George Clooney Wants Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccines: 'To Me It's Really Simple'

George Clooney has made it very clear he is fully behind mandatory COVID-19 vaccines in every walk of life.

While promoting his upcoming Amazon Prime movie The Tender Bar at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday, the actor, 60, spoke to journalists on the red carpet about the topic of mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations on movie sets: "I support mandatory vaccines. Period."

He continued, "I think every company should do it. Listen, I don't care. To me, it's really simple. We can look out for one another, we can take care of one or we cannot. It's that simple."

While Clooney is outspokenly pro-vaccine, not everyone in Hollywood is of the same mindset. Letitia Wright has reportedly been voicing anti-vaccination views on the set of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Daily Mail alleged that Miles Teller caused headaches on the set of The Godfather TV series by catching COVID-19 when he was unvaccinated, while in the music industry Nicki Minaj caused a stir on Twitter by sharing a vaccination story about her cousin's friend's testicles.

Producer and director of the new movie The Tender Bar, Clooney doesn't see the issue as something which is open for discussion. He said: "All the people who want to talk about their independence or their freedom, the minute your freedom infringes on everyone else's can put a stop to it."

Clooney continued, "So I believe very much in it being mandated, as we did with polio, as we did with measles and mumps and everything else we do when a kid wants to go to school. But we'll get there."

Despite being vocal on the subject since the COVID-19 vaccination has been available, Clooney confirmed he doesn't feel any pressure from backlash from anti-vaccination campaigners.

Reflecting on the history vaccines, he said: "I was listening to a podcast the other day about the polio vaccine, which they screwed up when they first put it out, which I didn't remember, I didn't know because I was too young. One factory actually ended up giving a bunch of kids polio and killing them because they weren't filtering out the formaldehyde."

Clooney is referring to The Cutter Incident from 1955 which caused 40,000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and killing 10.

Comparing this tragic example with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, Clooney says it's clear to see how much progress has been made: "We haven't had any of those problems with the vaccine. It's been a pretty successful rollout. And there were lots of sceptics then and it took a couple few years to get their act together. That's what's gonna happen here, we'll get our act together, we will get it done. We have to because that's how we get out of this."

Clooney's new movie The Tender Bar, starring Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan, Lily Rabe and Christopher Lloyd is scheduled for release on Amazon Prime Video on December 17, 2021.