Is George Clooney losing his edge? see George's Nespresso, Martini commercials - The American

After watching "Up in the Air" (2009), where George Clooney didn't get the girl, I started to wonder. George Clooney always gets the girl for crying out loud! And while watching the movie "The American" (2010), with George playing a retiring, if not actually retired, assassin who is in hiding, with lots of close-ups showing a much older 49-year-old Clooney, I seriously considered if George Clooney was losing his edge--fortunately, only for a moment. After that depressing moment had passed, I seriously considered slapping myself silly. Are you crazy, girl? George Clooney losing his edge? Never!

George Clooney embodies one of Hollywood's most formidable renaissance men. He is a remarkably intelligent and capable actor and a director of surprising skill and intuition. And to say that George Clooney has devastating physical appeal and overpowering charm, is simply a redundancy of unequal proportion.

So, to say that George Clooney is losing his edge, is a sin... a mortal sin.

Sexiest Man Alive

George Clooney was named People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" twice, in 1997 when he was 36 and again in 2006 at the age of 45. He was the first one to receive this awesome distinction, along with Richard Gere, Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp.

I would like to mention that Richared Gere was the first two-time winner when he won the title in 1999. However, his previous win was shared. In 1993 People took a one-year hiatus from Sexiest Man and instead awarded "Sexiest Couple" to Richard Gere, 44 & Cindy Crawford, 27.

George Clooney - The Last Movie Star

On the March 3, 2008 issue of Time Magazine, George Clooney appeared on the cover with a caption "The Last Movie Star - How Goerge Clooney plays the game by Joel Stein". It's about a writer inviting a mega star to his house for dinner. How could the thought even crossed Stein's mind is mind boggling.  But it did and he asked.  George Clooney could have had easily said no. But George Clooney said yes, of course, why not, sounds fun. Clooney was the only star who could have said yes, because no other star wears his celebrity so easily.

According to Stein, Clooney has managed to become this era's leading man without ever conveying the sense that he takes the role seriously.

According to his friend Grant Heslov, who has been friends with Clooney since they met in an acting class in 1983 and is now his partner at their new film and TV production company, Smokehouse,

"He's a throwback to what movie stars used to be. You see him and you think, Wouldn't that be a great life? He seems like a man's man. He seems like you could meet him at a bar and have a chat with him and it would be easy. And all of that is true."

Suffice to say it was a very interesting and surprisingly most enjoyable night to remember for Stein.

George Clooney - Actor, Director, Writer

In 2005, Clooney showed his prowess as an actor, director and writer in the tense period drama Good Night, and Good Luck.. Shot in black-and-white, the picture followed the epic decision of 1950s television journalist Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn) to confront Senator Joseph McCarthy about his Communist witch hunt. The picture, one of the finest of 2005, drew raves from every critic in America and received a much-deserved nomination for Best Picture, and a Best Director nod for Clooney. Although the film lost to Crash for Best Picture, and Clooney lost to Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain, it was a milestone in George Clooney's career.

George Clooney - Best Supporting Actor 2005

With Good Night, and Good Luck.. still generating buzz, Clooney appeared in the harshly explicit and openly critical Syriana, a 2005 political thriller film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, and executive produced by George Clooney, who also stars in the film with an ensemble cast, including Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Mazhar Munir, Amanda Peet, Tim Blake Nelson, and Christopher Plummer, as well as Academy Award winners Chris Cooper and William Hurt. Clooney played CIA Agent Bob Barnes, which garnered him his first Oscar. Clooney won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2005 .

George Clooney loves South Park

You may not know this (I certainly didn't), George Clooney loves the show "South Park" (1997). He got a hold of Trey Parker, the creator of the series, and asked for a part in an episode. He was given the role of "Sparky," the gay dog, which involved little more than panting and yelping. Can you believe this?

However, when it was time for South Park to go to the big screen, Clooney got a full speaking part, as an ER surgeon. WOW! A full speaking part! Who knew?

His friends

George Clooney is close friends with actress Julia Roberts and actor Brad Pitt. He is also good friends with actor Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon and Ben Weiss. But although these celebrities are his friends, his best friends, his closest pals are a pack of mostly non-actors known as "the Boys." They include former Spin City star Richard Kind, who met George when they played brothers in a TV pilot. George Clooney was best man at Richard Kind’s wedding to Dana Stanley in 1999.

Hanging out with "the boys"

"I've got nine buddies, the boys. They've been my friends for 25 years. Every Sunday we ride motorcycles and play basketball together. For Christmas this year, the boys came out and there were new bikes sitting out there-new Indians for each of them. The best part of having money is sharing it with your buddies. I lived on their closet floors when I was broke and they had money and were working. They've been through this whole ride with me. So now, when someone comes up to me and says, "You're so brilliant," they look over at me and go, "Man, can you believe that shit?" I met them when I first moved out here, in acting classes. Richard Kind, who's on Spin City, is one of them. When his father died of a heart attack, Richard called and said he was going to Trenton for the funeral. All the boys were immersed in work at that point and had no time, but I called them up and told them what happened. There were no commercial flights available, so I chartered a jet. We didn't tell him we were coming. We sat in the back of the synagogue and Richard was in front with his back to us. When he got up and started to talk about his dad, he saw us and started sobbing. He said, "I'm sorry, but I just saw my best friends back there." There was this amazing feeling that every one of these guys had dropped everything just to be there. That's what it's like. People like that keep you sane."

Money isn't everything

George Clooney has gotten to the point in his career where money isn’t everything. George has skipped his multimillion-dollar salary in order to take on projects he believes in.

“To me, the idea is to gamble on yourself. Take no money, have a percentage of the back end — if the movie makes money, you make money,” he told Rolling Stone in 2005. On Good Night, and Good Luck, literally without exaggeration, the craft-services guy was paid more than I was to write, direct and act.”

"If the movie makes money, I make money. If I don't, I've still made the movie I wanted to make."

No makeup please

"I love Spencer Tracy. Love him. He's a hero of mine. I heard he never wore makeup, so I've never worn makeup, ever. I won't put it on in any movie. I'm dark complexioned, so I can get away with it."

In getting older

"I never wear makeup for movies and now it's starting to show. It's funny, because most male actors work with actresses who are considerably younger. But earlier in my career I was working with a lot of actresses who were my age or older so people always thought I was older anyway; and now I'm going through this thing with people thinking I'm about 60. But I'm kind of comfortable with getting older because it's better than the other option, which is being dead. So I'll take getting older."

As I lived in Canada, I'd never seen any of George Clooney's commercials.  But yes, Clooney has appeared in commercials outside the US for products like Fiat, Nespresso and Martini vermouth, and because he loves beer, has lent his voice to a series of Budweiser ads beginning in 2005.

Here's George Clooney's Best Commercials

New black and white Martinit commercial with beautiful woman walking barefoot across a fountain in a party to get to the Martini glass before good ole Giorgio.  Outstanding!

In 2004, Clooney signed a deal with Fiat to hawk the Fiat Idea. The ad campaign aired across Europe and was aimed at female minivan buyers.  Very cute!

In 2007, Nespresso launched a 1 minute, 50 second commercial called "George Who?" starring Clooney, Camilla Belle and Priscilla Shanks. The four day commercial shoot took place in the Garibaldi region of Milan, about 45 minutes from Clooney's home in Lake Como, Italy.

Well, shoot me now, why doncha!