George Clooney Blasts “Miserable F–k” Director He Previously Worked With

David O. Russell’s Three Kings may have been given George Clooney one of his most memorable early feature film roles, but the filmmaker is…let’s say, not easy to work with, and in a recent interview, Clooney said he would never work with him today. Russell, who also directed films like I Heart Huckabees and American Hustle, is notoriously unpleasant to work with, having goaded Clooney into a physical altercation on set, and being caught on film berating Lily Tomlin with a profane, sexist rant. Clooney has long maintained that his own disagreements with Russell centered on how Russell was treating the crew, whom he said cannot fight back the way stars can without fear of retaliation.

“[Russell’s] abuse and lunatic behaviour are extreme even by Hollywood standards,” journalist Jonathan Alter once told Sony brass in an email that was later released as part of the Sony hack. That email only existed because, years after the Clooney and Tomlin incidents, Russell was accused of bullying Amy Adams to tears on the set of The Silver Linings Playbook.

“The older you get, time allotment is very different,” Clooney told GQ. “Five months out of your life is a lot. And so it’s not just like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go do a really good film, like Three Kings, and I’m going to have a miserable f–k like David O. Russell making my life hell. Making every person in the crew’s life hell. It’s not worth it. Not at this point in my life. Just to have a good product.”

During that same interview, Clooney took some more playful jabs at Quentin Tarantino, who recently insulted Clooney’s career in an interview of his own, but acknowledged that working with talented directors on a good script is necessary to being a movie star. He summed it up, basically, that it’s a lot easier to “f–k up” a good script than it is to make a good movie out of a bad script.

Clooney’s feud with Russell went well beyond the one time things got physical. In 2004, Clooney told Premiere magazine, “Quite honestly, if he comes near me, I’ll sock him right in the f–king mouth.”

Adams, too, has been open about her experiences, telling GQ in 2016, “He was hard on me, that’s for sure. It was a lot…I was really just devastated on set.”

She added, “Jennifer [Lawrence] doesn’t take any of it on. She’s Teflon. And I am not Teflon. But I also don’t like to see other people treated badly, you know what I mean?…It’s not OK with me. Life to me is more important than movies.”

Russell has also had some offscreen scandal, admitting in 2011 that he inappropriately touched his transgender niece because he was “curious” about her breast enhancement surgery.