George Clooney lauds Joe Biden for dropping out of US presidential race

Los Angeles: Hollywood star George Clooney has heaped praise on US President Joe Biden over the latter’s decision to step down from the 2024 presidential race.

The actor attended the press event in Venice for his film ‘Wolfs’, and shared his opinion on Biden passing the baton to the current Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, reports Variety.

He said: “I’ve actually never had to answer that question so I suppose I will do it here. The person who should be applauded is the President, who has done the most selfless thing a President has done since George Washington.”

“What should be remembered is the selfless act of someone who, it’s very hard to let go of power — we know that, we’ve seen it all over the world — and for someone to say I think there’s a better path forward, all the credit goes to him. And that’s really the truth … I’m just very proud of where we are in the state of the world right now,” he added.

During the event, he was also asked about Apple moving the film from a wide theatrical release to a limited one. He also brought up a New York Times report from last week by Nicole Sterling that he and Pitt were paid more than $35 million each.

“It was millions and millions of dollars less than what was reported,” he said. “I think it’s bad for our industry to have that be the standard.”

As per Variety, on the changing state of the industry and moviegoing, he said that streaming is an absolute necessity.

“We need it. Our industry needs this. And (streamers) also benefit from having films released,” he said. “But we haven’t got it all figured out yet. This is a revolution in our industry. We need Apple and Amazon and they actually need distributors. They need to have Sony or Warner Bros, who have been doing this for 100 years.”

IANS