George Clooney and Laura Dern Recall Making ‘Terrible’ Horror Movie Grizzly II 40 Years Before Jay Kelly Reunion

The upcoming dramedy Jay Kelly was a reunion for George Clooney and Laura Dern, who made a low-budget horror movie together 40 years ago.

Oscar winners Clooney, 64, and Dern, 58, reminisced about the “terrible” project, 1983’s Grizzly II: Revenge, during a Q&A after a Jay Kelly screening at the New York Film Festival on Tuesday, Sept. 30.

Responding to a question from moderator Devika Girish about starting out young in the movie industry, Dern, who began acting as a teenager, noted that Clooney helped her early on.

“This was one of my fiercest protectors, teaching me about taking care of myself while also being an actor, because we did a movie together 40 years ago,” said Dern, who was joined on stage by costars Clooney, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough and director Noah Baumbach at Alice Tully Hall.

Asked what movie, Clooney responded, “It was Grizzly II… and it never came out.”

“It was shot by a Hungarian crew in Communist Budapest in 1984. And it was a terrible movie. We get killed,” continued Clooney.

“By the bear?” Girish asked. 

“By the bear,” Clooney confirmed. “But they ran out of money and we got stuck in Budapest for a couple of months.”

Grizzly II, which costars Charlie Sheen, Louise Fletcher and Jonathan Rhys-Davis, is in fact available to stream on Netflix. According to a synopsis, “A team of park rangers rights to stop a gigantic bear from crashing a massive outdoor rock concert.” It’s a sequel to the 1976 horror film Grizzly.

Jay Kelly is much more high-minded fare. In the dramedy, Clooney plays the titular Kelly, a disillusioned movie star having a personal crisis. “Lately, I feel like my life doesn’t really feel real,” Kelly confesses at one point.

He decides to take a spur-of-the-moment European vacation, and the loyal members of his professional team — including his longtime manager Ron (Sandler) and his publicist Liz (Dern) — drop everything to join him. 

 “This is a story of him having to come to terms with other parts of his life besides the part that he’s been very successful at,” Clooney told Netflix in a recent interview. “He’s coming to terms with the idea that maybe he hasn’t been such a great friend or father. He has just been really good at being a movie star.”

Though Clooney himself is also a movie star, the actor says he feels much more fortunate than Kelly. “This character has a lot more regrets than I would have, because, luckily for me, fame came much later in my life. I got to figure out how to live life before I figured out how to be famous, and I don’t think this character did.”

The movie, directed by Oscar nominee Baumbach features a star-studded supporting cast, including Patrick Wilson, Eve Hewson, Greta Gerwig, Isla Fisher and Louis Partridge.

Jay Kelly is in select theaters on Friday, November 14 and streaming on Netflix on Friday, December 5.