How marriage is changing George Clooney

BEVERLY HILLS — For the record, George Clooney has no beef with the future.

Yet in Disney's Tomorrowland (in theaters Friday), he plays Frank Walker, an inventor who has seen the world of tomorrow (and its awesome gadgetry) and returned to live in barricaded confinement. Meet Clooney, the curmudgeonly recluse, whose nemesis is an idealistic 17-year-old (Britt Robertson) banging on his padlocked door.

The $150 million adventure feels like a futuristic ride inside Disney World, which Clooney says is the point. "Part of the idea of the summer films is to try and draw people to a theater, because we're getting to the place where you can watch (new movies) at home," he says. "So you want to do ones that are an experience like a ride, like going to an amusement park, like going to a rock concert."

In real life, the mega movie star has entered new dimension of his own making: marriage. The once-proud bachelor traded in the single life when he met Amal Alamuddin, a stunning human rights lawyer whom he married in Venice last September.

So how is marriage treating Clooney, eight months in? "We're finished, apparently," he jokes. "I just saw that on a magazine. We're battling for a divorce. We had a pretty good run."

It's true, the tabloids have bored of his matrimonial bliss. Still, Clooney is one of the few movie stars left who not only understands the interest in his personal life, he's made peace with it. "That's what they do. We are having triplets," he riffs. "We're going to have four, actually."

In truth, marriage is "fun," he says. "Both of us are easily mobile. She's a barrister, so you work for a firm, but you are still able to go do it from wherever you want to do it. She has to be in Strasbourg at the international court of appeal or she has to be in Greece. She's able to move around."

The newlyweds spent the spring in New York while he shot the Jodie Foster-directed drama Money Monster, and Alamuddin took a job lecturing at Columbia University.

"She said, 'Well, if you're going to be in New York, then I'll teach at Columbia for three months.' As you do," Clooney grins. "That was actually really exciting for her and I think she's going to continue to (teach) now. But we're very lucky because we're both able to move around."

Their new home base, however, will be across the pond. The couple bought an estate built in the 1600s, which sits 40 miles outside London, where life is decidedly less paparazzi-friendly. "It will be done by the end of the summer and we'll be in it," he says. "And we'll sort of go back and forth between L.A."

Life there is quaint — and quiet. "It's very different," says Clooney. "And the town has been so welcoming to us. There's a pub that we walk to, we walk through a graveyard to (get there). It's fantastic.

"The only other thing on this island with us is a dinner theater. So I have work later in life," he kids. "Doing a one-man show of 12 Angry Men."

While Clooney's slate is still packed, he's making adjustments. On the set of Tomorrowland, he was simultaneously editing The Monuments Men by night. (He worked the same double shift on the set of Gravity, editing TheIdes of March.)

"He was spread thin," says director Brad Bird. "It was really kind of amazing. He lives a very go-go-go life. I couldn't do it, but he seems to manage."

But Clooney has new priorities. "Now that I'm married, maybe I don't do two at the same time," he says.

Next up is Hail, Caesar!, which re-teams Clooney with the Coen brothers, who have a history of casting Clooney as the cad (see: O Brother Where Art Thou? and Burn After Reading).

With the Coens, "all I ever play is the idiot," he says. The Hollywood satire is "going to be fantastic but it might end all of our careers because it's crazy."

"Channing Tatum does one of the funniest Gene Kelly dance numbers you've ever seen in your life. And Scarlett Johansson does one of those water ballets with all of the synchronized swimming."

Clooney plays an old-school movie star named Baird Whitlock. Obviously, "the whole time I'm in a Roman outfit, just wandering around drunk."