Generally, the photographs will contain some descriptive text, sometimes about the person or sometimes a commentary from the photographers who photographed them for a story.
• Academy Awards issues – In the past the magazine devoted at least four cover stories per year to the Academy Awards; "The Oscar Race Begins" issue in January predicts the nominees, the "Nominees" issue in February profiles the recently announced Oscar contenders, the "Oscar Odds" issue predicts the winners the week before the awards, and the "After-Awards" issue covers the ceremony the week after it airs. Virtually every issue mentions the Oscars in some capacity, often on the cover, and a film or actor's Academy-Award chances are often noted in the magazine's reviews. In comparison, music's Grammy Awards, television's Emmy Awards, and theater's Tony Awards are given relatively limited coverage.

1,000th issue and redesign[link]

The 1,000th issue was released July 4, 2008, and included the magazine's top-100 list for movies, television shows, music videos, songs, Broadway shows, and technology of the past twenty-five years (1983–2008).

As of its 1,001st issue, EW drastically revamped the look, feel and content of the publication — increasing font and picture sizes and making all columns' word count shorter.

Website[link]

The magazine's website EW.com, under managing editor Cyndi Stivers (creator of TimeOut New York),^[3] provides users with daily content, breaking news, blogs, original video programming, entertainment exclusives and serves as an archive for past magazine interviews, columns and photos.

As of April 2011, EW.com was ranked as one of the ten most popular Entertainment News property in the United States by comScore Media Metrix.

EWwy Award[link]

The EWwy Award is a television production award created by Entertainment Weekly to honor worthy actors and series not nominated for the Primetime Emmys.^[4] The Ewwy is awarded in ten categories and no person nominated for an equivalent Primetime Emmy is eligible. Votes and nominations are cast online by anyone who chooses to participate. The categories are: Best Drama Series; Best Comedy Series; Best Actor in a Drama Series; Best Actor in a Comedy Series; Best Actress in a Drama Series; Best Actress in a Comedy Series; Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series; Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series; Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series; and Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

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Jennifer Lawrence
Lawrence at the 83rd Academy Awards, February 27, 2011
Born	Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (1990-08-15) August 15, 1990 (age 21) Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2006–present

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence^[1] (born August 15, 1990) is an American film and television actress. She had lead roles in TBS's The Bill Engvall Show and in the independent films The Burning Plain and Winter's Bone, for which she received nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Satellite Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award. At age 20, she was the second youngest actress ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She is also known for playing Mystique in X-Men: First Class. In 2012, Lawrence achieved wider recognition starring as the heroine Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, an adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-selling novel of the same name. Her performance in the film garnered her notable critical praise and marked her as the highest grossing action heroine of all time.^[2][3] Lawrence's performances thus far have prompted Rolling Stone to define her as "the most talented young actress in America."^[4]

Early life[link]

Lawrence was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and has two older brothers. Her parents are Karen (née Koch), who runs a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who once owned a concrete construction firm, Lawrence & Associates.^[5][6][7] She acted in local theater^[8] and, by the age of 14, had decided to pursue an acting career, persuading her parents to take her to New York City to find a talent agent. Prior to finding success in Hollywood, Lawrence attended Kammerer Middle School. She graduated from high school two years early with a 3.9 average in order to begin a career in acting.^[5][9] While growing up and in between acting, Lawrence served as an assistant nurse at the children's summer day camp that her mother ran.^[10]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Lawrence had never taken any drama classes/lessons for acting.^[5] She started out her acting career in the TBS comedy The Bill Engvall Show, playing the eldest daughter of Lauren Pearson. Written and created by Bill Engvall and Michael Leeson, the show is set in a Denver suburb and follows the life of 'Bill Pearson' (played by Engvall), a family counselor whose own family could use a little dose of counseling. The series went on the air in September 2007 and was canceled in 2009 after three seasons. Lawrence received the Young Artist Award for Outstanding Young Performer in a TV Series for her role in the show.

Lawrence had guest-roles in the television series The Devil You Know, Cold Case, Medium, and Monk.^[11]

In 2008, she appeared in a small role in the film Garden Party as Tiff. It was directed by Jason Freeland. The same year, Lawrence appeared on the big screen in Guillermo Arriaga's film directorial debut The Burning Plain, opposite Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. Her performance in the film earned her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young emerging actor/actress at the Venice Film Festival in 2008.^[12]

Still in 2008, Lawrence had the lead role in another film director's debut, Lori Petty's family drama The Poker House, opposite Selma Blair and Chloë Moretz, where she starred as Agnes, a young girl victim of abuse.^[13] Lawrence was awarded the Los Angeles Film Festival for Outstanding Performance for her role in the film. She appeared in the music video for the song "The Mess I Made", from the 2009 album Losing Sleep by Parachute.

