Kids really can change the world — just ask 'Pinocchio' and 'Matilda'

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, in for Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEART OF GOLD")

NEIL YOUNG: (Singing) I want to live. I want to give. I've been a miner for a heart of gold.

BIANCULLI: Fifty years ago, Neil Young released his album "Harvest," which includes such classic songs as "Heart Of Gold," "Old Man," "Alabama" and "The Needle And The Damage Done." A new documentary presents, for the first time, footage shot when he was making that album. The movie is called "Harvest Time," and it's now in theaters. In this clip from it, Neil Young is at a radio station.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "NEIL YOUNG: HARVEST TIME")

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: All right. Tonight, Neil Young dropped in to say hi. Well, you're filming a movie or something. What is - do you know - can you explain this?

YOUNG: We're just making a film about - I don't know - just the things that we want to film. There's really not a big plan about it, right? You're in it now, you know? It just keeps changing like that. You know, it's like that (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And someday, somebody'll be able to go to the theater and see it maybe.

YOUNG: Yeah, I hope so. Maybe.

BIANCULLI: Neil Young has a new album produced by the legendary Rick Rubin, titled "World Record." There's also a new 50th anniversary edition of his "Harvest" album. Neil Young joined his first band in Canada when he was 17. He moved down to Los Angeles and hooked up with Stephen Stills in the band Buffalo Springfield. Young later went off on his own and played a short stint with Crosby, Stills and Nash. He's played acoustic music, hard driving rock with the band Crazy Horse, rhythm and blues and grunge rock. We're going to listen to portions of two interviews Terry Gross did with Neil Young. The first was in 1992 when his album "Harvest Moon" was released.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: You were in high school bands. Did you sing in those bands?

YOUNG: After the beginning, I did. I started as an instrumentalist. We used to do songs - instrumentals that I used to write, you know, melodies, and play them on the guitar, sort of like a group called The Shadows from England. And then, after the English Invasion, you know, in the - and also about the same time as Jimmy Reed became popular, the old bluesman Jimmy Reed, with "Going To New York" and...

GROSS: "Bright Lights, Big City."

YOUNG: Yeah, "Peepin' And Hidin'" and all these things, you know? He - about the same time as the British Invasion, all these groups singing harmony and playing guitars and everything - both of those things happened to me at once. So I really couldn't figure out who it was that made me want to sing - but one of them, you know, or both of them at the same time. And I started singing, and that was, like, a milestone (laughter).

GROSS: What do you mean?

YOUNG: People couldn't believe it, apparently. I don't remember it, but I was so into it I guess I didn't notice that everybody was going, what the - what is that, you know (laughter), as I was starting to sing. Of course, now I'm like, you know, Caruso or something.

GROSS: (Laughter).

YOUNG: Got it down.

GROSS: Were you self-conscious about your voice when you started to sing?

YOUNG: No, not really. I never really - I was just glad to be singing. I mean, we could do a lot more songs if I sang them.

GROSS: No one else in the band could sing?

YOUNG: No. Not...

GROSS: No. Is it...

YOUNG: Nobody in the band could sing, not nobody else in the band.

(LAUGHTER)

YOUNG: Nobody in the band. So we did harmony, and we did everything, you know? But it didn't matter.

GROSS: Now, you say that you weren't self-conscious about your singing. But there are stories about how, you know, like, in your first solo album, you intentionally mixed yourself in the background.

YOUNG: No, I mixed myself right up there where I should be. And then, they tried out this new scientific process that they'd invented called the CSG Haeco cog (ph) process, which is this unbelievable thing where you can make a stereo record play back on a monomachine just like it was a monorecord. They did something to the sound back then. This is when stereo was just coming out, and there were - you know, a lot of people had monosets, and the stereo didn't sound right on the mono set. So they came out with this thing. You run it through this machine that this guy made, this little box or something. And it would make it so you could play it both stereo or mono.

But in reality, I was a test case for this with my first album. They did this without letting me know. And they put it out like that, and I got the pressings back. And I went, what happened, you know? Then, I read this thing that'd been added on the album cover where this - with this engineering note that this had employed this technique. And really, it was the worst thing I ever heard. I mean, they just buried the whole center of the record and put it way down. And so I think they only used it on my record. They decided it didn't work after that. So...

GROSS: So it wasn't self-consciousness that was behind that.

YOUNG: No. I could - look at the next record. I - my vocals is right up there.

GROSS: How did you feel about being in a tight harmony group like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young? Did...

YOUNG: How did they feel about it, that's the question.

GROSS: (Laughter).

YOUNG: It was no longer a tight harmony group.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Do you like being in a harmony like that? I mean, I love your voice. I consider it a very personal voice - do you know what I mean? - a voice that should be singing on its own more so than just, like, mixed in a harmony.

