George Clooney reveals how relatives he met on Irish road trip looked like his family

The actor told Ryan Tubridy in a previously recorded interview for The Late Late Show that he found it uncanny how the resemblance was so obvious.

“It was a couple of years ago, just before Covid. I was going there with my father to see some old relatives,” he said.

“There were a lot of Clooneys, yeah it was pretty fun actually,”

“I mean it’s a funny thing where you go to meet people who you are related to who you have never met before…so many look like my uncle George.”

His co-star in new rom-com Ticket to Paradise, Julia Roberts, also spoke about her ties to Ireland.

Roberts spent many months here while filming Michael Collins - in which she played Kitty Kiernan - in 1996. She has visited frequently in the years since.

“That whole experience was so beautiful,” she said. “To work with Neil Jordan was such a treat and on a story like this to be invited into that kind of history, I just remember I was just so bowled over really.

“I just couldn’t believe it really and I had worked with Liam once before and I remember when Neil offered me the part and I said ‘so Liam (Neeson) is good with this too? Like everybody is on board with this?’”

Clooney and Roberts join forces in the forthcoming rom-com as a divorced couple who fly to Bali to stop their lovestruck daughter making the same impulsive mistake they once made.

Speaking about the movie, Julia said it was their “mission” to do something to “make people escape and laugh and get caught up in other people’s lives in a way that was really gentle”.

George added: “When I was sent this script, they said it to me because clearly, I am sort of like the king of romantic comedies and people know me as that. I called up Julia and I said look like ‘I am going to help you out and I am going to show you how to do a romantic comedy’ and she was like ‘oh’. And I said, ‘I will show you how to be funny’.”

Julia laughed: “He was a very patient and benevolent teacher” to which George joked: “Yes, benevolent…”

Ryan asked Julia and George, particularly in their performance in 'Ticket to Paradise', if they would compare themselves to Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn:

Julia said : “Well they are [our] personal idols; I mean they are the highest bar…in our dreams...”

George added: “We don’t want to be compared to that because that is a little too high, that bar!”

Speaking about their drunken dance scene in ‘Ticket to Paradise’, Julia said: “I think people are going to have re-evaluate us almost entirely when they see our performance on the dance floor... “I think we really seemed like we were [hammered].”

George added: “Since I am actually Irish, I spend the days hammered [laughing]”.

The oar also revealed there close friendship with U2 front man Bono.

George: said: “I have Eastered [with him]. Listen I don’t enjoy him, he has the sunglasses on you know, I don’t know [joking]. They are really great guys; they are really great guys and good fun.”

Julia said: “I love all those lads; they are really great and so talented. And it’s so exciting you guys are all being honoured on the same night.”

Asked if they would consider a summer house in Ireland, Julia replied: “I am hoping George will get one and then I will have one.”

Ryan suggested he could probably move into Bono’s shed while Julia joked” ANDI will take his [Bono’s] other shed.”