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.
EW What was your preparation like?
CLOONEY I storyboarded every single shot in every single scene beforehand. It worked out very well because we finished way ahead of schedule and way under budget. Now, whether that preparation was the right thing or not, we'll see.
EW Because...
CLOONEY I did unfair things to actors. I would lock Sam into shots that I planned out months earlier. There's a shot I stole directly from John Frankenheimer's TV production of ''The Snows of Kilimanjaro'' in 1960. I had Sammy look directly into the camera while we spun the set and changed his clothes -- all while he did a two-page monologue. It's really a phenomenal shot, but it's not fair to do. [As an actor] I don't know how open I would have been to that.
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