George Clooney Hospitalized After Doing This For A New Role

Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney was rushed to the hospital just four days before he was supposed to start shooting his new film, according to the U.K. Mirror's report in early December 2020. Clooney experienced severe stomach pains before he was due to report to the set of The Midnight Sky, which he is starring in and directing (via Page Six). In the movie, Clooney plays an astronomer who survives an apocalyptic event.

He lost 28 pounds for the role, which likely was a catalyst for his hospitalization and eventual pancreatitis diagnosis, he told the Mirror. He elaborated, saying, "I think I was trying too hard to lose the weight quickly and probably wasn't taking care of myself."

Clooney also directed the film, his seventh endeavor in that role, but he told the U.K. outlet this was his biggest project yet, saying, "It took a few weeks to get better and as a director, it's not so easy because you need energy. We were out on this glacier in Finland, which made it a lot harder work. But it certainly helped with the character."

Here's what else you need to know about Clooney's preparation for the role.

Along with the massive weight loss, the role required him to grow out his beard, much to the dismay of George Clooney's wife, Amal. His son on the other hand, loved it. Clooney told the U.K. Mirror, "I grew a big ugly beard and my son loved it because he'd hide things in it, which I wouldn't know about until I got to work and I'd be like, 'Oh, there's a popsicle stuck in my beard.' But my wife and daughter were really happy when it came off because it was very hard to find a face underneath all that mess."

The couple — who got married in Venice, Italy in 2014 — has spent the last 10 months at their home in the Hollywood Hills with their 3-year-old twins, Alexander and Ella (via the Mirror). He told the publication that the L.A. home was the best spot for his family over his other homes in England or Italy because of the weather. "We really haven't moved since February. It's easier in Los Angeles because it's not raining and snowing, so it's a lot easier to walk out in the street," he said. "These drug companies have done an amazing job and we're almost there so it would be really stupid to blow it now."

In December 2020, George Clooney told the U.K. Mirror about the joys of spending extra time with his kids during the ongoing pandemic. "There's nothing more fun than sitting there in the morning with my kids singing in Italian and us making breakfast for them," he said. "I picked right when I picked Amal. It's just the two of us having dinner together every night and we never run out of conversation. We couldn't be happier with our lives and we couldn't feel luckier."

Not only can Clooney act and direct, he's a regular handyman, telling UK Mirror, "I was a broke bachelor for a long time and I did all the things I'm doing now." He added, I did my own laundry and washed dishes and mopped, and I painted the entire interior and exterior of my house. And now it's just the four of us here and so I'm back to doing all of that."

George Clooney is not the only actor in Hollywood who's committed to a major weight loss for a movie. Tom Hanks has taken this challenge on twice, once for 1993's Philadelphia and again in 2000 for Cast Away, according to Looper. The actor revealed that he believes his weight loss led to his type 2 diabetes diagnosis. He said (via The Daily Mail), "The gaining and the losing of weight may have had something to do with it because you eat so much bad food and you don't take any exercise when you're heavy."

Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway lost 25 pounds for her role in the movie adaption of Les Misérables, which won her an Oscar. She said of her diet (via Us Weekly), "I had to be obsessive about it — the idea was to look near death. Looking back on the whole experience — and I don't judge it in any way — it was definitely a little nuts."

Christian Bale made an incredible transformation losing a whopping 63 pounds for his role in 2004's The Machinist. He said (via Us Weekly), "Interestingly, I did find that mentally it was very, very calming being that skinny, because you really didn't have any energy for expending on unnecessary things, so you just kept it simple," he told MovieWeb. "Life became very simple."

Clooney's film The Midnight Sky — which also stars Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo — comes out Dec. 23, 2020.