Why Did George Clooney Turn Down $35M For A One-Day Job In An Airline Commercial?

It is safe to assume that most people would not turn down the opportunity to earn $35 million for a single day’s work on a television commercial for an airline. However, Oscar-winning actor George Clooney is not like most people.

What Happened: Clooney acknowledged he passed on a seven-digit paycheck for a one-day’s gig based on the input of his wife Amal Clooney, a Lebanese-born human rights lawyer.

“Well, yeah. I was offered $35 million for one day’s work for an airline commercial, but I talked to Amal about it,” Clooney said in an interview with the U.K. newspaper The Guardian. “And we decided it’s not worth it. It was [associated with] a country that, although it’s an ally, is questionable at times, and so I thought: ‘Well, if it takes a minute’s sleep away from me, it’s not worth it.’”

Clooney would not identify which country was behind the airline or when this offer was rejected. The actor is no stranger to commercial advertising — his appearance in advertisements for Nespresso brought him $40 million and he appeared in commercials for his tequila company Casamigos, which he sold four years ago for approximately $1 billion.

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What Happens Next: Clooney’s upcoming projects are putting him on both sides of the camera. He directed and produced but did not star in the new film, “The Tender Bar,” which opens on Dec. 17 via Netflix NFLX, and he is appearing opposite Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy “Ticket to Paradise” that is scheduled to open Oct. 22, 2022, via Comcast Corporation’s CMCSA Universal Pictures.

Next summer, Clooney will be in the U.K. shooting a film for Apple AAPL opposite Brad Pitt; details on that film have not been made public. Nonetheless, Clooney confided to The Guardian that “there just aren’t that many great parts” and he was conserving his screen presence.

“My wife and I had this conversation when I turned 60 this summer,” he recalled. “I said: ‘I can still bounce around pretty good, and we both love what we do. But we gotta make sure we don’t book ourselves silly.’ So, part of it is just us making sure we live our lives.”

Photo: Francesco / Flickr Creative Commons