Decades before CNN agreed to live telecast of Broadway’s Good Night, and Good Luck on June 7, which George Clooney had originally envisioned it as Special for CBS, not a movie and then a play.
“But then there was that mishap with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl,” recalls Clooney. “Suddenly I got a call from the head of CBS saying, ‘we’re out of the live TV business,’ so we wrote it as a movie.”
“This is just the natural gestation,” says Clooney of the trajectory from a 2005 Oscar-nominated film to first-ever live telecast of Broadway play.
“Some networks aren’t really up for the idea of doing this right now, they’re all a little shellshocked from tariff talk and lawsuits.”
“I have a bit of a history with doing live TV,” says Clooney. “I talked NBC into doing ER as a live show, and then I did a live movie called Fail Safe for CBS.
Saturday is good night because it’s our last evening performance. Our run is over so it’s not costing the play anymore. Why don’t we open it up and show people how fun it is to come to New York to see a play?”
CNN Live Show and Debate: Anderson Cooper and Pamela Brown
CNN anchors Anderson Cooper and Pamela Brown will lead special live coverage at 6:30 pm ET outside of the Winter Garden Theatre. After the broadcast, Cooper will host exclusive special to discuss the production and state of global journalism.
“We’re not re-blocking the play,” says Clooney of the drama he co-wrote with Heslov, who serves co-director of the telecast with Micah Bickham.
“We made this play from a movie. We don’t need to do another movie. It’s still a play and we want people to see the audience and to see big and wider shots, to see how sets are changing and then to get in closer. It’s a bit of everything. We want it to feel like a unique theater experience.”
The only instructions for the theater audience that night is to be seated before curtain time.
“It’s going to get a little ugly if you walk in once the show starts, as there are no commercial breaks,” says Clooney. “I remember the Obamas were here the other day and everybody was so excited. The play was 4 minutes shorter than it normally is. Having done live TV before with ER and with Fail Safe, I expect the show will pick up a little pace, but we’ll get into a groove.”
The Message: Importance of Free Press
Clooney hopes to get across the message of the importance of a free press and speaking truth to power; it’s one of the key tenets of the Clooney Foundation for Justice that he and wife Amal have tried to convey since 2016.
“Murrow was taking on McCarthy at a time when people were afraid, and you could see fear permeating in the law firms, in the networks, in the universities,” says Clooney. “It’s a good thing to remind ourselves that we’ve been afraid before, and we survive these things and we will get through it. The most important thing is to constantly challenge people in power–you have to, or they win.”
Good Night, and Good Luck closes its theatrical run with matinee performance on Sunday, June 8. There is talk about taking the show to London, but it doesn’t sound like the actor plans to keep the play rennin across the pond.
“We have a home there and it might be fun to do something in London, but I think there should be someone else involved in it first and then maybe I could come in for a while,” he says. “It’s fun to see other actors take a turn with it to see what they do with it.”
Until then, he’s sorry to say goodbye to Broadway but is looking forward to putting his feet up and getting back to normal. “I feel very lucky to be part of the person giving that message out, and I will miss that terribly,” he says. “But I’m ready to grow some gray hair out, that’s for sure.”
