George, is it true that you are getting involved in the writers' strike?
Clooney: That just happened the night we were at the awards show. It's actually Harvey Weinstein getting me involved.

He can do that.
Clooney: Yes, he can. I was at the Critics' Choice Awards and I said, "Let's get everybody in a room and stay there until we solve it." Which I really do think is a good idea. I talked to Spielberg and a few people-the CEOs and the writers that can help facilitate that. I am happy to be a part, but I wasn't standing out there going, you know, "You're going to do it and you're going to like it."

"I'm not a negotiator at all."

"I’m certainly a fan of his work. We’re able to do this [negotiate]. We have been doing this with the independent companies without a mediator. I think what’s needed is the resolve and determination of the conglomerates to bargain seriously and fairly…if Mr. Clooney can help us with that, we’d very much appreciate that."

Clooney's publicist Stan Rosenfield e-mailed [to LA Times] this note on Clooney's real intended involvement: "George has and would offer to help, including putting a group of people in a room that know both the CEO's and the writers personally. And that of course he would do anything to get this over. He didn't use any of the rhetoric that's being attributed to him."

At the AFI lunch George Clooney admitted that he did call Steven Spielberg to talk about convening some kind of meeting with top players who could talk to both sides in order to restart the WGA's strike talks, and that Spielberg was amenable. After a conversation with Harvey Weinstein, however, Clooney said the New York mogul misquoted him: Clooney did not say that he would tell either the WGA or the AMPTP "you have to live with this and get over it." "I talked to Steven about getting people together into a room to settle this thing," he told me. "I talk to politicians all the time; I do not want to set two parties against each other. It's difficult enough as it is."

Separately, Harvey Weinstein discussed with George Clooney on Thursday the prospect of enlisting A-list Hollywood talent to mediate a broader WGA contract with an assemblage of representatives of the major studios, [Weinstein Company spokesman, Matthew] Frankel said. CAA partner Bryan Lourd served as a mediator in several bargaining sessions between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, before those talks imploded Dec. 7.

The AMPTP has said it would refuse to negotiate further unless the guild took some objectionable demands off the bargaining table, and it was unclear if the suggestion of a star-studded "mediation panel" might advance beyond Weinstein and Clooney's spit-balling session. Most industryites remain poised for word that the AMPTP instead will announce separate contract talks with the DGA any day.

I've just been told that George Clooney today is volunteering to personally set up a so-called "mediation panel" including himself and with plans to ask Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and John Wells (the executive producer of ER and a controversial ex - WGA president) to be part of it, plus 3 or 4 bigwigs who are siding with the producers. The offer came in a phone call today with Harvey Weinstein who promptly volunteered to be part of the panel. Clooney suggested its purpose should be to oversee the talks and tell the WGA as each term is bargained "you have to live with this and get over it," and tell the AMPTP "you have to live with that and get over it", Weinstein quoted George as saying. It's also Clooney's idea that everybody would be locked in the room together and not leave until the deal is done.