It’s possible that if ER hadn’t made it onto the NBC schedule (or, at least, if it hadn’t become a blockbuster, 15-season hit), that George Clooney wouldn’t have become one of our biggest stars for nearly 30 years now. Though the 2025 movies star was certainly a recognizable film/TV presence before, having been in a number of “failed” projects, the medical drama made him a megastar. Now, he’s funnily revealed how he ‘cheated’ his way through all that difficult medical dialogue.
What Was George Clooney’s Secret To Nailing ER’s Complex Medical Jargon?
There are surely lots of challenges to be found when playing a character whose life is very different from yours, and many actors have had the unique trial of needing to remember dialogue that comes from very specialized professions, like those in the medical field. Anyone who’s gone to a doctor (I hope that’s everyone who’s reading this right now) knows that even the most basic tests/diagnosis can sometimes mean listening to very intricate wording.
Luckily for us, George Clooney found an incredibly clever workaround when he nabbed his star-making role as Dr. Doug Ross on ER, which he held for five seasons. As he recently told Variety:
It was very hard to memorize lines, but I cheated. ‘Cause, you know, you come in as a doctor and [you have a] clipboard. You always have a clipboard as a doctor. I’d come in and I’d be like, [looking down] ‘Well, Billy is your name, I’m Dr. Ross and it seems to me you have a spleen injury.’ And on the card it would say, ‘Billy, I’m Dr. Ross and it seems to me…’ I would just read it like this.
I mean, come on! Putting his lines on his clipboard and reading them during scenes is, honestly, the easiest way to get through wording that might have even the most skilled and professional actors tongue-tied on a regular basis, isn’t it?
Obviously, medical series have been a major part of the television landscape for many years before and since ER ended its run 2009, including many stellar 2025 medical shows (one which includes Clooney’s former co-star, Noah Wyle). And, one thing the actors always talk about is how they prepare so that they can throw around terms like idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura or acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (I used Google!) like it’s totally normal for them.
The methods run the gamut, from a star of The Resident having noted how “rehearsing” and “understanding what that terminology means” guided him, to the cast of the 2025 canceled series Doctor Odyssey “making up songs on set to memorize the very intense medical jargon,” and Grey’s Anatomy star Scott Speedman admitting he “had to” actually “quit coffee” so he could get through all the terminology. It turns out that there might be an easier way, and now everyone who currently stars on a medical show can try Cooney’s method and see if it works for them.
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