EW I hate to bring up a painful subject, but the response to --
CLOONEY Full Frontal.
EW Yes.
CLOONEY There was sort of a backlash. But look: This was a film done for under $2 million; it made all that back in foreign presales. So the idea was to experiment. And it was fascinating. I was actually surprised at the [harsh] reviews. I thought it was fun.
EW Steven, since the success of Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and Ocean's Eleven, do you feel expectations for you have really increased?
SODERBERGH I don't know. And fortunately, I don't have to care about that. I got out of Full Frontal what I wanted to get out of it. I'm in the best position in the world from a critical standpoint -- that having my liver carried through the street on a stick doesn't affect my livelihood at all. What makes me sad, though, is that the person behind me who may want to do something similar is going to have a tougher time -- both getting the money to do it and maybe not wanting to risk walking into that gauntlet.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Starring Sam Rockwell (the villain in Charlie's Angels) and Drew Barrymore, and featuring Julia Roberts and Clooney in small comic roles, Confessions is an adaptation of Chuck Barris' own 1984 ''unauthorized autobiography,'' in which the outlandish host of The Gong Show claimed to have moonlighted as a CIA assassin. The project has a long and tortured history (Mike Myers, Johnny Depp, X-Men director Bryan Singer, and Warner Bros. were all once attached), but in late 2001, Clooney leveraged his clout to get the Miramax film finally rolling -- and decided to make his directorial debut.
EW George, what made you feel confident that you could tell the story as a director?
CLOONEY I didn't feel confident that I could tell the story. But I knew I could work with actors. I also thought if I was ever going to direct anything, why not direct the best script around? I figured if I had a good script and good actors, then I couldn't completely fail. And I'm a fan of films from the mid-'60s to the mid-'70s, and I wanted to bring to Confessions what I think was most important with those films: a point of view. Right or wrong, a point of view.
EW What was your point of view?
SODERBERGH Oh, this will be interesting.
CLOONEY Confessions is about a man who woke up one day and realized he wasn't any of the things that he thought he was going to be, or thought he was. It's also the story of a man who started blaming himself -- and was blamed by other people -- for ''the destruction of television.'' Chuck was a lot like Jerry Springer. Jerry was the mayor of my hometown, Cincinnati, where my father had a television show for about 40 years. Jerry was a Kennedy Democrat, very bright guy. My dad gave him his first break on the news. Jerry knows better. That was the problem with Chuck: He was smart enough to know what he was doing wasn't the greatest thing. And that, hopefully, comes through in the movie.
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