YOUNG: Well, you know, so I like singing harmony, too. I sing good harmony with Crazy Horse. And there's a sense in there that - you know, 'cause there's a couple of different ways to sing harmony, and - you know, and you can - or blends of all of them. But one of them is just real tight harmony, and the other one is where you're - everybody's singing just - more or less just singing loose but in a harmonic structure with a lot of feeling. That's a different kind of harmony. And that's the kind of harmony that I do with Crazy Horse quite a bit. Sometimes, we're real successful at that.

BIANCULLI: Neil Young speaking with Terry Gross in 1992. She spoke to him again in 2004 when another album, "Prairie Wind," was released. As you can hear, Terry had a cold.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: What were the very first records you remember buying?

YOUNG: Well, the first records that I - one of the earliest ones, I think, was all Jerry Lee Lewis records and Little Richard and those records. And then, about the late '50s - in early '50s, I bought, you know, records by the Monotones and Buddy Holly and - what's that - Ronnie Self and the Chantelles, all these great records, you know, R&B-type records. And then, Jimmy Reed - I bought all Jimmy Reed's albums when I was in grade eight or nine or something, high school. And I had all his early records. And, you know, I just bought - I really like R&B.

GROSS: And when did you get your first guitar?

YOUNG: Well, my dad brought me a ukulele. I guess I was around 8.

GROSS: Why did he get you a ukulele as opposed to a guitar?

YOUNG: It's just small...

GROSS: Oh, sure.

YOUNG: ...Small enough for me.

GROSS: Sure.

YOUNG: It was just a little plastic Arthur Godfrey one. Then, he played it for me. And he's saying all these sad songs, you know, "Bury Me Out On The Prairie" and all of these ridiculous cowboy songs that he knew from God knows where. And then, he'd - and he'd smile, and he'd play it along. And then, I - and then - and after that, my uncle came by. And he - of course, he had - was really good on the ukulele. And he played the thing and played all these chords. And then, it turned out he could play anything. He played piano, guitar, ukulele, horns. And then, he even played his three daughters. He had them singing...

GROSS: (Laughter).

YOUNG: He had them, in three-part harmony, singing background for him while he was singing. And he taught them all these things. It was amazing. And so my cousins all sang in, you know, harmony, you know?

GROSS: So when did you switch from ukulele to guitar?

YOUNG: Well, I got - like, after our ukulele, I got a thing called a banjo ukulele, which is - plays like a ukulele, but it looked like a banjo. I think it cost about 15 bucks. I got it for Christmas one year. Then, I got a baritone ukulele, which is like a ukulele, but it's bigger, kind of like a really small guitar. And then I advanced up to the guitar because the first four strings on a guitar are the same notes as a ukulele, basically, so I advanced.

GROSS: Did you get lessons on any of this?

YOUNG: I got - I had two guitar lessons in 1962.

GROSS: Well, they took you a long way, I guess.

YOUNG: Well, it took me a long time to get to the place where I had to take them. And I hated those lessons. I never could understand what they were trying to show me.

GROSS: What'd you hate about it?

YOUNG: I didn't learn - I don't think I learned anything there.

GROSS: What'd you hate about the lessons?

YOUNG: I don't know. I didn't remember. I tried to block it all out of my head. I don't even remember what they were trying to show me.

GROSS: Is it...

YOUNG: It's one of those things I didn't enjoy that, luckily, my mind works such that now I don't remember any of it. I only remember walking in the door.

GROSS: Are there any things that you taught yourself...

YOUNG: All gone.

GROSS: ...That are officially wrong?

YOUNG: Yeah (laughter). Yeah, sure - all kinds of things. I - officially wrong for guitar playing, you mean?

GROSS: Mmm hmm. Yeah.

YOUNG: Well, playing out of tune is pretty wrong.

GROSS: (Laughter).

YOUNG: I do that regularly, and I will continue playing out of tune if I think it has some kind of a sound. And, you know, usually I'm - you know, my sound mixer, Tim Mulligan, has been working with me for about 30 years. He comes up to me and says, now, listen; your guitar sounds a lot bigger. He just told me this yesterday. He said, your sound is a lot bigger when you're in tune. So why don't you just take a minute and tune up in between songs if, you know, if you - so the other night I actually stopped, and I gave my guitar to Larry, my guitar tech, and he tuned it, right in the middle of the - you know, I'm not that good at tuning. I got these strobe tuners, and I use them, but it's distracting. Tuning is distracting.

Something about - and then when I have to take my guitar off and have somebody else tune it, I feel like I'm naked up there. I don't know what the hell to do with myself, standing there in front of all these people screaming and yelling because we just tore the house down doing something. And then I don't have my guitar. I'm waiting for it to be tuned, you know? It's a very kind of a vulnerable moment there when I don't have the guitar. So I'd - rather than tune or do anything, I just want to keep playing because I know how to play, you know. So that's - I get in trouble there. That's majorly wrong to play out of tune, and I do that a lot.

GROSS: That's crazy. You play out of tune because you can't give up your armor.

YOUNG: That's right. I try to keep it in tune. And, you know, I have a lot of ways of hiding being out of tune.

