George Clooney has opened up about the horrific pain that led him to be hospitalised just four days before he started filming a new movie.
The Hollywood A-Lister was taken to the emergency department after suffering from crippling stomach pain, which was later diagnosed as pancreatitis.
George, 59, was due to start filming for The Midnight Sky when he started suffering and now believes that his diet played a factor in the illness, which can be deadly.
He had shed almost two stone for his role which sees him play a survivor of a global catastrophe, he told The Mirror.
George’s character is a cancer-stricken astronomer who continues to fight the elements at a remote, snow-swept station as he attempts to make contact with a spaceship.
The film, which was filmed in the Arctic, also credits George as the director and features actress Felicity Jones.
“I think I was trying too hard to lose the weight quickly and probably wasn’t taking care of myself.”
He went on to say: “It took a few weeks to get better and as a director, it’s not so easy because you need energy.”
While being known for his iconic silver locks and stubble, George had to cease shaving his beard – a move which his wife, Human Rights barrister, didn’t approve of.
“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’.
“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,” he told the publication.
During filming, George kept in close contact with Amal, 42, Alexander and Ella, three, via video-calling site, Zoom.
The family opted to spend the recent lockdown periods at their Hollywood Hills home, rather than their residences in England and Italy.
Speaking of their decision to reside in California, he said: “It’s easier in Los Angeles because it’s not raining and snowing, so it’s a lot easier to walk out in the street.
“These drug companies have done an amazing job and we’re almost there so it would be really stupid to blow it now, so we’re staying here and we’ll do Christmas here.”