Although the left-wing actor is only 56, George Clooney sounds like he is ready to quit acting because he is too old.

“I’m 56. I’m not the guy that gets the girl anymore,” he told the Sunday Times. “I shouldn’t be the guy that gets the girl. But, look, if somebody’s got Paul Newman in The Verdict, I’d jump. But there aren’t that many like that. Acting used to be how I paid the rent, but I sold a tequila company for a billion f****** dollars. I don’t need money.”

Actually, this is not the first time Clooney has suggested he was done with acting. In March of 2016, he told the BBC, “As you age on screen, you get to that point where you really understand that you can’t stay in front of the camera for your whole life. So it’s much more fun to me, and it’s infinitely more creative, to be directing.”

Clooney is roughly the same age as Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, and Johnny Depp.

Clooney’s problem is not middle age. Hell, I am confident enough in my sexuality to admit that Clooney looks great. His problem is that he is a prove failure as both actor and a director. The only role Clooney is successful at is playing the Movie Star for a handful of Hollywood and media elites who have deluded themselves into believing he is one.

But hiding behind his age likely works in his favor in two ways. 1) He gets compliments about his looks. 2) He has a humble-sounding excuse to flee from failure.

Does anyone honestly believe that a 56 year-old Clooney would be running away from acting if his movies were successful, if his career mirrored that of Denzel Washington, Daniel Day-Lewis, or Tom Hanks? Oh, and did I mention that all three of those leading men are older than Clooney?

What is unfortunate for George Clooney is that he is George Clooney, which means he is saddled with George Clooney’s career — a legacy of box office mediocrity and outright failures.

Without the additional help of Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts in the Ocean series, Clooney has not anchored a bona fide smash since 2000’s The Perfect Storm. It has been six years since The Descendants cleared a very respectable $82 million but probably would have with anyone in that role.

As a director, his track record is even worse. Even in the bubble where everyone pretends Clooney is a Big Star and not a mediocre screenwriter/director, the breathtaking critical and box office failure of Suburbicon last month, which will be lucky to gross $6 million, will give investors and studios pause.

Clooney looks like a movie star, acts like a movie star, talks like a movie star…but it is all a pose and has been for more than a decade.

All the public goodwill required to be a movie star has dissolved beneath Clooney’s feet due to his divisive politics, smug demeanor, and terrible choices.

The Bubble can only paper over that reality for so long.

But the Bubble will now collectively fabricate a new reality for their boy, one where Humble George is allowed to get away with the claim that no one wants to see a movie star age, even though John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Jack Nicholson, Clark Gable, Paul Newman, Spencer Tracy, Gene Hackman all prove Clooney a liar.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.