GROSS: Your guitar playing just keeps evolving. And I mean, there's so many different voices and styles that you can use to such kind of dramatic and emotional effect. I'm wondering, do you think that that comes in part from always listening to new things, or is that not related? Is what you're playing not related to what's coming in as input?

YOUNG: You know, guitar playing is - you know, I guess a metaphor for guitar playing would be deep earth mining or something. And you just keep banging away, blowing through and trying to get to the core and just keep on going and melting through layers and just keep pushing and, you know, try to keep an air hose going at you so you can get back and so you can get a breath. But you got to get as deep as you can and go down and keep digging. And that's what guitar playing is like for me. Every solo, I'm looking for a way to go deeper. I'm looking for which - how am I going to lose myself? How can I get to a point where nothing matters? How can I stop thinking? How can I lose track of what's going on and still be in sync? That - those are the goals of guitar playing.

GROSS: Now, do you want to stop thinking in a kind of meditative sense that it feels good and it's a kind of good state to be in to stop thinking? Or do you want to stop thinking because thinking interferes with playing?

YOUNG: Thinking is in the way. It's just in the way. It's all about feeling. And there is some kind of an ability to play that happens because your mind is doing something. It's saying, OK, now you can do this, now you can do that. But that's more like tools that I have when I'm boring into something.

BIANCULLI: Neil Young speaking with Terry Gross in 2004 - more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE SONG, "THE LOSING END (WHEN YOU'RE ON)")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2004 interview with Neil Young. His classic album, "Harvest," is 50 years old now, and there's a new documentary about the recording of that album called "Harvest Time." When we left off, they were talking about his guitar playing and how he liked to lose himself in his playing.

GROSS: When you were younger, were you obsessive about technique? And did you get enough kind of technique through obsession that enabled you to, like, stop thinking and go for emotion?

YOUNG: The first time, you know, I remember - maybe I was 17 or something. And I was playing. And, you know, I worked on things. I learned songs. I wrote a lot of instrumentals myself, and I'd practice them and get to play them and everything, but they didn't have a lot of improvisation in them. And, you know, and they had melodies. And I liked the melodies. And then I started singing. And I liked the way it felt when I sang a certain melody and got a certain sound.

But really, God, guitar playing and thinking, it's so deep. I just - the guitar playing itself is - you know, when I was young, I think I was about 17. I was playing this little club and I had my band and we were doing a a song, a cover song. We played a song by The Premiers called "Farmer John." And there were some other musicians around. And one of them was a really, really good guitar player. And he really could just bend the strings on his Telecaster. And he really just made the thing sing. And I thought he was, like, fantastic. He had to be like 21 or something. I was like 17. And I did something on my guitar where we started playing this song, and then we got into the instrumental, and I just basically went nuts. And I think it was the first time that ever happened. And I just kept playing. And I just kept going and going and grinding and just pounding away at this rhythmic thing and exploring little nuances of it.

And I think we - I don't know how many minutes it went on and on. And then when I came off stage, the guy walked up to me. He says, where the hell did you learn how to do that? He said, what are you doing? And I said, what do you mean, what am I doing? And I said, it's the same thing I've been doing. And he said, oh, no, no. He said, no, I don't know what you're doing, you know. And he knew, like, 200,000 more chords than I did and all the scales and everything. And he just said, I just don't know what you're doing. He said, what did you do? And at that point, you know, I realized, well, there's a place I can go. And I didn't - I just kind of fell into it by accident. And I think I spent the rest of my life trying to get there.

GROSS: Now, can you compare that to singing? Is there a place vocally for you like that?

YOUNG: Yeah, but I'm not a very good singer. And, you know, like, I don't have real good pitch control and especially have trouble singing freely. Like, I can sing a melody. And I can sing words. And I can put them together with chords and get a feeling going. But the way Otis Redding sang, you know, that soulful, free-flowing expression, I have trouble with that. I have trouble opening up enough to really open up my soul and let things go. I really, you know, and when I try to do it every once in a while, I get there and it kind of feels like that first guitar solo felt to me. But, you know, when I try to go back, it's like, oh, you're just trying to do the same thing over again that you did before. It's not like I'm entering a new domain. It's like I'm copying something. So I still haven't figured out how to get to that space.

GROSS: But I love your singing.

YOUNG: Well, thank you. I'm trying (laughter).

GROSS: You know, I'm listening to your speaking voice and thinking about your singing voice and that, you know, you have a pretty big range singing. And you sing lower and you sing higher up. But your higher-up voice is, you know, considerably higher, I think, than most of your speaking voice.

YOUNG: Well, I've been on the road here for the better part of a year, so - and I just finished a show last night, you know, about 150 miles away from here. And I did a show the night before that, about 300 miles away from that. And I've driven to those places and driven back to the city. And and, you know, so my voice is a lot lower right now than it naturally would be if I wasn't on the road.

GROSS: Some of the images that you've used today are so good, like your image about guitar playing and about, you know, going deeper down, just a really nice image. And I was wondering. I know your father was a writer, a sportswriter. And do you think you were influenced at all, language wise, being the son of a writer?

