Like father, like son.
George Clooney, one of Hollywood's all-time pranksters — he loved to put gooey lubricant on the ER phones and door knobs — has taught some of his favorite tricks to his 5-year-old son, Alexander.
"Our son now is a big prankster," wife Amal said in their first joint TV interview on CBS Mornings Wednesday. She turned to George and added, "You've basically taught him all of these lessons and he's now pranking his dad back."
George, the Oscar-winning Kentucky native, and Amal, the Lebanese-born human rights attorney, spoke with Gayle King while in New York for their inaugural Clooney Foundation for Justice Albie Awards. Five people will be honored Thursday, Sept. 29, for risking their lives to defend justice for independence, democracy, survivors, journalists and women.
"These are people who willingly go to prison because they believe so strongly in the fight for independence, and the fight for democracy. They are real heroes," George said. (He also appears on Stephen Colbert's CBS Late Show 11:35 p.m. Thursday.)
Founded in 2016, the foundation has operations in 40 countries to monitor trials targeting women and journalists; fight authoritarianism that seeks to punish those who speak truth to power; and investigate war crimes in Ukraine and elsewhere.
"In Ukraine, at some point this war will end. And then there's going to have to be (Russian) people held accountable for that," George told CBS Morning viewers. "Part of what we're doing is gathering the evidence, so when that moment comes, you have the ability to say. 'Now we're going to hold you responsible.' "
The couple — married eight years ago on Sept. 27 — also talked about their parents, courtship, children (5-year-old twins Ella and Alexander, born June 6, 2017) and mutual interest in pursuing justice around the globe.
Here are the highlights:
FALLING IN LOVE: George was a confirmed bachelor, vowing never to marry, until meeting Amal Alamuddin in July 2013.
GEORGE: "The minute she walked in the door, you know, I was taken by her. And the fun part was, I didn't know if she would like me, or any of those things … She's this extraordinarily fun, smart, beautiful, great woman and I was just very taken with her and I started writing her letters."
AMAL: "Some of them came from his dog."
GEORGE: "Who could be mad at a dog?"
AMAL: "The dog needed a human rights lawyer to rescue him from the wine cellar. I remember that one."
AMAL: "I met him and I thought: I'm so glad that there's someone like him in the world. I didn't necessarily imagine that I would get to spend my life with him or that we'd have this incredible family. So, he took me by surprise."
GEORGE: "It screwed my life up! Life was easy. Now I've got twins running around!"
LIFE WITH TWINS: "Well, we made a terrible mistake," George says. "We taught them Italian. And we don't speak Italian. So we've armed them with a language that they can harm us with. And we don't really know what they want. And French, too. I'm from Kentucky. English is my second language."
GEORGE: "Alexander's favorite superhero is Batman. And I go, 'You know, I was Batman (referring to his 1997 Batman & Robin film with Chris O'Donnell).' And he goes, 'Yeah, but not anymore!' "
BEST ADVICE: George said the best advice came from his father Nick Clooney, the former Cincinnati news anchor, variety host, DJ and newspaper columnist.
"When I was growing up, my dad had one rule for us, which was: Challenge people with more power than you, and defend people with less power. If you do nothing else in your life, you'll have a successful life."
THEIR FOUNDATION: Amal says they created their foundation in response "to what we see in the world, and trying to use anger as a motivating force, rather than something that just makes you want to bury your face in the sand." George had been involved with social causes for more than two decades. He helped organize telethons after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami and Katrina in 2005; and he co-founded the Not On Our Watch international humanitarian aid organization in 2008 initially to help end mass atrocities in Darfur.
GEORGE: "There are some things you can do. We're not a government. We can't change the laws. But we can make it loud enough that the citizens can demand those kinds of things. You know, it doesn't work easily, and it takes a long time, and you keep feeling this arc of history bending towards justice. It feels like it takes a long time. It does. "
INSPIRED BY JOURNALIST PARENTS: They both say they were inspired by their parents' passion for journalism. Amal's mother, Bariaa Alamuddin, is foreign editor of the Pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat.
AMAL: "My mom is a journalist and she was always asking tough questions and not sort of intimated by people who are in power … and that has stayed with me."
GEORGE: "(My father) is a very smart and very funny. Listen, I took him to Darfur with me. We went into Chad and snuck into Darfur together when he was 75 years old. He's a tough one … I remember my dad had done a story in Honduras. I think it was sort of violent and awful, and the story got bumped for an Elizabeth Taylor-she-got-the-big-diamond-ring (engagement) story. He was pissed off, of course. And I said, 'Let's go to Darfur, you and me. We'll go there, and you be the reporter and I'll be Elizabeth Taylor.' " [Editor's note: When George Clooney has told this story previously, he's said he decided to go to Darfur immediately after he won his first Oscar, for Syriana, in 2006. He asked his father to be the reporter, while volunteering to be the cameraman.]
RESERVATIONS ABOUT COOKING: When asked by King if it's true she didn't know how to boil an egg, Amal confirmed that she's not a good cook .
AMAL: "I'm afraid it's all true. We really don't need to go into details. When we first got married, I tried to do the cooking thing. I tried to make it fun. I bought aprons, and I had music and a glass of wine, and then I realized that every time I cooked he would make (dinner) reservations, and it would be date night."
GEORGE: "During COVID, I was the chef."
POWER OF LOVE: Amal and George told King they never have had an argument.
AMAL: "I think its 100 percent — no, I'd say it's 99 percent luck just to meet the right person. I think the one thing that we'd take credit for, in a way, is not to be cynical. And I was surprised he was not cynical at all, and things just moved really quickly."
GEORGE: "It starts with love. That's the whole secret to it … It's just been easy, the easiest thing in our lives, by far. We've never had arguments."
The Albie Awards were named for Albie Sachs, a South African human rights lawyer who, after being released from prison, was injured by a car bomb. "He lost an arm and sight in one eye, but he hasn't given up fighting," Amal said. "He was one of the people who drafted the Bill of Rights for South Africa."
Meryl Streep, Michelle Obama, Bruce Springsteen and Julia Roberts are participate in the Albie Awards program at the New York Public Library in Manhattan. Roberts and Clooney co-star inTicket to Paradise opening Oct. 21.
