George Clooney reveals why he got so emotional in THIS ‘Jay Kelly’ scene

George Clooney and Adam Sandler were both surprised by a tactic Jay Kelly director, Noah Baumbach, used for an emotional scene.

In a heartwarming scene in the film, Clooney’s titular Kelly gets a lifetime achievement award. As is tradition, while presenting such an honor, a video plays that includes the winning actor’s scenes from different projects.

But when Clooney and Sandler sat in the theater to film the scene, Noah used aclip of the Ocean’s Eleven actor’s actual films to get a genuine and emotional reaction out of him.

“Oh, it was a surprise all right. I was surprised,” the actor said.

He was joined in the interview by costars Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, and Emily Mortimer.

“We were both surprised,” added Sandler. “We felt things that we didn’t expect to feel.”

“We held hands,” recalled Clooney, and Baumbach used it in the film.

“No, I didn’t know he was going to use sort of clips from my own actual career, which was a surprise. And you get to look at a lot of bad haircuts over the… mullets,” he added.

“Don’t you laugh,” he exclaimed to Sandler. “You had a mullet.”

“My mullet was fluffy,” the Happy Gilmore star quipped. “Mine wasn’t as good as yours. Yours laid there nicely.”

“I had a good mullet… Full party in the back,” Clooney said, poking fun at it. “Who would put it up on a screen that people could see now with a beautiful score?”

“So that’s why you were so emotional,” Dern remarked.

Clooney added, “Well, Adam just kept saying, ‘How do you still have a career?’ That’s what he kept saying to me, which was painful. It’s painful,” Clooney joked. 

Jay Kelly is streaming on Netflix.