2010–present[link]

Lawrence's lead role in Debra Granik's Winter's Bone, which won best picture at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010, is generally cited as a breakout performance for her.^[14] She portrays Ree Dolly, a seventeen-year-old in the Ozark Mountains who cares for her mentally ill mother and her younger brother and sister. Ree then discovers that her father put their house and land up as a bond for a court appearance before he disappeared, and the family now faces eviction.^[15] The performance was highly acclaimed by film critics. David Denby, writing in The New Yorker, said "the movie would be unimaginable with anyone less charismatic playing Ree."^[16] Peter Travers from the Rolling Stone also spoke highly of her and noted that "her performance is more than acting, it's a gathering storm. Lawrence's eyes are a roadmap to what's tearing Ree apart".^[17] Receiving accolades for her performance, Lawrence was awarded the National Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Performance. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress on January 25, 2011, becoming the second-youngest actress to date to be nominated for the category,^[18] and also accrued nominations from the Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, and the Satellite Awards among others.

Lawrence had a role in The Beaver, a dark comedy starring Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson that was filmed in 2009, but which spent an extended period of time stalled due to controversies surrounding Gibson. It was released on May 6, 2011. Lawrence co-starred in the independent film Like Crazy, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and received a wider release by Paramount Pictures.^[19]

On June 18, 2011, it was announced that Lawrence was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In June 2011, she starred as shape-shifting villain Mystique alongside James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender in X-Men: First Class,^[20] a prequel to the rest of the X-Men film series and will be reprising this role again in the sequel. Lawrence's Mystique is a younger version of the character played by Rebecca Romijn in earlier X-Men films.

She is also set to star alongside Elisabeth Shue in Mark Tonderai's thriller House at the End of the Street,^[21] which completed filming in 2010 and is in post-production.^[22]

Lawrence was cast in David O. Russell's The Silver Linings Playbook, opposite Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. She was originally cast to play "O" in the film Savages directed by Oliver Stone, but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts.

In 2012, Lawrence replaced Angelina Jolie in Susanne Bier's period thriller, The Falling, based on the novel Serena by Ron Rash.^[23][24] She will be playing the role of Serena who learns that she can never bear her husband children and is set out to murder the woman who bore her husband an illegitimate son before their marriage.

[edit] The Hunger Games

In March 2011, Lawrence was offered the part of Katniss Everdeen in the film The Hunger Games, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins. Despite being a fan of the books, Lawrence took three days to accept the role because she was initially intimidated by the size of the movie and what it may mean for her fame.^[25] She underwent extensive training to get in shape for the role, including stunt training, archery, rock and tree climbing, combat, running, parkour, pilates, and yoga.^[26][27] The film was released on March 23, 2012, and set the record for the third-largest opening weekend of all time, making a record-breaking $152.5 million in three days for a non-sequel film.^[28]

The fact that The Hunger Games emerged as a big box office hit with a female lead represents a dramatic shift for the action film genre because historically, among the "top 200 worldwide box-office hits ever ($350 million and up), not one has been built around a female action star" and for the first time ever, Lawrence contradicts that.^[29] She is currently the highest grossing action heroine.

Though the film generally received positive reviews, Lawrence's strong portrayal of Katniss Everdeen was the most highly praised with Todd McCarthy from The Hollywood Reporter saying Lawrence embodies Katniss, "just as one might imagine her from the novel" and "anchors" the whole film "with impressive gravity and presence", ultimately calling her "the ideal screen actress".^[30] Kenneth Turan from the Los Angeles Times stated that Lawrence is the "best possible performer as Katniss and is the key factor in making 'Hunger Games' an involving popular entertainment with strong narrative drive that holds our attention".^[31] Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert also agreed that "Lawrence is strong and convincing in the central role".^[32]

Lawrence will start filming the film adaptation of the second novel in the The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire, this summer, which is scheduled to be released on November 23, 2013.^[33]

Personal life[link]

Lawrence lived in New York City for the first few years of her career, but now resides in Santa Monica, California.^[5] She likes to paint, knit sweaters and scarves, surf, and play the guitar.^[34][35] She has been dating English actor Nicholas Hoult since 2011.^[36]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jennifer Lawrence at the Internet Movie Database

George Clooney
Clooney at the 2009 Venice Film Festival
Born	George Timothy Clooney (1961-05-06) May 6, 1961 (age 51) Lexington, Kentucky, United States
Occupation	Actor, director, producer, screenwriter
Years active	1978–present
Spouse	Talia Balsam (1989–1993)
Parents	Nick Clooney Nina Bruce (née Warren)
Relatives	Rosemary Clooney (aunt) Miguel Ferrer, Rafael Ferrer (cousins)

George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received three Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award. Clooney is also noted for his political activism, and has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since January 31, 2008.^[1][2][3]

