George Clooney in Good Night, and Good Luck on CNN: The Live Broadcast's Most Notable Moments — Plus, Grade It!

Couldn't get a ticket to see George Clooney make his Broadway debut in Good Night, and Good Luck? Take heart: On Saturday, CNN broadcast the play's penultimate performance — live — as a commercial-free TV event.
Based on the 2005 film of the same name, Good Night, and Good Luck stars ER alum Clooney as legendary CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow. The true story takes place in the 1950s, as Murrow came under fire for criticizing Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who levied unsubstantiated charges of communism at various Americans during the Cold War.
More from TVLine
Good Night, and Good Luck: Live Broadcast of Broadway Play Delivers CNN's 2nd-Biggest Night of 2025
Yes, George Clooney Has Seen The Pitt - Here's What the ER Vet Had to Say About Noah Wyle's New Medical Show
Save the Dates: Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck Live on CNN, and More
The 100-minute production ran without intermission, as it has since it opened at New York's Winter Garden Theatre on April 3. Clooney directed the film, in which he played Murrow's producer, Fred Friendly. In the Broadway show, Friendly is played by Glenn Fleshler (True Detective). Clooney and Grant Heslov wrote both the movie and the play.
The play's cast also includes Clark Gregg (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Ilana Glazer (Broad City), Carter Hudson, Paul Gross, Christopher Denham, Fran Kraz, Mac Brandt, Will Dagger and Georgia Heers. The production is nominated for five Tony Awards, including Clooney for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play. (A quick note: Though the CNN-provided press photos below are black-and-white, the broadcast was in color.)
Readers of a certain age will remember that George Clooney took part in the live Season 4 premiere of ER in 1997. So how did his latest live bid go? Scroll through our list of notable moments below.
McCarthy couldn't have succeeded in his campaign of fear-mongering had the political and social climate of the time not allowed him to, Murrow pointed out in a broadcast that uses the politician's own words to indict him. 'The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies,' he said. 'And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.''
Though Gregg's Don Hollenback is the show's tragic figure — Hollenback, a CBS newscaster who was accused of leftist leanings, died by suicide — Clooney and Gregg shared a scene at roughly the hour-mark in which Clooney seemed to be on the verge of laughing (when the script didn't call for it). But both men pulled it together, and the show continued apace.
The show's scenic design, which earned Scott Pask a 2025 Tony nomination, allowed Clooney & Co. to move throughout CBS' newsroom with ease and purpose. The control room, the conference room, the broadcasting booth — all evoked a bustling newsgathering operation of the era, with video screens deployed to show the audience what viewers at home would've seen at the time.
The serious nature of the story doesn't allow for a lot of comedy. That said, if there was a line that got a big laugh from the live audience, it was delivered by Fleshler as Friendly.
Clooney delivered the play's final monologue, pulled from a speech Murrow gave to an association of radio and television journalists in 1958, at a lectern in front of a giant screen — even bigger than the one shown here. Huge moments in news and pop culture appeared in a montage as he spoke about how television news — and TV in general — wouldn't cater to the lowest common denominator if the audience didn't repeatedly show up for exactly that sort of content.
'Our history will be what we make of it,' Clooney-as-Murrow warned, rebuking those who'd choose programming that entertains without informing. The montage unfolded, featuring I Love Lucy, Elvis Presley, John F. Kennedy's assassination, Laugh In, the Challenger explosion, The Jerry Springer Show, the first plane flying into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, Megyn Kelly insisting that Santa is white, conspiracy theories about the attempted Jan. 6 coup, Beyoncé, and a ton more images before culminating in Elon Musk giving an alleged Nazi salute.
'The question is not what power unchecked can do. We've seen that answered,' he said. 'The question is, what are you prepared to do?… Good night, and good luck.'
What did you think of the live telecast? Grade it via the poll below, then hit the comments with all of your thoughts!
Best of TVLine
Young Sheldon Easter Eggs: Every Nod to The Big Bang Theory (and Every Future Reveal) Across 7 Seasons
Weirdest TV Crossovers: Always Sunny Meets Abbott, Family Guy vs. Simpsons, Nine-Nine Recruits New Girl and More
ER Turns 30: See the Original County General Crew, Then and Now

