George Clooney is a man who needs no introduction. In addition to being considered “one of the world’s sexiest men,” he is also an actor who invariably chooses interesting movies. He also spends a lot of time and energy raising money for – and bringing attention to – charity causes. And so, at the Emmys, when other actors received prizes for their work in television, Clooney was given the “Bob Hope Humanitarian Award” for his, , “determined and efforts and to international crises.” When he met with the press, he talked about his charity work:


George Clooney
(Standard American accent)

I don’t particularly do more than anybody else in the position I’m in.

I try to pick subjects that I can learn about

and then focus on and then try to do as much as I can and,

if you have a tremendous amount of heat from the spotlight

, then you’re able to shine a little bit more of a light in a different direction. It’s just deflecting. My dad calls it a celebrity credit card that you just try

to cash in on

in other places. And people were asking me about Haiti at one point and I said I wasn’t a Haiti expert, I was sort of a fund-raising expert, you know, more than anything, but you could name dozens of people in the music industry, in my industry and in millions of other industries, by the way, they’re.... they’re doing the same thing. I think if you’re in this position, you should do it.

BERNARD AND BRAD
He was then asked whether there was a public figure whom he personally admired:

George Clooney

There are people that I’ve worked with personally that I’ve found... the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner,

has been pretty amazing

. He sort of started

Doctors Without Borders

, but he’s always very involved in other events. I know him personally and

I’ve stumbled onto him

in the Congo, in tiny villages, and I always find him to be sort of amazing in... in that way.

He wouldn’t have to be doing that

at this point in his life and... but there’s, in terms of well-known celebrities, I mean, you know, Brad’s in [Brad Pitt], you know, New Orleans right now and he’s done a tremendous job of trying to bring focus and build houses.

He’s hit us all up for dough on building houses

and he’s really good at that. I’m impressed, but

there’s a lot of people doing a lot of really good stuff out there right now

.

BONO
And he was asked whether there was anyone who had inspired him:

George Clooney

You learn from people who do it really well. I mean, Bono was very good at that idea of... so many of our friends have... they’re people that have been doing this for ever. You know, this is not something new, from the

War Bonds

during World War II! We’re not reinventing the wheel here. All we’re trying to do is say that, if there’s going to be a tremendous amount of attention placed on us, it’s too much, then we should try and deflect some of it onto some people

who could really use it

. That’s all it is and, if you can do it effectively and do it without harming people along the way, then it’s a good thing, that’s all.

BUT...
Yet, even though celebrities like Clooney do a lot of charity work, the money doesn’t always reach the victims. Clooney was asked how closely he and his colleagues monitored the money they raised:

George Clooney

In all of these

fundraisers

we’ve been incredibly responsible with because, every one of the places... for instance, we had seven and, at sometimes, eight different places that we gave the money to; the Red Cross, Oxfam, World Food Program, and, you know, every one of them at one point or another have had financial troubles.

They’ve gotten themselves in a little dutch

. We make it our responsibility to make sure that the money is used in the right way, for all of them. And we’ve done that in all of these, you know, fundraisers and have always done it.

We keep close tabs on them

. It’s important to do.

WHAT ABOUT BOB?
He was also asked about Bob Hope, who gave his name to the humanitarian :

George Clooney

Well, first of all,

he did it so effortlessly

. It wasn’t just

the USO show

. That’s the thing that everybody remembers him for, that he did for 50 years, but he did so many tremendous... ­he was one of the great charitable actors. He did it all. And it was... also very quiet, but he always did it with a great sense of humor.