YOUNG: Well, I think there's always that influence.

GROSS: Of course, there's your lyrics, too. I'm just thinking about hearing you talk. But, I mean, you've written, you know, written lyrics throughout your whole career.

YOUNG: Well, you know, my dad wrote a lot of stories. And he.

GROSS: Fiction?

YOUNG: Yeah, fiction and nonfiction. But he did write a lot of fiction. He used to try to write a little bit every day. And I'm not like that. I only try to write when I feel like writing. But if I feel like writing, I don't care what else is going on, I won't do it. I will write. And I think that's why I've written so many songs. If a idea comes to me out of nowhere, I look at it like a gift. It's not a distraction. Everything else in the room is a distraction. I don't care what it is. So in that way, I'm committed. I'm committed to the muse.

I roll with the muse wherever it goes. If it comes to me, I'm going with it. That's what got me where I am today. And that's what made it so that I could create all these things and so that I could put all these people to work that I have. And I have an effect on a lot of people. And just all the things I've been able to do are all because of being faithful to that one thing and realizing that all of this is all coming from somewhere else. And you just have to be there and ready with open arms to take it in and then send it back out in a form that people can understand or that people can enjoy.

GROSS: Neil Young, thank you so much for talking with us.

YOUNG: Thank you.

BIANCULLI: Neil Young speaking with Terry Gross in 2004. The new documentary "Harvest Time," about the making of his classic album, "Harvest," is now playing in theaters. And an expanded 50th anniversary version of that album has been released. After a break, we'll hear from George Clooney, a recipient of this year's Kennedy Center Honors. And film critic Justin Chang reviews two new movies based on children's stories. Here's a track from Neil Young's new album, "World Record." I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS OLD PLANET (CHANGING DAYS)")

YOUNG: (Singing) Well, they say the autumn leaves don't fall in the springtime. It's just too soon. And the time has come, but it's just too soon. You're not alone on this old planet. It's still all yours to do as you may. You're not alone on this old planet. Time was long ago when we were just children. The sun would rise and the sun would fall on the changing days. The big blue sky and the sparkling water - the river flowed right through our town.

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University, sitting in for Terry Gross. Our next guest is George Clooney, who was one of the recipients last Sunday at this year's Kennedy Center Honors. He's been nominated for Oscars not only for his acting but for producing, directing and screenwriting. So far, he's won two - as one of the producers of the 2013 film "Argo" and as Best Supporting Actor for his role in 2005 "Syriana." His other films include "Gravity," "The Descendants," the "Ocean's Eleven" franchise, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", and "Out Of Sight." On television, he became a star thanks to the NBC series "ER."

George Clooney isn't the first famous member of his family. His aunt is the late singer Rosemary Clooney. And his father is Nick Clooney, a highly regarded TV news anchor and journalist who has worked in Cincinnati, Los Angeles and elsewhere. Partly to honor his father and his profession, George Clooney in 2005 directed, co-wrote and co-starred in one of his career best movies, "Good Night, And Good Luck." That's when Terry interviewed him. The film is about how CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow challenged Senator Joe McCarthy's tactic of smearing people by accusing them of being communists or associating with them. His anti-communist crusade led to investigations, blacklists and a climate of fear.

At the time, Murrow was hosting the pioneering CBS News magazine See It Now. Murrow and his crew decided to do a program about Lieutenant Milo Radulovich, a U.S. Air Force reservist, who was kicked out for being a security risk without being told what the charges were. He had refused to denounce his father and sister, who were accused of being communists. In this scene from the movie "Good Night, And Good Luck," two Air Force colonels are pressuring Murrow's producer, Fred Friendly, to cancel the broadcast. Friendly is played by George Clooney.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK")

GEORGE CLOONEY: (As Fred) We are going with the story that says that the U.S. Air Force tried Milo Radulovich without one shred of evidence and found him guilty of being a security risk without his constitutional right...

GLENN MORSHOWER: (As Colonel Anderson) And you, who also have not seen the evidence, are claiming he's not a security risk. Wouldn't you guess that the people who have seen the contents of that envelope might...

CLOONEY: (As Fred) Who?

MORSHOWER: (As Colonel Anderson) ...Have a better idea of what makes someone a danger to his country?

CLOONEY: (As Fred) Who? Who are these people, sir?

MORSHOWER: (As Colonel Anderson) Or do you think it should just be you that decides?

CLOONEY: (As Fred) Who are the people? Are they elected? Are they appointed? Do they have an axe to grind? Is it you, sir?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: George Clooney, welcome to FRESH AIR. What did Edward R. Murrow mean to you when you were growing up?

CLOONEY: My father was an anchorman and still writes for the newspaper in Kentucky. And broadcast journalism was a big part of our lives growing up. I spent most of my life as a small child on the floor of WKRC newsroom watching my father put news shows together. He was the news director. He wrote the news. And Murrow and Cronkite were heroes of his because of the two, probably, great moments in broadcast journalism, which was Cronkite coming back from Vietnam and saying it doesn't work and Murrow taking on McCarthy, because they changed policy overnight. And for that alone, he was a hero of my father's and therefore a hero of mine.

