It’s George Clooney’s way or the highway

updated 2:50 p.m. ET Oct. 2, 2007

TORONTO - If there’s a do-it-yourself movement in Hollywood, George Clooney could be its leader.

After years of taking what was offered, including bad movies such as “Batman & Robin,” Clooney took charge of his career. The result has left the former star of TV’s “ER” an Academy Award-winning actor and Oscar-nominated filmmaker who uses his stardom to do films he truly cares about, including the new legal drama “Michael Clayton,” opening Friday.

Clooney, 46, now can look back on a post-Batman decade of wild success on far-flung projects as an actor, writer, director and producer, sometimes handling all four jobs at once.

He has traded on his commercial clout from such hits as “The Perfect Storm” and the “Ocean’s Eleven” flicks to make demanding dramas like 2005’s “Syriana,” which earned Clooney a supporting-actor Oscar, and “Good Night, and Good Luck,” a best-picture nominee that brought him directing and screenwriting nominations the same year.

It’s a major turnabout for a man who hated the publicity tour he had to do for “Batman & Robin” in 1997.

“It was really hard, because I knew it wasn’t a very good film, and it makes you a liar, sort of, but you have to, because it’s your job to promote a film,” Clooney said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, where “Michael Clayton” played. “I was like, I don’t want to tour again for a film that doesn’t work on any level.”

Clooney turned to more story-driven productions with such filmmakers as future producing partner Steven Soderbergh on “Out of Sight,” David O. Russell on “Three Kings” and Joel and Ethan Coen on “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

He and Soderbergh have collaborated on the “Ocean’s” romps and many other projects, while Clooney and the Coens reunited for the romance “Intolerable Cruelty” and the upcoming comedy “Burn After Reading.”

Noble failures
The box-office returns can be modest to nonexistent compared to huge Hollywood franchises, but Clooney has felt good about going to work and even better about the movies created.

“You start going, OK, well these are films I would go see. I’m proud of them. I think they’ll last longer than an opening weekend. I get it now. I have to focus on the script first and foremost, then I have to focus on directors. If that means working with Steven Soderbergh as often as possible or Joel and Ethan as often as possible, I’ll do it. If it means directing them myself, I’ll do it,” Clooney said.

Slide show   Clooney's world From "Facts of Life" to "Michael Clayton," the making of a major star. more photos

“Because at the very least, if I’m going to bomb, it’s going to be my call, and I’m OK with that. If it doesn’t work, then you go, ‘Hey, it was my decision.”’

Even his failures look noble. Soderbergh directed Clooney in two ambitious duds, the science-fiction saga “Solaris” and last year’s film-noir throwback “The Good German.” Yet both earned them admiration for the effort when they simply could have made another formulaic Hollywood yarn.

Clooney began directing with 2002’s Chuck Barris fantasy memoir “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and continues with this December’s football romance “Leatherheads,” in which he co-stars with Renee Zellweger and John Krasinski.

“Michael Clayton” stars Clooney in the title role, a former prosecutor now on the verge of financial disaster and toiling as a fixer at a huge Manhattan law firm, a man who makes unseemly problems go away for high-rolling clients.

Clayton’s dormant humanity is put to the test after a colleague (Tom Wilkinson) undermines a lawsuit involving a huge corporate client, prompting ruthless action by the company’s in-house legal eagle (Tilda Swinton).

The notion of a handsome, charming middle-aged man staring failure in the face is not a huge stretch for Clooney, the nephew of singer Rosemary Clooney and son of TV newsman Nick Clooney.

The actor moved to Hollywood in the early 1980s after failed bids at baseball and journalism careers. Success did not come until he was in his 30s, following a long apprenticeship that included such TV shows as “The Facts of Life” and “Roseanne.”

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