George Clooney braved a sinus infection and a rainstorm on Thursday night for the Venice premiere of Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly,” which soaked in an 8.5-minute standing ovation.
Clooney walked the red carpet on the Lido with his co-star Adam Sandler, who made a rare appearance in a tux. The two leading men play a Hollywood power couple of sorts in the Netflix film, which judging by the Venice applause-o-meter, could be a major Oscar contender. In “Jay Kelly,” Clooney is an aging movie star and Sandler is his manager who has sacrifices everything for his most precious client.
As the crowd cheered during the ovation, Clooney leaned over and kiss his wife Amal, seated behind him. He hugged Sandler and Baumbach throughout the applause. The film ended at nearly 1 a.m. during a vicious thunderstorm, as the crowd poured into the soaking wet streets in a sea of umbrellas.
Earlier in the day, Clooney missed the film’s official press conference as he recovered from a sinus infection. And on the red carpet, the star did try to socially distance from his cast, which included Laura Dern (as Jay Kelly’s publicist Liz), Billy Crudup (his childhood friend) and Riley Keough (his daughter). But that lasted all of a few minutes as festivalgoers enthusiastically shook Clooney’s hand, hugged him and even kissed him on the cheek — germs he damned. Clooney played along, signing autographs for a while before embracing jury president Alexander Payne and taking his seat.
Clooney portrays a famous movie star (what a reach!) in his 60s except in “Jay Kelly,” he’s facing a personal reckoning. So he embarks on a journey through Europe — by plane, train and automobile — with his entourage as he reflects on his life choices, relationships and legacies. Baumbach wrote the film with Emily Mortimer (“The Newsroom”) in her feature screenwriting debut. The starry ensemble, not all of whom were able to make the trek to the Lido, include Baumbach’s real-life partner Greta Gerwig, Patrick Wilson, Eve Hewson and Isla Fisher.
The film’s tagline is “Everybody knows Jay Kelly, but Jay Kelly doesn’t know himself,” and Clooney has described the role as the most “vulnerable” of his career.
“When you’re an actor in my position, at my age, finding roles like this aren’t all that common,” Clooney told Vanity Fair prior to the premiere. “If you can’t make peace with aging, then you’ve got to get out of the business and just disappear. I’m now the guy that, when I go running after a bad guy, it’s funny — it’s not suspenseful. That’s okay. I embrace all of that.”
Baumbach has premiered a number of his films on the Lido, including 2022’s “White Noise,” 2019’s Oscar-nominated “Marriage Story” and 2015’s documentary “De Palma” about the filmmaking titan. Clooney, too, has returned to Venice several times over the decades with movies such as 1998’s “Out of Sight,” 2005’s “Good Night, and Good Luck” and most recently with 2024’s “Wolfs.” Meanwhile, “Jay Kelly” is Sandler’s first Venice Film Festival premiere.
