George Clooney is set to make his Broadway debut in a stage adaptation of his 2005 journalism drama Good Night, and Good Luck.
The actor’s sophomore feature as director will be transformed into a play set to premiere in spring 2025. Clooney, who played Fred W Friendly in the original, will now take on the role of Edward R Murrow.
“I am honored, after all these years, to be coming back to the stage, and especially to Broadway, the art form and the venue that every actor aspires to,” Clooney said in a statement.
The play follows the true story of journalist and CBS TV host Murrow as he came under fire for suspected communism during the late 1950s as McCarthyism took hold. Clooney co-wrote the adaptation with Grant Heslov, both of whom were nominated for a best original screenplay Oscar for the film.
It will be directed by the Tony award-winner David Cromer whose credits include The Band’s Visit and A Streetcar Named Desire. “Edward R Murrow operated from a kind of moral clarity that feels vanishingly rare in today’s media landscape,” he said in a statement. “There was an immediacy in those early live television broadcasts that today can only be effectively captured on stage, in front of a live audience.”
Clooney’s recent credits as an actor include the romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise opposite Julia Roberts and an uncredited cameo in The Flash. He will next be seen opposite Brad Pitt in the crime thriller Wolfs and in the new untitled Noah Baumbach comedy with Adam Sandler, Laura Dern and Jim Broadbent.
As director, Clooney most recently took on an adaptation of the Depression-era sports drama The Boys in the Boat.
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The news follows an announcement last week that Robert Downey Jr would also be making his Broadway debut in a new production from Ayad Akhtar. The most recent Broadway season saw debuts from other Hollywood actors including Steve Carell and Rachel McAdams, who received a Tony nomination for her performance in Mary Jane.