George Clooney looks back on ‘rotten’ 2020, and ahead to a Biden presidency

George Clooney's new movie, "The Midnight Sky," depicts a barren planet suffering from the results of a mysterious catastrophe. Given the events of 2020, it seems prescient, to say the least.

"2020 was a pretty rotten year," Clooney recently told Yahoo Entertainment, noting Kobe Bryant's death and the unrest stemming from the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. However, he thinks that a Biden presidency might be the light at the end of the tunnel.

"I'm excited to have someone who is in charge of our government that doesn't call the press the enemy of the people," he said, referencing President Trump's disdain for the media. "I think Joe Biden is the right man."

Video Transcript

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KEVIN POLOWY: We're also in this time of transition and deep political turmoil in the US. I feel like we can always count on you as a sage voice of reason and calm. I mean, how are you feeling about things as the calendar flips from 2020 to 2021?

GEORGE CLOONEY: Well, 2020 was a pretty rotten year, you know, all the way around starting with Kobe Bryant dying. It's just been-- you know, it's been one sort of catastrophe after another and then all the racial unrest with the George Floyd killing and Breonna Taylor killing. We've had all of these things that just felt oppressive towards us.

I see a lot of light at the end of these tunnels. You know, we do have two, three-- it looks like with this Johnson & Johnson vaccine, we'll probably have four vaccines. Two of them look really promising right now, which means that by May or so it won't just be essential workers but other people will start being able to be vaccinated, and that feels like that's a really promising thing and really an incredible thing.

If you're a Democrat, then it feels very good to have January 20 coming around. I'm excited to have someone who is in charge of our government that doesn't call the press the enemy of the people, quite honestly. I think it's important that we move in that direction.

Having said all that, I do-- I'm an optimist in general, and I look at things always saying-- I look at them-- I'm a realist. I look at things going, well, this is bad, and these are problems, and these are things we have to fix. But I look at it thinking, we put ourselves in these positions, you know, and we can get ourselves out of them. And, you know, these are man-made problems, so we can unmake them.

I think Joe Biden is the right man. Sometimes the moment meets the man, and I think that this might be his moment. I'm excited about [? him. ?]