George Clooney: The Monuments actors took a paycut to make the movie

George Clooney doesn’t believe he could have made WWII picture Monuments Men without his generous cast.

George Clooney who directed the movie said he’d booked his Monuments Men cast “super cheap”.

The Academy Award-winner wrote, directed and produced the WWII picture, and he reveals he charmed many of his A-list stars into signing on.

He asked Matt Damon, Jean Dujardin, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, John Goodman and others to accept a significantly smaller salary.

“If you pay everybody a full boatload, it’s a $150 million film,” George told Variety, noting he managed to stay within his $70 million budget.

“You just can’t do it. Everybody worked for super cheap, like crazy cheap.”

George believes his cast is simply heroic in numerous ways.

The star claims they always seemed to save the day when he found himself in a pickle on set.

“It starts to snow,” George recalled of filming in the Harz Mountains of northern Germany. “You couldn’t get f**ked worse. [But then] there’s John Goodman and Bill Murray and Matt Damon all picking up camera boxes and carrying them down this hill with the crew. Bill and John would come to the set when they weren’t even in scenes. It was really sweet.”

The Monuments Men, which is based on the book by Robert M. Edsel, centres on the true story of a team tasked with rescuing stolen art from the Nazis.

George reveals he was hooked into the unique narrative from the outset.

“I had some understanding that Hitler was stealing sh*t,” he said.

“I didn’t understand he was taking all of it. They don’t teach that in school. That’s why I loved the story. We figured at this point, we’ve done so many WWII movies, there really aren’t any new ones. You have to get around to someone as smart as Quentin [Tarantino with Inglourious Basterds], who can burn Hitler in a movie theater to do something different.”

The Monuments Men will be released in American theatres this weekend.

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