GEORGE CLOONEY

George Clooney is an actor, business leader, philanthropist, and activist. He has received two Academy Awards (for Syriana and Argo) and three Golden Globes.

He focused worldwide attention on the plight of people of Sudan and South Sudan, and worked for victims of the 2004 Pacific tsunami, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and for the recognition of the Armenian genocide.

REMARKS FROM GEORGE CLOONEY’S ACCEPTANCE OF THE RFK RIPPLE OF HOPE AWARD

To be mentioned in the same breath with Robert Kennedy is, at the very least, humbling. He proved over his short life that he was the best of us. He was right when he said that nations, like men, often march to the beat of different drummers. And still the lesson of our time is that all must march toward increasing freedom, toward justice for all.

I’m going to try to give you a quick explanation on how it is that I’m standing here tonight. In 1968, my father took a break from doing the news, and he moved us all to Columbus, Ohio, to do a television show called The Nick Clooney Show, which was fortunate for us because his name happened to be Nick Clooney. I was seven years old on June 6, 1968. And I remember that my parents sat my sister and me down to explain to us that the young senator whom we were so excited about was gone, in the same way his brother was gone, and in the same way Dr. King was gone. And he said, “OK, what do you want to do, kids?” We were Catholic so I decided we should do something like we did for Lent.

My father asked me what I thought I could live without. And we were pretty broke at the time. My mom used to make my clothes; there are some photos of that I’d like to have back. Grade school is a great time to have your clothes homemade—I’ll never forget the Nehru leisure suit thing she made.

Toy guns were pretty easy to get your hands on. That and candy cigarettes, go figure. I suggested I could do without my collection of toy guns for a few days. So I put them in a bag and the next day when my dad goes on the TV show, he holds up this bag and he tells half of Ohio that his son brought them in and said, “Dad, I never want to play with these ever, ever again.”

It was a great moment for everyone, except for me. I was stunned. I mean it was “never again,” you know. I was thinking a few days. I was gonna go for the whole forty-day Lent thing, but, I mean, no more cowboys and Indians, no more cops and robbers, nothing? It was gonna be, you know, playing marbles and dodgeball.

The problem is what my father understood, and what I was too young to: that we had this crushing feeling in our country, that everything we loved and cared for, could be taken away violently. And it happened time and time again. And we were all hurt by that.

I was pretty shaken up for all the wrong reasons. So the next day, I go to school and the teacher stands me up and she tells the story to the class, and then she says, “George is a very good boy.” And all the kids sort of come over later and they shake my hands. For weeks, old ladies would come up and say, “You’re a good boy.”

Being Irish Catholic and seven and in second grade, I am now racked with guilt.

I tried confessing to Father Brinker. That didn’t pay. I read in the Bible where the saint would put a pebble in her shoe and walk around for penance. So I filled my shoes with gravel and I jumped off the top of my bunk beds. Every day. You’d hear my parents, they’d hear the sound and go, “Oh, it’s George doing penance.”

I have spent the last forty years trying to make up for getting too much credit for doing something that I should have just done anyway. I was just starting to feel even, and then Ethel called.

And you know Ethel. I told her that I had a lot more to do before I should be standing up here, and she told me to show up or else she was gonna rain Kennedys down on my ass.

I didn’t really understand what she meant until I got here tonight.

Yeah. So tonight, with this great honor, and with this wonderful evening, you have now forced me into another forty years of trying to earn this praise that I’ve been given tonight. I will do my best.

One last thing, and I don’t want to take any more of your time, but to say that we have a chance here of finding a peace deal between North and South Sudan. A couple of million people died the last time they went to war. Senator Kerry has taken the lead, but it’s being handled directly by Secretary Clinton, by President Obama—they’re personally involved. It means negotiating with people that leave a bad taste in your mouth, quite honestly.

We’re so close, but it has to be sustained. And that takes political will. And there is an awful lot of will right here in this room. So a phone call, an email, any message of support right now to anyone you know who’s involved, anyone in the administration, any way you can do it. We don’t need your money, we need your voice right now, more than anything. Because we are so very close. We have a chance.

Thank you, Kerry. Thank you, Ethel. I appreciate it. And I’ll be out buying gravel and a new pair of bunk beds and stuff. Thank you very much.