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This article originally appeared in Hollywood Today.

George Clooney…the Last Movie Star? He Says Not. by Robin Rowe HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA (Hollywood Today) 3/19/08 – Is George Clooney the last movie star? A Time magazine cover story proclaimed it in February, right before the Oscars. "That played well walking into the Oscars!" laughs George Clooney. "I take it with a grain of salt. As you well know, all this stuff is cyclical, when people are nice to you. A couple of films that they don’t like and you’ll be the last of the ‘last movie star’.

What about the comparisons of Clooney to Cary Grant? "There are big differences," says Clooney. "Cary Grant was infinitely better at what he did than I’ve ever been. But, Cary Grant didn’t direct or write. We’re different characters in that way. I think of myself much more as a director in terms of filmmaking. I like acting a lot. It’s an exciting thing to do. But, directing is a lot more creative, and I like it a lot more, in general."

George Clooney directs and acts in his latest film, ‘Leatherheads’, a football movie set in the 1920s. "I love this world because I haven’t seen it," says Clooney. "It’s a world you haven’t seen. This is a light comedy, but it’s infinitely more complicated than making ‘Good Night, Good Luck’ or ‘Confessions [of a Dangerous Mind]’. This is a big movie." In fact, it took more than ten years to bring to the screen.

"This is a screenplay that in a very different incarnation, Steven Soderberg was going to direct and I was going to act in 1998. I spent a summer stealing from His Girl Friday and Philadelphia Story and everyone. I could go down the list. I always liked this world and thought that if we could make the story work it would be a really fun movie. Once we got it, I called up Universal, who had the script, and said ‘I think I’ve figured it out’. They said ‘lets do it’, and I said ‘great’. Then I realized when I got on the football field that I had to play football." Clooney grew up in a small town in Kentucky that didn’t even have a football team. After getting sacked the first time on the field while shooting the movie, 5’11" movie star Clooney made a few rules, like "don’t hit the director."

Leatherheads is a sports movie, but it’s also a romantic comedy, a genre Clooney has resisted. "Over the years I’ve avoided doing romantic comedies in general, because I think that they don’t necessarily work anymore," says Clooney. "We know how they’re going to end. The guy is going to get the girl, in general. And, if it doesn’t end that way then people are unsatisfied with it. So the only way it’s going to work is if you put them in a really interesting venue. Put them in a place where that is the star as much as the romantic comedy is."

Leatherheads releases April 4th from Universal and is rated PG-13 for brief strong language.