George Clooney Talks Reuniting With 'Pretty Boy' Brad Pitt on New Thriller 'Wolves' (Exclusive)

It's been more than 15 years since George Clooney and Brad Pitt starred on the big screen together. Thankfully for all involved, they're finally reuniting.

Speaking to ET's Cassie DiLaura at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, Clooney made a playful jab at his longtime buddy when the subject of "dynamic duos" came up. Clooney and Pitt, of course, starred in the Ocean's franchise -- the last of which dropped in 2007 with Ocean's Thirteen -- as well as in Ethan Coen's 2008 Burn After Reading.

They'll reunite in the upcoming AppleTV+ thriller, Wolves, written and directed by Jon Watts. Clooney and Pitt are both starring and co-producing the psychological action-thriller, which follows "two lone fixers who are assigned the same job."

"Pretty boy, Pitt," quipped Clooney when asked about the reunion as the duo filmed all over New York City this year. "Yeah, he needed work. He's an up and comer."

Clooney referring to Pitt as "pretty boy" is likely in response to Pitt calling Clooney the most handsome man in the world during an interview with Vogue.

When asked if too much time has passed between them, Clooney responded, "It feels like a lot of time has passed. Too much time."

Clooney and Pitt put their money where their mouth is -- while also putting on their producer hats -- when they revealed to Deadline that they offered to take a huge pay cut in exchange for a theatrical release, in addition to streaming.

"Yeah. Brad and I. It was an exciting time because it got to be one of those weird bidding wars which happen every once in a while, and it ended up being pretty extreme, and Apple came in with a really big number for Brad and I, and we said we’d like to take less as long as we can guarantee that we can have a theatrical release, and they said great. So, I do think that there’s a way that we can all co-exist," he told the outlet in January 2022.

In the meantime, Clooney fans can catch his latest directorial effort in The Boys in the Boat, which he also produced. The film is based on Daniel James Brown's 2013 book of the same name, and stars Callum Turner and Joel Edgerton. Turner stars as Joe Rantz, a rower at the University of Washington, and Edgerton plays Al Ulbrickson, the rowing coach whose collegiate team represents the United States at the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin.

For Clooney, working on the inspirational sports drama came with added pressure.

"Well, look, it's a super big book and it's just a wonderful piece of literature," he tells ET. "And so, part of it was a giant fear of, you know, screwing up a book that we loved. But we just like the idea of telling this story of a bunch of kids during the depression who are rowing, not particularly because they are athletic but because they are hungry. Literally hungry for food."

The "literally hungry for food" is in reference to Edgerton's portrayal of Rantz, who was abandoned at an early age and was forced to fend for himself during the Depression. For Edgerton, playing the role of an underdog comes natural to him, even that means dealing with a little bit of an imposter's syndrome.

"I think I've always had that growing up," he says. "I mean, almost every week of my life I had an underdog story. Becoming an actor, I think, was one for me. I think I never assumed that I could set any goals that were very high, and I still feel like I'm a phony."

Clooney understands exactly how Edgerton feels.

"Listen, if you're an actor, in general, you think about how hard it is to get a job as an actor and how people actually do work," Clooney explained. "You always feel like you're fooling somebody, like you've conned somebody into paying you to do a job that you would have done for free."

The Boys in the Boat hits theaters Christmas Day.

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