Though he made his acting debut on television in 1978, Clooney gained fame and recognition by portraying Dr. Douglas "Doug" Ross on the long-running medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999. While working on ER, he started attracting a variety of leading roles in films including Batman & Robin (1997) and Out of Sight (1998), in which he first teamed with long-term collaborator Steven Soderbergh. 1999 saw the release of Three Kings, a well-received war satire set during the Gulf War featuring Clooney in another lead role. In 2001, Clooney's fame widened with the release of his biggest commercial success, Ocean's Eleven, the first of a profitable film trilogy, a remake of the film from 1960 with the members of The Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean. He made his directorial debut a year later with the 2002 biographical thriller Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and has since directed Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Leatherheads (2008), and The Ides of March (2011). He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the Middle East thriller Syriana (2005) and subsequently fetched Best Actor nominations for such films as Michael Clayton (2007), Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011).

Clooney's humanitarian work includes his advocacy of finding a resolution for the Darfur conflict, raising funds for the 2010 Haiti earthquake, 2004 Tsunami, and 9/11 victims, and creating documentaries such as Sand and Sorrow to raise awareness about international crises. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.^[4]

Early life[link]

Clooney was born in Lexington, Kentucky.^[5][6] His mother, Nina Bruce (née Warren, 1939–),^[7] is a former beauty pageant queen. His father, Nick Clooney, is a former anchorman, as well as a game show and American Movie Classics host. Clooney's ancestry includes Irish, German, and English.^[8] His paternal great-great-grandparents, Nicholas Clooney (of County Kilkenny) and Bridget Byron, immigrated to the United States from Ireland.^[9] Clooney was raised a strict Roman Catholic.^{[10][11][12][13]} He has an older sister, Adelia (also known as Ada); his cousins include actors Miguel and Rafael Ferrer, who are the sons of his aunt, singer Rosemary Clooney, and actor José Ferrer. He is also related to another singer, Debby Boone, who married his cousin Gabriel Ferrer (son of José Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney).

Clooney began his education at the Blessed Sacrament School in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. Spending part of his childhood in Ohio, he attended St. Michael's School in Columbus, and St. Susanna School in Mason. In middle school, Clooney developed Bell's palsy, a debilitating condition that partially paralyzes the face. The malady went away within a year. "That was the worst time of my life," he told the Daily Mirror in 2003. "You know how cruel kids can be. I was mocked and taunted, but the experience made me stronger."^[14]

His parents eventually moved to Augusta, Kentucky, where Clooney attended Augusta High School. He has stated that he earned all As and a B in school,^[15] and was an enthusiastic baseball and basketball player. He tried out to play professional baseball with the Cincinnati Reds organization in 1977, but was not offered a contract. He did not pass the first round of player cuts.^[16] He attended Northern Kentucky University from 1979 to 1981, majoring in Broadcast Journalism, and very briefly attended the University of Cincinnati, but did not graduate from either.^[17] He had such odd jobs as selling men's suits and cutting tobacco.^[18]

Career[link]

Early work, 1978–93[link]

Clooney's first role was as an extra in the TV series Centennial in 1978. The series was based on the novel of the same name by James Michener, and was partially filmed in Clooney's hometown of Augusta, Kentucky. Clooney's first major role came in 1984 in the short-lived sitcom E/R (not to be confused with ER, the better-known hospital drama, on which Clooney also co-starred a decade later). He played a handyman on the series The Facts of Life, and appeared as Bobby Hopkins, a detective, on an episode of The Golden Girls. His first significant break was a semi-regular supporting role in the sitcom Roseanne, playing Roseanne Barr's supervisor Booker Brooks, followed by the role of a construction worker on Baby Talk, a co-starring role on the CBS drama Bodies of Evidence as Detective Ryan Walker, and then a year-long turn as sexy Det. James Falconer on Sisters. In 1988, Clooney also played a role in Return of the Killer Tomatoes.

Breakthrough, 1994–99[link]

Clooney achieved stardom when he played Dr. Doug Ross, alongside Anthony Edwards, Julianna Margulies, and Noah Wyle, on the hit NBC drama ER from 1994 to 1999. After leaving the series in 1999, he made a cameo appearance in the 6th season and returned for a guest spot in the show's final season.^[19]

Clooney began appearing in films while working on ER. His first major Hollywood role was in From Dusk till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez. He followed its success with One Fine Day with Michelle Pfeiffer, and The Peacemaker with Nicole Kidman. Clooney was then cast as Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin,^[20] which was a moderate box office success, but a critical failure (with Clooney himself calling the film "a waste of money"). In 1998, he starred in Out of Sight opposite Jennifer Lopez, marking the first of his many collaborations with director Steven Soderbergh. He also starred in Three Kings during the last weeks of his contract with ER.

