George Clooney's The Midnight Sky weight loss landed him in the hospital

George Clooney was hospitalised with pancreatitis after dropping close to 30 pounds (13.6 kilograms) for his new movie, The Midnight Sky.

The 59-year-old wanted to look the part as a desperate astronomer who had survived an apocalyptic event, but he took his weight loss plan a little too far and was rushed to the hospital with stomach pains just before filming began.

"I think I was trying too hard to lose the weight quickly and probably wasn’t taking care of myself," the Oscar winner, who spent weeks recovering, told The Daily Mirror.

"It took a few weeks to get better and as a director, it’s not so easy because you need energy," Clooney went on.
"We were out on this glacier in Finland, which made it a lot harder work. But it certainly helped with the character," he reflected.

Clooney also recently told Deadline he didn't realise his character was older as well as malnourished.

"I didn’t know that the guy was 70 because I hadn’t read the book when I read the screenplay," he confessed, adding: "I just knew that he was really sick... I was more gaunt and more drawn in."

Describing the tough, icy conditions on set in Finland, Clooney shared: "You could only do a take out in the snow (in Iceland) without goggles and I could only last for about a minute and 10 or 15 seconds before my eyelids would freeze shut. So I’d have to come back in and they had a blow dryer."