Actor and activist George Clooney lost his cool on a reporter over his involvement in Europe’s migrant crisis at a press conference for his box office flop Hail, Caesar! on Thursday in Berlin.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Clooney was discussing the film with the media when a Mexican reporter asked him, beyond filmmaking, to detail what he was doing to ease Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis.
“I spend a lot of time working on these things, and it’s an odd thing to have someone stand up and say, ‘What do you do?’ That’s fine, knock yourself out,” Clooney responded. “I have gone to places that are very dangerous and I work a lot on these things.”
The actor, who THR notes appeared to be “annoyed,” then spoke of his upcoming meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a group of recently-arrived refugees, before snapping.
“I’d like to know what you are doing to help the situation?” Clooney asked the reporter.
Clooney opened the Berlin film festival Thursday by announcing he would visit with Merkel about using his celebrity to help alleviate the crisis.
He told reporters he would also meet separately with a group of migrants on Friday “to talk about and ask what messages and what things we can do… to help.”
Tensions in Europe, after more than one million migrants, mostly from Africa and the Middle East have been allowed to enter Europe and Merkel’s support for influxing Germany with supposed asylum seekers has placed an unprecedented strain on the country, have grown.
Following the January 2015 Islamic terror attack against French satire publication Charlie Hebdo, which left a dozen people dead, Clooney spoke out against “anti-Muslim fervor” at the 72nd annual Golden Globe awards.
The actor, who has the privilege of personal security, said, “There’s a lot of anti-Muslim fervor in parts of Europe and we have to make sure that doesn’t get grouped into this horrible act of violence.”
Clooney is in Berlin with his wife, international human rights attorney Amal Clooney.
Clooney’s Hail!, Caesar has only recovered around $13 million of its $22 million budget after a week in theaters.
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