George hated the fat
2006-02-10 21:24
Berlin - George Clooney talked down his Oscar prospects on Friday as the complex, edgy political drama Syriana, which earned him a best supporting actor nomination, screened at Berlin's annual film festival.
Clooney has been nominated in three categories this year. In the best original screenplay category, his nomination for Good Night, and Good Luck puts him up against Syriana director Stephen Gaghan.
"I don't think we're going to win any," a deadpan Clooney told reporters. "There's been a lot of Brokeback Mountain stuff."
"Oscar nominations are as important as anything," he said. "The hope is that people will see this film - I don't know about wins."
Clooney has a third nomination as best director for Good Night, and Good Luck.
In Syriana, a many-layered international tale of oil, power and corruption, Clooney plays a veteran CIA agent assigned to assassinate the heir to the throne in an oil-rich Persian Gulf country - a role that saw him grow a beard and pile on weight.
"I put it on so quickly I was anxious to get it off," Clooney said. "The depressing thing was that I could put on 16kg in 30 days."
Syriana is based on the 2002 memoir of real-life CIA agent Robert Baer, who joined Clooney and Gaghan on Friday to promote the movie.
Baer said he and the director toured the Middle East for two months, "listening to everybody, all sides."
"It did get it right," he said of the movie. "All those figures in this movie, I can associate with somebody real, a real political player."
- AP