Success, 2000–present[link]

George Clooney cast his hands and shoes in the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 2007.^[21]

After leaving ER, Clooney starred in commercially successful films including The Perfect Storm and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. In 2001, he teamed up with Soderbergh again for Ocean's Eleven, a remake of the 1960s Rat Pack film of the same name. As of 2011, it was Clooney's most commercially successful film, earning more than $450 million worldwide.^[22] The film spawned two sequels starring Clooney, Ocean's Twelve in 2004 and Ocean's Thirteen in 2007.

In 2001, Clooney and Soderbergh co-founded Section Eight Productions, for which Grant Heslov was president of television. Clooney made his directorial debut in the 2002 film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, an adaptation of the autobiography of TV producer Chuck Barris. Though the film didn't do well at the box office, Clooney's direction showed promise.^[23]

In 2005, Clooney starred in Syriana, which was based loosely on former Central Intelligence Agency agent Robert Baer and his memoirs of being an agent in the Middle East. Clooney suffered an accident on the set of Syriana, which resulted in a brain injury with complications arising from a punctured dura.^[24] The same year he directed, produced, and starred in Good Night, and Good Luck, a film about 1950s television journalist Edward R. Murrow's famous war of words with Senator Joseph McCarthy. At the 2006 Academy Awards, Clooney was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck, as well as Best Supporting Actor for Syriana. He won the Oscar for his role in Syriana.

George Clooney at the premiere of The Men Who Stare At Goats in the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival

Clooney next appeared in The Good German (2006), a film noir directed by Soderbergh that is set in post-World War II Germany. In August 2006, Clooney and Heslov started the production company Smokehouse Pictures. In October 2006 Clooney also received the American Cinematheque Award, which honors an artist in the entertainment industry who has made "a significant contribution to the art of motion pictures".^[25]

On January 22, 2008, Clooney was nominated for an Academy Award (and many other awards) for Best Actor for his role in Michael Clayton (2007). Clooney then directed his third film, Leatherheads (2008), in which he also starred. It was reported on April 4, 2008, in Variety that Clooney had quietly resigned from the Writers Guild of America over controversy surrounding Leatherheads. Clooney, who is the director, producer, and star of the film, stated that he had contributed in writing "all but two scenes" of the film and requested a writing credit, alongside Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, who had been working on the screenplay for 17 years. In an arbitration vote, Clooney lost 2–1. He decided to withdraw from the union over the decision. Clooney became a "financial core status" non-member, meaning he no longer had voting rights, and cannot run for office or attend membership meetings, according to the WGA's constitution.^[26]

Clooney next co-starred with Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey in The Men Who Stare At Goats, which was directed by Heslov and released in November 2009. Also in November 2009, he voiced Mr. Fox in Wes Anderson's animated feature Fantastic Mr. Fox. The same year, Clooney starred in Up in the Air, which was initially given limited release, and then wide-released on December 25, 2009. For his performance in the film, which was directed by Jason Reitman, he was nominated for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, BAFTA, and an Academy Award.

2010 saw the release of The American, based on the novel A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth and directed by Anton Corbijn. Clooney played the lead role, and was a co-producer of the film.

As of 2011, Clooney was represented by Bryan Lourd, co-chairman of Creative Artists Agency (CAA).^[27]

2011 saw the release of The Descendants, in which Clooney starred as a husband whose wife has an accident that leaves her in a coma. He earned critical praise for his work as Matt King, and won the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild for Best Actor. He was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor and the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Political views[link]

Clooney supported Barack Obama's campaign in the 2008 presidential election.^[28] He is a supporter of gay rights.^[29]

Humanitarian work[link]

Clooney in Abéché, Chad, in January 2008 with the UN

Clooney is involved with Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities, along with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub.^[30]

In February 2009, he visited Goz Beida, Chad, with NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.^[31] In January 2010, he organized the Telethon Hope for Haiti Now,^[32] which collected donations for the 2010 Haiti earthquake victims.

In March 2012, Clooney was featured with Martin Sheen and Brad Pitt in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, '8' — a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage — as attorney David Boies.^[33] The production was held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights.^[34][35]

Darfur[link]

Clooney has advocated a resolution of the Darfur conflict.^[36]

He spoke at a 2006 Save Darfur rally in Washington, D.C. In April 2006, he spent ten days in Chad and Sudan with his father to make the TV special "A Journey to Darfur" reflecting the situation of Darfur's refugees, and advocated for action. The documentary was broadcast on American cable TV as well as in the UK and France. In 2008, it was released on DVD with the sale proceeds being donated to the International Rescue Committee.^{[37][38][39][40]} In September of the same year, he spoke to the UN Security Council with Nobel Prize-winner Elie Wiesel to ask the UN to find a solution to the conflict and to help the people of Darfur.^[41] In December, he visited China and Egypt with Don Cheadle and two Olympic winners to ask both governments to pressure Sudan's government.^[42]