GROSS: Now, in the movie, you don't have an actor playing McCarthy. The only time we see McCarthy is through his actual videotapes, through his television appearances...

CLOONEY: Right.

GROSS: ...Such as, you know, the hearings and the videotape that was made for the Edward R. Murrow See It Now broadcast.

CLOONEY: Yeah.

GROSS: Why did you choose to have him play himself instead of having an actor portray him?

CLOONEY: Well, in the film, in the actual story - and we researched everything. I had to treat this like a journalist. I talked to my father about this. And he said, look; if you get anything wrong, you'll be marginalized now. So we did it the old-fashioned way, which is, every scene, we double sourced either through books or through the real people - Joe and Shirley Wershba or Milo Radulovich or Don Hewitt - so that we were very careful with the facts. Then we decided to do exactly what Murrow did in his show, which is use McCarthy in his own words so that, again, you couldn't have someone say, oh, we were making him look too much like a buffoon or too arch. We thought, best to let him hang himself.

GROSS: Now, as an actor and director, talk a little bit about how Murrow looks on TV compared to how McCarthy looks on TV.

CLOONEY: Well, that's sort of the beauty of it. It's - in a way, the other one of those versions would be Kennedy-Nixon debates, you know...

GROSS: Yeah. Yeah.

CLOONEY: ...Where the simple truth was, McCarthy was pretty good at a 30-second soundbite where he could yell and scare people and talk about death and bombs and things like that. But he wasn't handsome. And he certainly wasn't proficient at the new art of television, and Murrow was the best, so that when he demanded equal time, which was 28 minutes and 28 seconds, to do his rebuttal, he holds up for about a minute. And then he's also pretty drunk. He slurs and drags on. And it's one of - if you see the whole half an hour of rebuttal...

GROSS: He's drunk.

CLOONEY: Oh, yeah, very drunk. When you see the rebuttal, it's embarrassing. I mean, it's the most unprofessional thing you've ever seen. So it was an interesting - the moment that that happened was when they first knew they had him. They were - because the simple truth is, and the funniest thing is, Murrow going after McCarthy is not what hurt McCarthy. McCarthy turning around and accusing Murrow of being a traitor is what hurt McCarthy because everyone knew that Murrow was the guy at the top of those buildings during the London Blitz. We knew he was a hero. And so the minute you saw those methods, when he turns around and calls Murrow the cleverest of the jackal pack of communists, everybody knew that wasn't true.

GROSS: What did you have to do with the rest of the film to make it consistent with the real video that you had of McCarthy?

CLOONEY: Well, the interesting thing was we weren't trying to "Forrest Gump" it. We weren't trying to make it look as if both of those things were happening. We weren't trying to match film stock or anything so that it looks like they were standing right next to each other. We had an advantage, which was we were going to shoot it in black and white because we were going to use the original stock footage. But all of the original stock footage is either projected on a projector or on a wall or on a TV screen so that the match didn't have to be perfect. We were able - in a way, it was a cheat. We were able to use it that way.

GROSS: When you were growing up, your father was on TV. He had his own show. He was a news anchor. Was your - did your father seem like a different person on camera and off?

CLOONEY: No. No, no. Not really. My father's - I think one of his great qualities is that integrity has been sort of the thing that has always lasted and has lasted into his - well into his 70s. He's been the same guy. It's an interesting thing. It's more difficult being the child of someone with that kind of integrity than - I'm now thrilled. But, you know, when you're a kid and you're in a state that's still dealing with its own problems with bigotry - we'd be out at dinner. And you'd hear someone say, you know, well, that's about those people, knowing that they were talking about Blacks, you know? And my sister and I knew that my dad was going to make a scene and walk out. So we would eat as fast as we could. We'd start to eat quick because my father was going to make a scene. And I remember as a kid always wishing that maybe there was just one time he just pretended not to hear it.

GROSS: What would he do when he made a scene?

CLOONEY: Oh, he'd get up and say, you know, you're an idiot. And how could you say something like that? And, you know, are you from the 1500s? And, you know, he would make a big scene. And I at times wished that he hadn't. Now, I couldn't be more proud that he did. And he taught me those same lessons, which are that every time you let that go, every time you don't hear that or you purposefully ignore it just to make things easier for yourself, you are doing a disservice. And so that's why you have to fight those fights.

GROSS: Your mother was a state beauty pageant winner.

CLOONEY: She was Miss Lexington and she was in the Miss Kentucky - first runner-up in the Miss Kentucky pageant.

GROSS: OK. One of the things you've been admired for in your career is your looks - just one of the many things. What did she teach you about the relative value of being attractive?

CLOONEY: I suppose the only thing she ever taught was by example, which was that she, you know, she went to work every day and worked very hard. And you never felt as if she was using her looks to gain an upper hand on anything. And I don't know - you know, it's a tricky question to answer, as you know, because it's assuming that you're saying that you're good-looking, which I don't like to say or do. On the other hand, you look like a jerk when you go, you know, I was the ugly kid...

