George Clooney was spotted taking photos with the kitchen staff at his favorite Venetian restaurant, Da Ivo, last night at the Venice Film Festival.
Spies said that the “Ocean’s Eleven” star was at the eatery with his wife, Amal Clooney.
(Da Ivo is the same spot the movie star once took the beautiful barrister when he was still wooing her by making a top-secret reservation using the code, “The Russians are coming!” He also later threw a spontaneous bachelor party there with seven pals the night before his Venice wedding to Amal in 2014 and has been seen schmoozing with the staff before as well.)
This time Clooney was at Da Ivo for a dinner hosted by his agency, CAA and UK marketing maven Charles Finch‘s Finch & Partners. Guests included Clooney’s producing partner Grant Heslov, co-head of CAA Media Finance Roeg Sutherland, “Precious” director Lee Daniels, “Cinema Paradiso” director Giuseppe Tornatore, Mubi CEO Efe Cakarel, photographer Brigitte Lacombe and British artist Marc Quinn, among others, we hear.
Said a spy: “It was a lively, relaxed, intimate dinner, with guests table-hopping.”
The gathering was held on the eve of a private symposium being thrown by Finch & Partners and CAA, “The Future of… Creativity,” where Clooney will appear with this year’s Venice jury head Maggie Gyllenhaal. The guest list is expected to draw a high-profile crowd to Venice’s historic Scuola Vecchia della Misericordia, where the closed-door discussions on on tech and art will be moderated by British journo Emily Maitlis and hosted by Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera.
Said an attendee: “The event will explore the future of creativity amid rapid cultural and technological change, with leading figures from Hollywood and beyond debating what comes next for the creative industries.”
Earlier on Thursday, busy Clooney presided over a Venice Film Festival masterclass — sharing career advice, and also confirming that he’ll start filming “About a Boy” director Paul Weitz’s adaptation of Amy Bloom’s best-selling memoir “In Love” in the coming weeks with costar Annette Bening.
The night before that, he gave a rousing speech at the Venice Film Festival this week while accepting a lifetime achievement honor. (But the “Ocean’s Eleven” star allegedly ruffled some cineastes’ feathers when he did not stay for the opening night movie.)
“Clooney did not stay for the film,” said one very proper guest at the Venice opening night. “Some saw that as not a gracious thing to do.” (We’ve reached out to his rep for comment.)
Either way, he’d charmed the crowd earlier when accepting the Golden Lion, saying, “You know, when they tell you that you’re gonna be getting a lifetime achievement award, there are really two things that come to mind. The first is what an incredible honor this is. And then the second is, uh, do they know something that I don’t?”
