Here’s how George Clooney ended up appearing in a Ocean’s Eleven co-stars Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Don Cheadle and spearheading the Hope For Haiti Now telethon to raise money for victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. More recently, in 2016, he and his barrister wife Amal set up the Clooney Foundation for Justice which advocates justice for human rights abuses.
The Monuments Men, a 2014 war film both directed and starring George Clooney, inadvertently led the Oscar-winning actor to another charitable endeavor. Inspired by true events, the movie tells the tale of an Allied platoon made up of art historians and museum curators tasked with rescuing artworks stolen by Nazis during World War II. While making The Monuments Men, Clooney struck up a friendship with co-star Hugh Bonneville, who is best known for his role as Lord Grantham on British historical drama Downton Abbey which Clooney is reportedly a big fan of.
No doubt the makers of the show didn’t have to try too hard to convince George Clooney to appear alongside his pal Hugh Bonneville in a one-off Downtown Abbey sketch that aired at Christmastime in 2014. Broadcast as part of Text Santa – a charity appeal set up by Downton Abbey network ITV – the sketch helped raise over £6 million for several worthy British charities including Teenage Cancer Trust, Alzheimer’s Society and Guide Dogs.
Keeping in theme with the festive time of year, the sketch spoofed Christmas classic Downton Abbey would look like if he’d never been born. It seems that without his presence, the estate is a den of iniquity with the downstairs staff getting drunk and playing strip poker and the ladies of Downton allowing a lowly tradesman (Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge from fellow period drama Mr. Selfridge) to sell racy undergarments to them.
And who is overseeing this house of loose morals? George Clooney’s character – the Most Honorable George Oceans Gravity, Marquess of Hollywood – who Grantham’s wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) ended up marrying in this alternate Downton Abbey memory.