ACTORS are advised to clear their mantelpieces at this time of year. The Golden Globes have just been handed out, the Oscars take place at the end of this month, and between those dates are countless awards ceremonies as everybody from the Screen Actor’s Guild to the Society of Online Film Critics picks out their best performances of the year. George Clooney’s mantelpiece is no stranger to trophies. However, the Academy Award winner has not spent his time canvassing votes for an acting award. In December last year, George was in Rome, along with his Ocean’s Eleven co-star Don Cheadle, to receive a far more noteworthy prize.

At a dinner of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the two actors were recognised for their fundraising efforts with the Not On Our Watch charity.

The charity, which they set up along with friend Brad Pitt, aims to help civilians caught up in the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.

At last year’s Cannes film festival, Clooney, Cheadle and Pitt raised 10 million dollars. But George used the platform of his acceptance speech in Rome to warn that little had actually changed for the people of Darfur in the time since.

Experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million uprooted from their homes in the disputed territory. 

“The simple truth is that when it comes to Darfur those people are not better off now than they were years ago. The murders and other atrocities continue and some two and a half million refugees are yet to go home,” George told his audience.

“Some day this will all end. And when they write about this, the question will be asked, ‘Where was the rest of the world?’ And the answer will be, ‘It just wasn’t a priority’.”

Following up that warning, George then made his second awareness-raising trip to the war-torn region last month.

“The reason I go is to focus attention there,” the 46-year-old says. “That’s basically all I can do. If you put famous people in front of very ugly situations, people will watch.”

George visited the area previously with his father, a former U.S. news anchorman. They shot a short film about the horrors of the refugee camps. 

“It certainly reminds you to be ridiculously happy with your life. Once you see people suffering in the way these people are, you feel very guilty about not suffering at all.”

Darfur may be a long way from the comforts of Hollywood but Clooney is a long way from the handsome man who first set pulses racing as Dr Doug Ross in five series of ER.

In those days, George kept his political leanings to himself while building a power base — and personal fortune — in box-office candy such as Batman & Robin.

Now a producer and Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter, he can afford to make the more political movies he always yearned to make, like Syriana, Good Night, and Good Luck and Michael Clayton — which he initially made free of charge.

“I did not take any money at the beginning, but would make money if it became a success. You win some, you lose some,” he explains. 

“Do I do a film like Michael Clayton, which I really believe in? Or do I get bored and well paid by big studios for those I don’t? I’m lucky to have a choice.

“I did Good Night, and Good Luck, and Syriana, because I was portrayed on a magazine cover as a traitor to my country, for saying that we should ask some questions before we send in 150,000 people to be shot at in Iraq. I took some heat for that at the time but I remember my dad telling me I was a big boy now and to stick to what I believed in.

“The older you get the more you are able to participate in other parts of society. The more secure you are in your career, the more you can concentrate on other issues. 

“I have had this great group of friends for 25 years. We stay close and spend time together. I have been very lucky and have great parents, a great sister and a great life. But I still want to speak out about issues I feel strongly about.” 

With his well-defined matinee-idol looks, seductive, soft Kentucky accent and natural, personable charm, George appears born for cinema — but it wasn’t always the case.

His role in ER proved both a help and a hindrance when he was trying to launch a movie career in the early 1990s. In what would now be a casting director’s dream, he battled Brad Pitt for the part of cowboy hitchhiker J.D. in Thelma and Louise.

“I remember when Brad got it, I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t see the movie for a couple of years afterwards and it was like, ‘yeah he’s good.’

“But I had a different career. I couldn’t get in the door of the films. There really was this chasm between films and television.

“Television is such a different medium. When you’re on a TV show, 44 million people can see you for free. They can watch you in their underwear and turn you off anytime they want. They see you every week and get to know you personally.

“So it’s very hard to make them pay money to go out and see you. I had a lot of people telling me I wasn’t going to have a film career, I was a TV guy — but the turning point was the year I left ER because The Perfect Storm was a hit and O Brother, Where Art Thou? was a hit critically.

“But that was the funniest thing. I got a lot of credit for The Perfect Storm. It was a movie about a wave, it’s got nothing to do with me, but I had gotten so much stick for Batman & Robin I said, ‘OK I’ll take all the credit for The Perfect Storm’. But there was a lot of luck involved.”

Now firmly established as one of Hollywood’s glitterati and having got many of his political frustrations off his chest, George makes a welcome return to romantic comedies in his next movie, Leatherheads, which is set for release in April.

Co-starring Renee Zellweger, the film is set against the backdrop of America’s fledgling pro-football league in 1925. Clooney plays a veteran player who persuades a dashing World War I hero and All-American star to join his team. But cub reporter Lexie Littleton (Zellweger) thinks the new champ is too good to be true — and she may be right.

As for the rest of the year, Clooney will be splitting his time between fundraising on behalf of Darfur and working on future film projects that interest him, such as the Coen brothers’ movie Burn After Reading which will see him team up again with former nemesis, and now best buddy, Brad Pitt.

And as he begins his approach towards his half-century, the A-list star says he will be taking nothing for granted.

“I grew up with famous people. My Aunt Rosemary was a star and then she wasn’t a star and it wasn’t because she was any less of a singer — things change. 

“Once you understand that so little of this has to do with you, you appreciate things more. You realise if I had not got the (prime) Thursday night 10 o’clock time slot for ER, if they had put us on Friday night, then I wouldn’t have a film career.

“That was luck, not my own genius, though I like to think it was!”

Michael Clayton is released on DVD on February 18.