TIFF PHOTO GALLERY: George Clooney continues to lay on the charm at The Descendants press conference

TIFF PHOTO GALLERY: George Clooney continues to lay on the charm at The Descendants press conference

Amara Miller, Nick Krause, George Clooney, Shailene Woodley and director and co-writer Alexander Payne

George Clooney, such a charmer. When dealing with the press, the actor, it seems, has one persona and one persona only: jovial trickster loved by all. Hollywood’s silver fox was all jokes once again at the press conference for The Descendants yesterday afternoon. He guided his much younger cast mates—two teens and one 20-year-old (they play his children in the film)—through the heavily choreographed proceedings, instructing them to carefully look into each camera in unison and then prompting them to lean into the mike and join the conversation. Amara Miller, who had never even been in a school play before being cast for the film, was delightfully unpolished, while her fellow fresh-faced colleagues Shailene Woodley and Nick Krause were the opposite, delivering the requisite gushing praise on director and co-writer Alexander Payne. Clooney was Clooney, and delivered this little gem by way of explaining how the world’s most famous bachelor is qualified to play a father: “You don’t have to shoot heroin to play a heroin addict.” Zing!