George Clooney is ‘irritated’ that Quentin Tarantino apparently claimed he isn’t a movie star

There’s just one problem: Tarantino’s alleged comments may not exist, or they may have changed in Clooney’s telling of the story. Business Insider was unable to find evidence of Tarantino making comments similar to those Clooney recounted. (We also contacted Tarantino’s rep for comment but did not receive an immediate response.)

Tarantino has, however, criticized the lack of movie stars in this day and age more generally, particularly with the “Marvel-ization” of Hollywood. “You have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters,” Tarantino said in a 2022 interview on the “2 Bears, 1 Cave” podcast. “But they’re not movie stars. Right? Captain America is the star. Or Thor is the star.”

Tarantino has also praised Pitt as “one of the last remaining big-screen movie stars” in a 2022 interview with GQ.

Clooney, 63, has been focusing more lately on his work behind the camera as a director. The last three years have seen him direct movies like “The Midnight Sky,” “The Tender Bar,” and “The Boys in the Boat.”

But with “Wolfs,” streaming on Apple TV+ in September following a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Clooney is back to acting.

The Oscar winner will follow that with an upcoming movie from Noah Baumbach that also stars Adam Sandler and Laura Dern.

“I don’t know that many people are doing ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ and ‘Michael Clayton,'” Clooney said later in the GQ interview, referencing the wide range of roles he’s played in his career.

“And I think part of the reason I’m allowed to do that is I had so many genres of films that I was in that weren’t successful. You know what I mean? If you’re not wildly successful at action films, then no one’s asking you to do more action films. And the same thing with sort of everything. So part of life for me was always, the lack of massive success allowed me to do other things and try new things.”