George Clooney’s Jay Kelly is a movie star in the twilight of his career, but the star-studded cast all approached their experiences with fame differently than him. Helmed by four-time Oscar nominee Noah Baumbach on a script he co-wrote with Emily Mortimer, who also co-stars in the film, the movie sees Kelly and his longtime manager Ron reminiscing on their careers and some of the choices they’ve made to better their stardom, which also led to some personal turmoil.
Alongside Clooney, the ensemble Jay Kelly cast includes Adam Sandler as Ron, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Grace Edwards, Patrick Wilson and Greta Gerwig, among many others. Having made its world premiere at 2025’s Venice International Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Golden Lion, the movie has been touted as one of Netflix’s big Oscars contenders, particularly for the Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor categories, the latter for Sandler.
Now, as the movie comes to Netflix, ScreenRant‘s Ash Crossan interviewed George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Emily Mortimer and Patrick Wilson to discuss Jay Kelly. During the conversations, the group were asked how they feel they’ve handled fame in their personal lives compared to Clooney’s titular character. Sandler described that the film sees “Jay Kelly trying to connect to his normal life“ and feeling that the week the movie is set in has him “take a lot of positive steps,” to which Dern agreed that “he’s catching up” and is “wanting to find his way to his daughters.”
Sandler, in turn, opined that Dern doesn’t realize she’s famous in real life, as she “just walks around like no one’s going to stop her and say hello,” only for her to give “everybody a holy cow moment” when they approach her as “she’s filled with great energy for everyone.” The Oscar winner similarly pointed out Sandler’s down-to-earth persona, particularly highlighting his devotion to his family:
Laura Dern: And Adam? There is no place that he is not literally carrying his children, his wife, his family with him everywhere he goes in his heart and in his experience. We all went on a vacation, and all the bags had to be brought down. Someone was kindly trying to help us navigate like giant suitcases, and I just see [Adam] carrying everyone’s crap. His daughters’, my daughter’s, my crap, your wife’s crap…
Adam Sandler: That’s only because I wanted to get to the hotel.
Laura Dern: This is a guy who looks out for every single one of us on the planet at all times. So, Jay Kelly could learn.
Adam Sandler: Yeah, maybe he should sit back and watch that. Learn from the Dern.
Sandler went on to express that “we kind of just do [our thing]” when it comes to their normal lives, whether it’s his various pick-up basketball games, or running to the grocery store. Though there are times “you run into a little something for fame creates a little excitement for a second,” the comedian says that often “goes away” and they’re able to continue “living a normal life.”
Dern echoed much of Sandler’s words as she praised Baumbach and Mortimer for the “beautiful” way Jay Kelly explores the idea that “we’re all attached to the iconography of someone we admire,” but recognizes that said people are “desperately trying to navigate how we can be in this life with the people we love and not miss it.” Warmly sharing she feels “really privileged” and “so grateful” to be part of the film, Dern highlighted this core as making it “such an important film.”
As for Clooney, he began by quipping that he’s “not surrounded by a big posse of protection” in the way that Jay Kelly is. Moreover, he also explains that he “came to fame much later” than his character, which he feels left him in “better shape” to handle a rise to stardom than “young actors who are 18 years old and hit it big“:
George Clooney: I certainly wouldn’t have handled it very well. It’s easier when you’re 33, and you’ve failed a lot! I think Jay is a character who’s lived inside this bubble. Which is funny, I know people would think that’s how I live, but I don’t. I have great friends, and I have a great family. My father and I are still close. All these elements that aren’t who I am are what Jay is.
In a complete contrast to Clooney’s character, Wilson expressed that he doesn’t “know if I ever felt” a pop of stardom in his career, with his focus being “less about me and more the power of movies.” The Emmy and Golden Globe nominee went on to recall a unique moment in which he was “on an island in Crete, on a beach where no one speaks English” and found himself approached by a Russian man yelling “Lynch!“.
As he explained, the man “had seen The A-Team in some little village” he was from, which helped Wilson come to realize “movies reach everywhere,” and gave him the important reminder about a movie’s reach more so than his own fame. He also shared a lesson he learned from The Phantom of the Opera‘s Joel Schumacher, in which the filmmaker told him to do international press for it, not to “boost [your] stardom,” but instead to “understand how small the world is and how far movies travel.”
For Mortimer — who’s making her feature screenwriting debut after having created and starred in the similarly meta Doll & Em and written and directed the three-part adaptation of The Pursuit of Love — she began by recalling Baumbach approaching her with “the vague idea” of what Jay Kelly would be. As she recalls, the Oscar nominee “wanted to make a film about a movie star who was slightly losing his mind,” to which her initial response was “I’d like to see that film” and encouraged Baumbach to write and direct it.
She was subsequently surprised when his response was, “maybe you should write it with me,” initially thinking Baumbach was possibly joking about wanting to collaborate on it together, only for him to assure her he was serious. Describing it as “one of the most exciting and joyful experiences of my professional life,” Mortimer went on to explain that there are “so many things directly out of my and Noah’s separate lives” in the film’s exploration of stardom and the entertainment industry, as well as “our understanding of what it is to be doing this very vocational job“:
Emily Mortimer: I think anyone — it doesn’t matter what profession they’re in — who has a job that they feel passionately about, goes through the same conflict of emotions over the things that you have to sometimes sacrifice or neglect in order to devote yourself to this thing that you love to do. You think about how hard that can be, and what a toll it can take. I think we had that joint experience in common.
A big point of similarity Mortimer found between herself and Jay Kelly was that she was “going through a moment where I was on the cusp of empty nest syndrome,” much in the way Clooney’s character is striving to reconnect with his daughters. Experiencing the feeling of, “Oh my God, my kids are suddenly grown-up people in the world,” Mortimer explains this moment as being one “where you’re wondering how you did” as a parent and “panic of the fact that they’re not going to be there.”
The co-star/co-writer continued by describing it as a “really painful” time in which a parent, be they a movie star or not, “assumes they’re going to be there forever,” only for the children venturing out into the world to leave one feeling “they’re just not [there] anymore“:
Emily Mortimer: Of course, it’s not like they really go, but at the time when it’s happening at that moment, it feels like they are. There’s a line in the film: “The paradox of parenting is that you only really know if you’ve done it well when they’ve left.” That was definitely a very real thing for me at the moment that we were writing the script.
Be sure to dive into some of our other Jay Kelly-related coverage with:
Jay Kelly begins streaming on Netflix on December 5.
- Release Date
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November 14, 2025
- Runtime
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132 minutes
- Director
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Noah Baumbach
- Writers
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Emily Mortimer, Noah Baumbach
- Producers
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David Heyman, Noah Baumbach, Amy Pascal