Almost five years after his luxe Italian wedding to lawyer Amal Alamuddin, and nearly two years since the couple welcomed twins Alexander and Ella, George Clooney’s life has evolved into one of blissful chaos – and he couldn’t be happier.
Opening up about life after babies, the 58-year-old talks candidly about the challenges of parenting, describing his early morning wake-up call – just hours before his exclusive interview with WHO – when an ailing, crying Ella was comforted in bed by him and Amal.
WATCH: George Clooney gets real about the highs and lows of having kids
“She took over the bed, to the point where I literally laid on the edge of her foot because you don’t want to wake her. I didn’t want her to fall off the bed so I am finding pillows and putting them all around the bed like a bouncy castle,” he laughs. “Then I had to go sleep on the couch in the nursery … that didn’t happen before I had kids!”
His enthusiasm for life with Amal, 41, and the twins is palpable. “I am the luckiest guy in the world,” he says. “I feel like late in life I found somebody that I can’t imagine ever being more in love with and I can’t imagine someone who I am more proud of.”
Celebrating his birthday the night before, George explains the simple dinner for two became “one the of the most spectacular birthdays ever” when Amal received news that her efforts as a human-rights lawyer to help secure the release of two Reuters journalists from prison in Myanmar had paid off.
“We were sitting there having dinner together and they were released and they walked out of prison,”
he says. “It was a beautiful moment and Amal was crying, and I felt like I couldn’t be luckier than to be in her presence in general. I really feel that way.”
His enthusiasm for life with Amal, 41, and the twins is palpable. “I am the luckiest guy in the world,” he says. “I feel like late in life I found somebody that I can’t imagine ever being more in love with and I can’t imagine someone who I am more proud of.”
While Amal’s work can attract security risks – “we have to change hotels sometimes” – Clooney says they try not to isolate themselves. “My wife is taking ISIS to court, in the first trial against ISIS. Obviously, we have to pay attention to things, the world is different now,” he says. “But we also have to live our lives in as normal a way as possible.”
And the new normal suits Clooney just fine. Promoting his TV mini-series Catch-22, the actor and director enthuses about the project. “It’s probably one of the most classic American novels of all time and I wanted to tackle the story in a way you couldn’t do with only two hours. We kill a lot of people and not always so nicely. But in the movie, you don’t have time to learn who they really are, [but] when you kill them in a six-hour story, their deaths have resonance so you can say, ‘Oh, I really liked that kid!’”
Away from the cameras, Clooney enjoys family time with his wife and children – who are set to become besties with the newest little royal, Archie. The Clooneys are good friends with Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan, living close to each other in England.
With baby Archie’s arrival on Clooney’s birthday (“I am a little ticked off that this kid stole my thunder!”) the families are destined to become even closer.
“We live not too far from one another and we have dinners and stuff,” says Clooney, who reveals they’ve known each other for a long time. “They are just really nice, fun, kind people and they are a loving couple and they are going to be great parents. I’m very happy for them.
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