He's the most admired and desired man in Hollywood - but George Clooney is deeply hurt by bad reviews, the latest tranche of leaked Sony emails revealed yesterday.
The recently-married actor was so appalled by the critical reaction to his Second World War film The Monuments Men earlier this year that he wrote to Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal saying he needed "protection from all the reviews".
In an email sent on January 29 with the subject line "it's getting worse", Clooney wrote: "Let's just make it a hit. I haven't slept in 30 hours. And it's 7am." Pascal's reassuringly bullish response - "We will protect you by making money ... that's the best revenge" - didn't seem to restore the star's self-confidence, as he sent another anguished email the next day expressing remorse about his work on the film, which told the story of an Allied unit tasked with saving artistic treasures from the Nazis.
"I fear I've let you all down. Not my intention. I apologise. I've just lost touch ... Who knew? Sorry. I won't do it again," he wrote.
The Independent's review of the film, which Clooney also directed and co-wrote, described it as a "profoundly frustrating and unsatisfying film". It has an average score of just 31 per cent on the influential Rotten Tomatoes review aggregation website.
