Los Angeles, July 6 (IANS) Hollywood actor George Clooney is set to be honoured at the upcoming edition of the Venice Film Festival.

The festival will honour the actor with its 2026 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, reports ‘Variety’.

The actor, who is one of only three people to have been nominated in six different Oscar categories throughout his career (best picture, director, lead actor, supporting actor, original screenplay and adapted screenplay), will be celebrated on the Lido in his triple guise as actor, director and producer.

“A perfect combination of the star glamour of days gone by, remarkable professionalism, and modern sensitivity, the actor has crossed genres with rare versatility: war movies with ‘Three Kings’ and ‘Syriana’, thrillers with ‘Michael Clayton’, sophisticated comedies with ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and ‘O Brother Where Art Thou?’, science fiction with ‘Gravity’ and ‘Solaris’ and and bittersweet comedies with ‘The Descendants’, ‘Up In the Air’, and ‘Jay Kelly’”, the Venice Biennale, which oversees the fest, said in a statement.

“In each one of these movies, he calibrated his register while remaining true to himself: ironic and melancholy, fascinating and reflective, brilliant and capable of unexpected depth”, it added.

The Biennale statement went on to underline that Clooney did the same thing “in the nine films he made when he decided to go behind the movie camera, all of which reveal a demanding and generous concept of cinema”, it noted, citing Clooney-directed films ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind’, ‘Good Night and Good Luck’, ‘The Ides of March’, and ‘Suburbicon’ as “examples of films that are refined, ambitious, and outside the rules and conventions of Hollywood cinema”.

As per ‘Variety’, but the actor is also being celebrated by Venice for the fact that the works he directed, and his public persona, also reflect his other facet.

“A commitment to social and humanitarian causes, making him a figure of absolute prominence in the universe of show business today”, the Biennale statement concluded.

The actor said, “I’ve had so many extraordinary moments in Venice. This festival is without question my favorite and to be given the Golden Lion is a tremendous honor. It also probably means I’m old, but I’ll take it”.

The actor is a Lido aficionado having strutted down the Venice Palazzo del Cinema red carpet several times over the decades.

--IANS

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