\u201cI was worried about raising our kids in LA, in the culture of Hollywood. I felt like they were never going to get a fair shake at life. France \u2013 they kind of don\u2019t give a s*** about fame …<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want them being compared to somebody else\u2019s famous kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
The proposed restaurant will occupy the former Les 3 Marches premises in Cotignac, with renovation work reportedly under way. Details including its name, chef and menu have yet to be announced.<\/p>\n
Cotignac mayor Jean-Pierre V\u00e9ran has confirmed Clooney\u2019s involvement in the project, although The Times reported no formal plans had yet been submitted and the actor\u2019s name did not appear on municipal paperwork.<\/p>\n
The restaurant would place Clooney\u2019s latest venture close to the family\u2019s French home. The Clooneys bought Domaine du Canadel, a former wine estate near Brignoles in the Var, in 2021.<\/p>\n
George, Amal, Ella and Alexander officially became French citizens in December 2025, with their naturalisation recorded in France\u2019s Journal Officiel.<\/p>\n
The family have cited privacy, particularly protections surrounding children, as one of the attractions of living in France.<\/p>\n
The restaurant also brings together Clooney\u2019s French home life and his longstanding connection to Italy.<\/p>\n
He has owned Villa Oleandra on Lake Como since 2002 and has spent more than two decades regularly living in Italy, while Italian food has long been part of his family life.<\/p>\n
Clooney said in 2020: \u201cMy wife makes reservations for dinner … so I do a lot of the cooking in the family.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has also previously said: \u201cI\u2019m a pretty decent chef myself. I make a nice pasta because I spend time in Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Food featured in the Clooneys\u2019 relationship before their marriage. Clooney cooked dinner when he proposed at home in 2014, later joking that the meal had been \u201cpasta of some form\u201d.<\/p>\n
The couple married later that year in Venice, the Italian city with which Clooney has maintained a particularly close association throughout his career.<\/p>\n
That relationship was celebrated again last month when Clooney returned to the Venice International Film Festival to receive its Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.<\/p>\n
Accepting the honour, he said: \u201cI\u2019ve had so many extraordinary moments in Venice. This festival is without question my favourite and to be given the Golden Lion is a tremendous honor. It also probably means I\u2019m old, but I\u2019ll take it\u201d.<\/p>\n
The award recognised a film and television career spanning more than four decades.<\/p>\n
Clooney first became an international star playing Dr Doug Ross in ER before becoming one of Hollywood\u2019s most bankable leading men through films including Ocean\u2019s Eleven, Out of Sight, Michael Clayton, Up in the Air and The Descendants.<\/p>\n
He won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for Syriana and received acting, directing and writing Oscar nominations during a career that also includes Good Night, and Good Luck, The Ides of March and The Monuments Men.<\/p>\n
Clooney\u2019s most recent major screen role was in Noah Baumbach\u2019s Jay Kelly, alongside Adam Sandler, 60, and Laura Dern, 59. The film premiered at Venice in 2025, with Clooney playing an ageing Hollywood star confronting his life and career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI was worried about raising our kids in LA, in the culture of Hollywood. I felt like they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[74,16717,1061,22477,40602,306841,156,1221,11775,12856,4223,15557,78,2198,3234,111,139,69,10521,2171,34293,17182,2539,1240,51052,1842,102],"class_list":["post-624279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-after","tag-becoming","tag-children","tag-citizen","tag-clooney","tag-cotignac","tag-entertainment","tag-france","tag-french","tag-george","tag-hollywood","tag-hospitality","tag-in","tag-italian","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opening","tag-plans","tag-preparing","tag-reportedly","tag-restaurant","tag-south","tag-swap","tag-wife","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}