Clooney Threatens to Boycott Oscars in Support of WGA

Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville at 10:51 AM on January 7, 2008.

UPDATE: The Golden Globes cancels televised awards show due to lack of movie star participation.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert take back to the airwaves tonight, joining Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, and Jimmy Kimmel, who have no deal with their writers. David Letterman and Craig Ferguson, on the other hand, have struck an interim deal with the guild via Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company (because that's the way Hoosiers roll), thumbing their noses at corporate avarice and exposing the despicable lies about crews' jobs for what they are by showing that support for all involved is eminently possible.

Now comes word that Clooney's being an agitator, "credited with inspiring an actors' boycott against film award ceremonies that threatens to reduce next weekend's Golden Globe Awards to a shambles and is jeopardizing the most important event in the Hollywood calendar, next month's Oscars." Ha--right on!

This weekend the Screen Actors Guild announced that the 70 actors shortlisted for awards at the Globes will not be attending the ceremony in sympathy with scriptwriters who have been on strike for two months.

Officially, television network NBC, which splits millions of advertising dollars with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, organiser of the Globes, says the show will go on. Both bodies said on Friday they were in "an extremely difficult position" and would try to woo the actors back.

Behind the scenes NBC is split between those who are in despair seeking to salvage the festival and those raging at the "disloyalty" of actors.

Special ire is reserved for Clooney, 46. "We know Clooney is a major force behind this decision. He has been earbashing others who may have been willing to cross picket lines," said one NBC executive.

Sources close to Clooney have laughed at the image of "Red George" as a strike-organiser. "He does not earbash, he is far too easy-going for that," said a business associate.

Of course he doesn't. He just says, "Dudez, attending that shit would be, like, totally uncool," and because he is the closest thing we have to a superhero, everyone listens.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Clooney's presence would certainly not go unnoticed since he is favored heavily to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for the terrific Michael Clayton. If you have not already seen it, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Tagged as: film, hollywood, clooney, wga, the oscars

Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.