George Clooney and Julia Roberts told Ryan Tubridy about their grá for Ireland and why they decided it was the right time to reunite on the big screen.
The Academy-award winners – who last appeared together in the Oceans heist movies – star in Ticket To Paradise, a romcom about a bickering divorced couple who jet to Bali to stop their lovestruck daughter from making the same mistake they think they did by getting married too soon.
Speaking with Ryan Tubridy on RTÉ One's Late Late Show on Friday night Clooney explained why this was the movie to get them back together on the big screen.
"It's been a lousy few years, and not just with Covid, it has been everything. There has been this divisive time in the world and stuff.
"Every once in a while, movies are designed, they certainly were during the depression, they are designed to be an escape. And so, we looked at we called each other up and this is exactly what this is. And we were excited to try and do it."
Roberts agreed with Tubridy when he asked if it was their "mission to bring a splash of colour to a grey world".
She said: "It was our mission; I think that is well-expressed. We did feel like to join forces on this and do something that was just to make people escape and laugh and get caught up in other people's lives in a way that was really gentle."
Both actors have ties to Ireland, with Clooney recently visiting to meet some of his relatives, telling Tubridy that some of them look just like his "uncle George".
He said: "It was a couple of years ago, just before Covid. I was going there with my father to see some old relatives.
"There were a lot of Clooneys, yeah it was pretty fun actually. I mean it's a funny thing where you go to meet people who you are related to who you have never met before…so many look like my uncle George…"
Roberts also has lots of family in "charming Ireland" and said she had the "dream job" when she got to spend a lot of time here while filming Michael Collins.
She said: "That whole experience was so beautiful. Well, to work with Neil Jordan was such a treat and on a story like this to be invited into that kind of history was I just remember I was just so bowled over really.
"I just couldn’t believe it really and I had worked with Liam once before and I remember when Neil offered me the part and I said 'so Liam is good with this too? Like everybody is on board with this?’ I am pinching myself…
"And to be there and I have family there that we are really close with. To see people that you don’t have the geographical luxury of seeing so often, it was just really a dream job."
