Celebrities like George Clooney are regularly admonished to stay out of politics by Republican one percenters for purportedly being out of touch with real Americans, the ones whose healthcare access said Republicans have gone out of their way to limit, presumably because there’s nothing so down-to-earth as dying from a preventable disease. But not only has Clooney been involved in politics for a while now, having campaigned for Barack Obama, he’s also a LGBTQ rights advocate and has raised awareness of human rights violations via his Not On Our Watch group.
Still, we suppose that doesn’t necessarily make him especially qualified to weigh in on affairs of state, though he certainly appears to have more experience than half the people making up Trump’s cabinet. But the same applies to Steve Bannon, who went from wannabe Hollywood hot shot to executive chair of far-right publication Breitbart News to short-lived Trump advisor. The only role he seems to have executed well was—you guessed it—the one involving promoting racism and misogyny online. Bannon fell ass-backwards into Seinfeld syndication royalties, and although he’s produced several films, he’s never had a hit on his hands. In fact, he’s struggled to get any of his original ideas made, like that Mel Gibson-cloning movie or even that LA. riots-inspired rap musical.
There’s no love lost between Bannon and Clooney; the actor has regularly called out the ousted Trump official since he first slithered his way into the White House. So while at TIFF to promote his latest movie, Suburbicon, Clooney said he enjoyed pissing off the once-and-future Breitbart exec before reminding reporters and audiences that Bannon sucks at creative endeavors. He’s a “failed fucking screenwriter,” the actor says. Clooney called Bannon’s The Thing I Am the “worst script you’ve ever read,” and reminisced with Vanity Fair about how the Hollywood never-was tried to woo him into signing onto one of his films. The actors remarks now join all that reputation burnishing in the hall of Bannon burns.