GROSS: Right.

CLOONEY: ...In school. So actually, it's sort of a - it's a hard answer to answer...

GROSS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CLOONEY: ...Without sounding sort of like a jerk.

GROSS: You grew up on a - well, your grandparents had a tobacco farm.

CLOONEY: Sure.

GROSS: So were you near that?

CLOONEY: I worked it for years. That's how you made your money in the summer when you were a kid. You know, you start by topping it, and then you're chopping it and cutting it and housing it and stripping it later. And you could make, you know, 3 1/2 bucks an hour so you could make some pretty decent money. But, you know, you don't think of those consequences of tobacco at that point. I had nine great aunts and uncles, all brothers and sisters - six of them died of lung cancer, emphysema. Both my grandparents died of it. I'm not a smoker. I don't - you know, I was concerned with how romantic we made smoking look in the film. And so I put that commercial in just to show how some of the lies that were perpetrated back then about how smoking was actually good for you.

BIANCULLI: George Clooney speaking with Terry Gross in 2005 - more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF RAY MAK'S "JUST LIKING YOU")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2005 interview with George Clooney, who last Sunday was a recipient at this year's Kennedy Center Honors.

GROSS: One of the many things I really like about your film is the performance by Dianne Reeves, the singer in it. And the music director for your film is Allen Sviridoff, who had been the music director for your aunt Rosemary Clooney...

CLOONEY: Right.

GROSS: ...Who I'm an enormous fan of. I love her recordings. What did her music mean to you when you were growing up? It was not your generation.

CLOONEY: No, but I was one of those weird kids, you know. I was listening to...

GROSS: It wasn't my generation either.

CLOONEY: No, that's right. Well, I was listening to Led Zeppelin, and I was listening to Nat Cole. You know, I had a very varied growing up because I was on the road with, you know, with them a lot, or I was always exposed to...

GROSS: Were you on the road with Rosemary Clooney?

CLOONEY: Yeah.

GROSS: Oh, no, I mean, with Led Zeppelin? Wait. Who were you on tour with?

CLOONEY: Oh, yeah, exactly.

GROSS: Sorry.

CLOONEY: With Led Zeppelin. No, I was on the road - when I was 20, I was Rosemary's driver, you know?

GROSS: Oh, you were - oh, right. I see. Yeah, yeah.

CLOONEY: So I spent - I was around that kind of music a lot.

GROSS: Yeah.

CLOONEY: So I got to appreciate Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer.

GROSS: I see. Yeah.

CLOONEY: I had a real appreciation of those guys - Sinatra and, you know, Nat King Cole especially, and Rosemary. And Rosemary was having - excuse me - she was having her comeback at that point. And her comeback was something rather spectacular because she became the singer's singer. Singers adored her and would show up. So there was a great pride in being around her. So I was really exposed to that kind of music. The fun part for me was in putting this band together. Peter Martin, the pianist, is Dianne's - works with Dianne, but the rest of the guys all played on Rosemary's albums, you know.

And it was fun because I got to pick the music, and we - I got to sit down with Allen and go, let's talk about music that we really loved and how to play it and how to do it. And so it was about simplifying things because now everybody likes to show off. I remember asking Rosemary why she's a better singer at 70 than she was at 21 because she couldn't hold the notes the way she could, she couldn't hit the notes the way - and she said, because I don't have to prove I can sing anymore. And I thought that was a good acting lesson, you know, was not having to show off anymore.

GROSS: I know exactly what she was talking about, too, because her voice was basically shot in the last couple of recordings she made. But her phrasing was so beautiful and the emotion was so beautifully conveyed in it. When...

CLOONEY: When you see her taking songs that are normally sort of up-tempo, like "Don't Fence Me In" or - and bringing it down to like a quarter of the speed and singing, you know, "Straighten Up and Fly Right," it's amazing.

GROSS: You stayed with your aunt when you first got to Hollywood, and it sounds like she threw you out after a while.

CLOONEY: Pretty much, yeah. I understand that. I would have thrown me out too.

GROSS: How come?

CLOONEY: Well, I think at some point, you don't need a 22-year-old kid hanging around in your house anymore. I'm sure I was a pain. You know, at some point, I'm sure, you know, the idea of offering your nephew to come out and live with you is a nice gesture...

GROSS: (Laughter).

CLOONEY: ...But I think it comes back to haunt you after about a year, you know?

GROSS: Yeah. Did you think you were talented when you started working? Did you think you actually had something?

CLOONEY: I didn't really know whether I had any talent or not. I knew that I was, for the first time in my life, engaged. And I hadn't been. I was sort of the - I was one of those guys who was pretty good at almost anything I tried right away. You know, anything I wanted to do, I could pick it up pretty quickly - sports, almost any sport - but never great at anything. And I found myself quickly bored by things. So I didn't really pursue anything. And I'd lost sort of - I was 20 years old, 21 years old, and didn't really have any great objectives. I wasn't going to be a great newsman. I'd studied journalism. I'd done a few news pieces. But I wasn't bright enough or curious enough to do news, especially on the level that my father was doing it. And I was certainly going to be compared to my father.

