Bono & Clooney

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Bono interviews George Clooney
Saturday 25 April 2009, by Corinne/Dead

Rock star Bono interviews George Clooney for a Time 100/Anderson Cooper 360 special airing May 1 at 11:00 p.m. ET.

Chuck Hadad AC360° Producer

My days are never boring as a producer at AC 360’ but my latest assignment definitely goes down in the annals of producer history: shoot Bono interviewing George Clooney. Clooney is being honored by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people and Time asked Bono to write the profile. As Time’s partner, we shot the interview and other famous pairings for an upcoming Time 100/Anderson Cooper 360’ Special aptly titled “The World’s Most Influential People.”

While Bono and Clooney are acutely aware of their own fame, it seems to be inversely proportional to the fanfare surrounding both of them. Clooney showed up to the interview solo: no security, no entourage, just a guy in combat boots and a leather jacket. I met him on the street in New York outside of our interview location and joked with him as I lead him to a green room that Bono was looking forward to getting him in the hot seat. I didn’t know it at the time but that was truer than I could have ever imagined.

Bono trailed him by a few minutes in a separate car and while I tried to keep things professional on the outside, on the inside I felt like the 10 year old kid who wore out his tape of U2’s “The Joshua Tree.”
The two stars are good friends and when I showed Bono to the same green room, he began to belt out the Beatles “Hey Jude” on a piano but changed the lyrics to butter up Clooney for the interview: “Hey George, don’t make it bad …”

I left them to catch up and ran out to be sure our crew was ready. As far as productions go, for this one we went all out and were shooting the interview at Rose Theater at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Ten minutes later, Bono and Clooney walked into the theater, introduced themselves to the entire crew and Bono had the closest he came to a diva moment during the entire afternoon. “Could I get a clipboard so we can make this interview official?!” he said with a smile and a wink.

With clipboard in hand, he sat down, I called for quiet on the set and Bono began.

“You recently slept with someone that I have a crush on … tell me about that?” was one of his first questions to George Clooney and it set the tone of their nearly 40 minute interview: although they’re good friends, Bono would leave no stone unturned.

The special airs next Friday at 11 pm ET. Check out the video above for a sneak peak.



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