Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Turner(LOS ANGELES) — Just before filming his upcoming movie Midnight Sky, George Clooney found himself in the hospital for pancreatitis.
Prior to the hospitalization, the 59-year-old actor had lost nearly 30 pounds for his role in the film, which he believes is what contributed to the health concern.
“I think I was trying too hard to lose the weight quickly and probably wasn’t taking care of myself,” he told the Mirror.
Clooney, who also directs the film, added, “It took a few weeks to get better and as a director, it’s not so easy because you need energy. We were out on this glacier in Finland, which made it a lot harder work. But it certainly helped with the character.”
In addition to dropping some weight for the role, he also stopped shaving and grew facial hair that his wife, Amal, 42, wasn’t too fond of and left his three-year-old twins, Alexander and Ella, polarized.
“I grew a big ugly beard and my son loved it because he’d hide things in it which I wouldn’t know about until I got to work and I’d be like, ‘Oh, there’s a popsicle stuck in my beard,'” Clooney explained. “But my wife and daughter were really happy when it came off because it was very hard to find a face underneath all that mess.”
In the film, Clooney portrays a scientist who ventures through the Arctic to ward off a crew of astronauts returning home after a mysterious global catastrophe.
Midnight Sky is scheduled for a limited theatrical release on December 11, 2020, before being digitally released on December 23, 2020.
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