And then I found acting. And I thought, well, this is something that at the very least I'm not going to be bored by. And I know that there is no moment that you go, wow, I've finally done it. You know, you're never going to be satisfied by it because it's a constant growing process. So I thought, well, that's interesting to me. And I found it to be interesting. And I got into an acting class pretty quickly. And I started working with working actors.

GROSS: My guest is George Clooney. He became famous for his role on "ER" as Dr. Douglas Ross. Here's a scene from the 1994 pilot. He's in the ER examining an infant. He suspects the baby has been abused by his mother, who's also in the room.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ER")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, crying).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Look. He's still crying. Why aren't you giving him something?

CLOONEY: (As Doug Ross) I can't give him anything until I know the extent of his injuries. We do the X-ray so we know that has a skull fracture.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) A skull fracture. The baby sitter, I never trusted her.

CLOONEY: (As Doug Ross) Ma'am, your child has multiple contusions that are at least 12 hours old. He has a skull fracture. He also has several old healed fractures. This is a battered child.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) I'm not even going to respond to that. You think I'd harm my child?

CLOONEY: (As Doug Ross) Happens all the time.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Look. If you're not going to treat him, I'm taking him home.

CLOONEY: (As Doug Ross) No, you're not. Do you have anything to say?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) He's my date. Look. I can assure you, whoever you are...

CLOONEY: (As Doug Ross) Ross. Dr. Ross.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Well, Dr. Ross, let me tell you, your concerns are unfounded. OK?

CLOONEY: (As Doug Ross) How did he burn his legs?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) What?

CLOONEY: (As Doug Ross) These marks right here on his legs. Those. Those are healed burn scars. How did that happen?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) He - I don't know anything about burns on the legs. I'm beginning to think you're making this up is what I'm thinking.

CLOONEY: (As Doug Ross) Ma'am, you may want to call an attorney.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) I am an attorney.

CLOONEY: (As Doug Ross) Well, then I'm sure you'll know how the Department of Child Services will handle this.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) How dare you speak to me this way.

CLOONEY: (As Doug Ross) How dare you treat your child like this. He's a little kid. I try to be understanding in my job. But, lady, this just stinks.

GROSS: Well, "ER" - when you got "ER," that certainly must have changed your life a lot.

CLOONEY: Sure.

GROSS: I mean, suddenly, you were a star. And people become so close to you when you're on TV every week.

CLOONEY: Yeah.

GROSS: It's - there's this kind of bonding that I think people go through.

CLOONEY: Well, it's an unusual experience because it's not like being a movie star. You haven't paid 10 bucks, and you're 30 feet high, and you've made it a date. You've been in their homes every Thursday. So, you know, the truth is I'm a product of a great amount of luck. I create some of that luck because, you know, I did 13 pilots. And I did eight television series before that. But the simple truth is, had I done that exact same show and that exact same role and we were on Friday night instead of Thursday night at 10, I don't have a film career. And I'm not sitting here with you.

GROSS: You knew something about fame. You know, your father was on TV. Rosemary Clooney, your aunt, was incredibly famous. But what surprised you most when it happened to you? What were you unprepared for?

CLOONEY: Well, it's a funny thing. There isn't a real fame school that you can go to and learn, you know? I had - probably, if there was anybody, there's - I haven't met many people better prepared for it because I had the great vision of watching, especially with Rosemary, how big you can get and how quickly it can be taken away. And it's not like Rosemary became less of a singer in that period of time, which showed me that it has very little to do with you. And that was an important thing to learn, an important thing to understand, which I did.

So when I wasn't famous a lot, I kept thinking, well, there's always this opportunity. And when I got famous, I understood that it wasn't just because I was a brilliant actor or deserving of it, that, in fact, there were other elements involved. And you still have that. I still have the idea that that goes away at some point, as it does sooner or later. And when it does, that's why you direct and you write and you try to have other coals in the fire. But the things that you aren't prepared for are the trade-offs. No one wants to hear you complain about them, so you don't complain about them. But I would say that the significant loss of privacy is interesting.

GROSS: I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

CLOONEY: That was fun.

BIANCULLI: George Clooney speaking with Terry Gross. She interviewed him in 2005, when "Good Night, And Good Luck" was in theaters. Last Sunday, he was a recipient at this year's Kennedy Center Honors. The ceremony will be televised December 28 on CBS. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews two new movies based on popular children's stories, "Matilda" and "Pinocchio." This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MATT WILSON QUARTET'S "YOU'RE A MEAN ONE MR. GRINCH")

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Two new movies are based on well-known children's stories. One is "Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical," adapted from the popular stage show. The other is "Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio," a stop-motion animation version of the classic fairy tale. Our film critic Justin Chang recommends them both.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: The young heroes of Carlo Collodi's classic fantasy "Pinocchio" and Roald Dahl's 1988 children's novel "Matilda" may not seem too alike at first. One is a wooden puppet who becomes a real boy and finds he has a lot to learn, while the other is a real girl of such extraordinary brainpower that she winds up schooling everyone else. But in their own ways, they're both about a child's extraordinary power to change the world, a lesson that stays winningly intact in two new screen adaptations, both arriving on Netflix this month.

"Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio," as its title announces, is very much the work of the dark fantasist who made "Pan's Labyrinth" and "The Shape Of Water." That's not to say it's too scary for children, only that its mix of visual richness and ghoulish whimsy would be hard to mistake for another filmmaker's work. In this telling, the aging Italian woodcarver Geppetto has a young son who's killed by a fallen missile during World War I. Many years later, Geppetto, still distraught, chops down a pine tree in a drunken rage and carves a little puppet boy out of it as if he could somehow bring his son back. And so this Pinocchio, forged in grief, springs to life not as a joyous creation but as a sorry replacement for Geppetto's lost son. That gives Pinocchio's mischievous, defiant behavior an extra emotional edge.

Del Toro, who directed the movie with Mark Gustafson, has also darkened the story in other ways. This Pinocchio, who's voiced by Gregory Mann, dies multiple times and is magically resurrected each time. World War II also looms in the background, and Pinocchio will soon come face to face with Mussolini himself. It's not the first time Del Toro has blended history and fantasy, pitting his young characters against the forces of fascism. It is, however, the first time he's made a feature entirely in stop-motion animation. And the handcrafted, herky-jerky images are a wonder to behold. The backdrops are exquisite. And I loved the intricate, non-human character designs for a benevolent woodland sprite, voiced by Tilda Swinton, and for Sebastian J. Cricket, a kind of Jiminy-like sidekick voiced by Ewan McGregor. Still, for all its overflowing invention, this Pinocchio, like a lot of Del Toro movies, could have been tighter and more disciplined. I'm also not sure why the movie had to be a musical, given how unmemorable most of the songs are.

By contrast, the songs in the new movie "Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical" are as terrific as they were when I heard them performed on Broadway years ago. The movie is an extremely faithful adaptation of that hugely popular show. It tells the story of Matilda Wormwood, a child prodigy who's already reading Dickens and Dostoyevsky by age 6. Much of the pleasure of the story comes from watching Matilda, the winning Alisha Weir, get revenge on her foolish, vulgar and generally indifferent parents whenever they treat her badly, which is often. But Matilda will soon have bigger fish to fry in the form of Miss Trunchbull, the sadistic headmistress at her school who terrifies her students and calls them maggots. In one showstopping number, Matilda's fellow students manage to overcome their fears and rise up, declaring their right to be, as they call themselves, revolting children.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ROALD DAHL'S MATILDA THE MUSICAL")

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (As characters, singing) We can S-P-L how we like. If enough of us are wrong, wrong is right, every word N-O-R-T-why? 'Cause we're a little bit naughty. You say we ought to stay inside the line. If we disobey at the same time, there is nothing that the Trunchbull can do. She can take her hammer and S-H-U. You might have thought we were weak, but we're strong; might've thought you were right, but you're wrong 'cause you finally pushed us too far. Now there's no turning back 'cause we R-E-V-O-L-T-I-N.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Come on. Take us higher.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (As characters, singing) We're S-I-N-G, U-S-I-N-G. We'll be R-E-V-O-L-T-I-N-G. It is 2-L-8-4-U. We are revolting.

CHANG: Miss Trunchbull is played with the help of a fat suit and facial prosthetics by Emma Thompson, and she's a memorable monster, subjecting her students to all kinds of cruel mind games and baroque forms of corporal punishment. It's fun watching Matilda outwit her while also bonding with her kindhearted teacher Miss Honey, a very moving Lashana Lynch.

The movie retains the show's central creative trio - the director Matthew Warchus, the writer Dennis Kelly and the composer-lyricist Tim Minchin. That's mostly a good thing even if the movie's relentless, high spirits and bright bouncy colors tend to overpower the darker vibes of the original story. There are also elements here that simply don't work as well on screen as they did on stage, including a subplot that takes place within Matilda's own imagination. I have to say, though, that my 6-year-old screening companion didn't mind in the slightest. I looked over every so often to find her laughing at the jokes, covering her eyes at the scary parts and bopping along to the music. She was completely transported, and so, in those moments, was I.

BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is film critic for the LA Times. He reviewed "Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical" and "Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio." On Monday's show, filmmaker Rian Johnson talks about his new movie, "Glass Onion," the sequel to his popular murder mystery comedy "Knives Out." "Glass Onion" takes place on the private island of a tech billionaire who has invited his friends to play a murder mystery game. Of course, things don't go as planned - hope you can join us. FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Diana Martinez. For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

(SOUNDBITE OF NATHAN JOHNSON'S "GLASS ONION STRING QUARTET IN B FLAT MINOR")

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