George Clooney is one of the biggest names in Hollywood. He has starred in some of the biggest projects, playing the role of Batman in the 1997 Batman film, being a central character in the medical drama, ER, in Quentin Tarantino’s 1996 film, From Dusk Till Dawn, and most recently, in Ticket to Paradise, alongside Julia Roberts. Through roles like this, he has established himself as an impeccable actor, being extremely skilled at what he does. On top of this, he is also known as an amazing person to be around, having a great sense of humor and a unique personality.
During the filming of a movie from one of his most successful franchises, he proved exactly this. While filming Ocean’s Twelve, the actor made a bet with his co-stars, Brad Pitt and Don Cheadle, about a haunted house, that ended up making both of them lose $10,000
George Clooney Made Up A Story About A Haunted House
During the filming of Ocean’s Twelve, which took place in Lake Como, Italy, a lot of the cast ended up residing in George Clooney’s villa there. During an interview with GQ, he revealed that once, he, along with his Italian friend, Giovanni, decided to pull a prank on the cast, that being, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, and Matt Damon. There was a house across the lake to Clooney’s house that was empty. The two decided that by taking inspiration from a book, they would convince these three highly respected actors that this house was haunted.
The actor shared,
“We were all staying at my house in Lake Como, and there was a house across the lake. It was empty. There was an Italian book about it and we’d made up a story about how haunted it was,” Clooney said, “At 3 in the morning, we get a ladder and we put it on this pontoon boat and Matt and Don and Brad and I took the boat across the water, took the ladder up and climbed in the house. The first thing we saw was this statue of a snake eating a woman’s head.”
They two told all sorts of details, like how there was a murderer who lived there, how he would kill people and then dump them into the adjacent lake, and tried to scare them about how haunted the house was. Later on, the four actors, excluding Clooney’s Italian friend, decided to make a visit to this house at 3 AM in the morning, via a boat and a ladder. The first thing that they saw when they entered the house was a statue of a woman’s head being eaten by a snake.
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George Clooney Turned This Into A Bet
While many would assume this grotesque scene to be a recipe for disaster, George Clooney looked at this as a recipe for a laugh. He decided to make a bet out of the situation, stating that anyone who would be able to spend the night in this house, with only a bottle of wine, a candle, and six matches to keep them company, would be given $10,000. Though Clooney and Matt Damon did not want to participate in these questionable activities, Brad Pitt and Don Cheadle were up for the challenge.
“We came down to the conclusion: we give $10,000 to any guy who could spend a night in the haunted house with just a candle and a bottle of wine. You got a candle, you got six matches, and you got a bottle of wine.” He went on, “We’re sitting in the boat in the middle of the lake. And we have to see the candle go by every window. It goes by like two or three windows and then we get a call and they’re like ‘f— that, get us out of this house!’ And we came back and pulled them out.”
While these two roamed the halls of this seemingly haunted house, the ones who stayed behind waited on the boat, watching their light pass through the windows of each room that they entered. After two or three windows, Damon and Clooney receive a call from the ‘brave’ pair, asking them to come back and pull them out. One would say that this was, most certainly, a successful prank for the Batman actor.
