Why George Clooney turned down $50m to appear in commercial

George Clooney has revealed why he turned down a role in an airline commercial. Photo / Getty Images

George Clooney once turned down $35 million ($51m) to appear in an airline commercial.

The 60-year-old star was offered the eye-watering amount of cash for one day's work but his human rights lawyer wife Amal, 43, convinced him it "wasn't worth it" because it was associated with a "questionable" country.

He said: "I was offered $35 million for one day's work for an airline commercial, but I talked to Amal about it and we decided it's not worth it. It was [associated with] a country that, although it's an ally, is questionable at times, and so I thought: 'Well, if it takes a minute's sleep away from me, it's not worth it.' "

George Clooney turned the massive sum down after discussing it with his wife Amal. Photo / Getty Images

Clooney - who has been married to Alma since 2014 and welcomed twins Ella and Alexander into the world with her in 2017 - also opened up about his parenting skills, insisting that despite their hectic lifestyles, the pair do not rely on nannies all of the time.

He told The Guardian newspaper: "We don't [have full-time staff], because it's so important to Amal [to be involved]. We have a nanny four days a week and the rest of the time it's just us. And during lockdown it was just us – for a full year! I felt like my mother in 1964, doing dishes and six loads of laundry a day."

His revelations come just days after he spoke out against Alec Baldwin's fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of 'Rust', which was deemed an accident after Baldwin was unknowingly handed a loaded gun.

He said: " Why for the life of me this low-budget film, with producers who haven't produced anything, wouldn't have hired, for the armourer, someone with experience. [Whenever I use a gun] I look at it, I open it, I show it to the person I'm pointing it to, we show it to the crew, every single take you hand it back to the armourer when you're done, and you do it again. Everyone does it."