My life-changing trip was from Augusta in Kentucky to Los Angeles. My uncle José Ferrer and his son Miguel were working on a film and they got me a part as an extra. When Miguel said, ‘Come to LA and be an actor’, it seemed the right thing to do. I’d spent the summer cutting tobacco, which is a miserable job, and Hollywood sounded good. It looked good, too. It was like a David Hockney painting.
I would love to spend more time in Europe, especially London, Paris and Rome. I’d like to do some European films but I’d have to learn how to speak another language. In Kentucky, where I come from, English is a foreign language for us and I’m still working on it!
My favourite journey is home to my 18th-century house, Villa Oleandra on the shores of Lake Como in Laglio. The Italians know how to live and at the villa I’ve had some of the most fun ever. My father said: If you have any money, buy land.’ Brad Pitt told me about the villa. I saw it and bought it. I feel like an honorary Italian.
One trip I’ll never forget was to Darfur. My father [former TV anchorman Nick Clooney] and I travelled to Sudan to make the TV documentary, A Journey to Darfur. We smuggled cameras into the refugee camps on the Chad border and filmed secretly. If you are able to use your status to raise awareness in humanitarian causes you should.
I enjoy going to film festivals because it is always madness. At the 2007 American Film Festival in Deauville, Normandy, I was presenting the film Michael Clayton and the then French culture minister, Christine Albanel, made me a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres [Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters].
On my very first day in LA, my cousin, Miguel took me for a drive up Sunset Boulevard. All these girls came up to us asking if we wanted to party. I said, ‘Girls love me, man!’ but Miguel just replied, ‘They’re hookers, you idiot.’
Watch on board The Men Who Stare at Goats, Up in the Air and Fantastic Mr Fox, all starring George Clooney, showing on selected flights. The DVD of The Men Who Stare at Goats is out on 19 April.
