“So Happy We Can Say We Did a Movie With Him”

Noah Baumbach, George Clooney and Adam Sandler had London’s South Bank abuzz on Friday night for the U.K. premiere of Jay Kelly.

The acclaimed filmmaker was joined on the carpet by Clooney and Sandler as well as castmembers Louis Partridge, Greta Gerwig, Isla Fisher, Grace Edwards, Lenny Henry, Jim Broadbent and producer David Heyman at the BFI London Film Festival screening, taking place at the city’s Royal Festival Hall.

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The Netflix movie follows Clooney as a fading movie star who, in a bid to reconnect with his teenage daughter as she travels Europe, accepts a prestigious lifetime achievement award at a Tuscan arts festival. Co-written by Emily Mortimer, the film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in August.

“I got to play a man who loves this man here,” said Sandler about his co-star and friend (not before the two were jokingly told off for joking around while their director introduced the film). “I’ve known George many years, and this was awesome that we got to shoot a movie, to get to be together for months, get to know each other [and] get closer and closer. My character lives for this guy, for Jay Kelly,” continued the Uncut Gems star. “He’s not Jay Kelly in real life. Jay is a little more self-centered. This guy — he cares about everybody. He’s thinking of everybody. He doesn’t like compliments, but he’s great dude.”

But attention soon turned to Broadbent, who plays a mentor to Clooney’s character in the film. “And we’re all on stage, and [we’re] so happy that we can say we did a movie with Jim,” beamed Sandler. “Because we all love Jim and his performance in this film…,” he said before being cut off by raucous applause inside the theater.

Clooney, who was joined on the red carpet by wife Amal, swiftly echoed the sentiment. “It was an honor to be with Jim. We’re all really lucky to have had this experience.” He went on, describing Baumbach as “an incredible director.”

“We all would have said yes. I think we all did say yes because we wanted to work with him,” Clooney said. “The fact that all of us as a team got to work together is magical, and we were all thrilled every day on the set.”

Baumbach spoke a little about crafting the script with Mortimer, who also features in the film and discussed shooting parts of Jay Kelly in London, where he lived for a period with wife Gerwig. “I do want to say actually, because we shot a lot of the movie here in London as well as Italy,” he began, “I was in New York, and I said: ‘This is a real homecoming,’ but actually, this is really the homecoming, in a sense, for this movie and me. And we do have so many of our great collaborators that are here. So it’s a special for me, for us at this moment.”

Sandler in particular is already generating Oscars hype with his performance as Clooney’s weary, longtime manager, Ron. THR‘s review from Venice describes Baumbach’s take on his and Mortimer’s script as “a bittersweet buddy movie that overloads on saccharine.”

The BFI London Film Festival runs Oct. 8-19.

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