“Clooney is highly politicised and has appeared on platforms with a range of Democratic candidates, especially Obama,” says Dr Mark Wheeler, author of Hollywood: Politics and Society and professor of political communications at London Metropolitan University. “He and his father Nick led campaigns on Darfur and he has been a UN Messenger of Peace. Amal gives him greater credibility so he doesn’t just appear to be another bleeding heart in a gilded cage. Celebrity politics in the US is a two-way street – politicians want to have his stardust, and Clooney wants to be seen as a serious and compassionate star.”

But although he’s been happy to speak out loudly for the causes he believes in and raise huge sums of money for the Democrats, until now Clooney has resisted running for office himself. No doubt he is well aware that his life as a former party boy would be raked over if he did try to become president. He once quipped: “I’d have to run on the ‘Yeah, I did it’ ticket. ‘Did you sleep with so-and-so?’ Yeah, I did. ‘Did you take drugs?’ You bet I did.”  

“I think most celebrities prefer the glamour rather than the grunt work and the grind of running for office,” says Rachel Richardson, who writes the celebrity and politics newsletter Highly Flammable. Indeed, in 2021 Clooney told Andrew Marr he’d rather have a “nice life” than run for president. “I turned 60 this year and I had a conversation with my wife and we were working a lot, as we both do, and I said we have to think of these as the halcyon years,” he said.

In another interview Clooney admitted: “I think it is a lot more fun to play that [the president] in films… I believe there are some really smart people who should be the president of the US. I think these decisions should be made by people who have vast experience.”