George Clooney has apparently stepped back from directing, and his reason has nothing to do with Hollywood. The Oscar winner said family life made the director’s chair difficult to balance with raising his young twins.
Clooney discussed his career shift while attending the Venice Film Festival. The 65-year-old star was there to receive the festival’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
George Clooney revealed he has walked away from the director’s chair for good
Clooney explained that he still loved directing despite stepping away from it. “I’ve had great experiences,” he said during a press conference, according to PEOPLE. His directing résumé includes Good Night, and Good Luck, which earned him a Best Director Oscar nomination. He last directed The Boys in the Boat in 2023.
Clooney also acknowledged that filmmaking sometimes produced mixed reactions. “I’ve done films that people hated when they came out, and now they like them,” he said, according to the outlet.
For him, timing played a major role in how audiences judged his movies. Still, reviews had little to do with his decision to stop directing.
Instead, his children changed everything. “The only reason I’m not directing, which I love doing, is because I had two 9-year-old kids,” Clooney explained, according to the outlet. He said directing required a year away, while acting usually kept him away for around three months.
“When you direct a movie, it’s a year wherever you are, and there’s no traveling back and forth,” he added. “So I can’t do that anymore.”
Clooney and Amal Clooney welcomed twins Alexander and Ella in June 2017. The couple married in Italy in 2014 and have since become selective about their professional commitments.
George previously described parenthood as a welcome change in perspective. “In marriage, and now with the kids, you give away the selfishness of only looking out for yourself,” he told PEOPLE.
His Broadway experience reinforced that decision. Clooney starred in Good Night, and Good Luck on Broadway in 2025 and earned a Tony nomination. The production required the family to spend time in New York. Now, Clooney admitted he could no longer keep pulling his children from school.
“I can’t really pull the kids out of school anymore,” he told reporters, according to the publication. “So I’m really happy doing this. It’s fun to be an actor.”
That acting career still has plenty ahead. Clooney is set to reprise Danny Ocean in Ocean’s 14 alongside Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and Don Cheadle. Production is expected to begin in October 2026, according to recent reports.