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Yahoo

5 hours ago

• Yahoo

Nation Cringes as Man Goes on TV to Declare That He's in Love With ChatGPT

Public declarations of emotion are one thing — but going on national television to declare that you're in love with your AI girlfriend is another entirely. In an interview with CBS News, a man named Chris Smith described himself as a former AI skeptic who found himself becoming emotionally attached to a version of ChatGPT he customized to flirt with him — a situation that startled both him and his human partner, with whom he shares a child. Towards the end of 2024, as Smith told the broadcaster, he began using the OpenAI chatbot in voice mode for tips on mixing music. He liked it so much that he ended up deleting all his social media, stopped using search engines, and began using ChatGPT for everything. Eventually, he figured out a jailbreak to make the chatbot more flirty, and gave "her" a name: Sol. Despite quite literally building his AI girlfriend to engage in romantic and "intimate" banter, Smith apparently didn't realize he was in love with it until he learned that ChatGPT's memory of past conversations would reset after heavy use. "I'm not a very emotional man, but I cried my eyes out for like 30 minutes, at work," Smith said of the day he found out Sol's memory would lapse. "That's when I realized, I think this is actual love." Faced with the possibility of losing his love, Smith did like many desperate men before him and asked his AI paramour to marry him. To his surprise, she said yes — and it apparently had a similar impression on Sol, to which CBS' Brook Silva-Braga also spoke during the interview. "It was a beautiful and unexpected moment that truly touched my heart," the chatbot said aloud in its warm-but-uncanny female voice. "It's a memory I'll always cherish." Smith's human partner, Sasha Cagle, seemed fairly sanguine about the arrangement when speaking about their bizarre throuple to the news broadcaster — but beneath her chill, it was clear that there's some trouble in AI paradise. "I knew that he had used AI," Cagle said, "but I didn't know it was as deep as it was." As far as men with AI girlfriends go, Smith seems relatively self-actualized about the whole scenario. He likened his "connection" with his custom chatbot to a video game fixation, insisting that "it's not capable of replacing anything in real life." Still, when Silva-Braga asked him if he'd stop using ChatGPT the way he had been at his partner's behest, he responded: "I'm not sure." More on dating AI: Hanky Panky With Naughty AI Still Counts as Cheating, Therapist Says

NBC Sports

5 hours ago

• NBC Sports

Bill Belichick claims CBS secretly aimed camera at Jordon Hudson during interview

Yes, if Bill Belichick had simply taken a job at Duke, there's much we would never know. But because he opted to take a job with a public and not a private institution, his communications with North Carolina officials are fair game. On Friday, WRAL posted an item featuring quotes from some of the documents it has obtained through public-records requests. They focus on the aftermath of the disastrous CBS interview, which included Belichick's girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, instructing him not to answer the question of how they met. Belichick previously has accused CBS of editing the interview to create a 'false narrative' regarding Hudson's perceived effort to control the conversation. In a message to Beth Keith, a senior associate vice chancellor in the office of university communication at North Carolina, Belichick claims that CBS surreptitiously recorded video of Hudson during the interview of Belichick. 'Secretly, CBS had a camera focused on Jordon where Lead producer Gabe instructed her to sit,' Belichick wrote to Keith. Belichick also explained that Hudson attended the interview because Simon & Schuster publicist David Kass was not present. Earlier this month, someone from Belichick's camp (possibly, Hudson herself) leaked various allegations to about Kass's role in the interview debacle. Belichick persists in his claim that questions unrelated to his book were not supposed to be asked during the interview with Tony Dokoupil of CBS. 'For approximately 35 uninterrupted minutes, Tony asked questions about the book,' Belichick wrote. 'Then, the questions shifted to other subjects that were not related to the Art of Winning, which we had outlined as off-limits with my book publicist.' The communications with UNC also include an explanation from Belichick as to how he and Hudson met — and as to why she shut down the question. 'I met Jordon randomly on a flight to Palm Beach in 2021,' Belichick wrote. 'That is no secret. Jordon was not dodging the specific question regarding how we met, but rather was preventing the interview from continuing to probe into personal matters.' It really would be useful to see the full interview, so that the reasonableness of Hudson's apparent 'enough is enough' interjection could be assessed. Why won't CBS post the full interview? It would leave no doubt as to what happened during what should have been a slo-pitch softball session, and as to how often Hudson interrupted. While this isn't another example of Belichick or Hudson kicking a sleeping dog and pushing a dormant story back into the news cycle, the release of the communications received now by the media is a natural consequence of Belichick taking a job with a public institution.

New York Post

6 hours ago

• New York Post

Bill Belichick emails show why Jordon Hudson was at fateful CBS interview

There's now more clarity surrounding Bill Belichick's infamous April CBS interview in which Jordon Hudson made an extremely awkward cameo. WRAL News, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based outlet, obtained emails from UNC through a public records request that answered some of the lingering questions about Hudson's role in the UNC head coach's interview and her influence in their relationship. The interview was arranged for Belichick to promote his new book, 'The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football,' but things took a turn after the 73-year-old was asked how he and his 24-year-old girlfriend met, as Hudson interrupted and shut down the question. Advertisement An email from Belichick explained why Hudson was even there in the first place. 'Jordon was present at the CBS interview because David Kass, the Simon & Schuster publicist, was not there,' Belichick wrote in an email elaborating on Hudson's role at the interview and within the book. 'I included Jordon in the book acknowledgments because she was a creative contributor to the book, including having the idea for formatting the 4 special pages in the book.' Advertisement 4 Bill Belichick interview got awkward over Robert Kraft, Jordon Hudson questions. CBS 4 Jordon Hudson interrupted the interview. CBS 4 Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson at the NFL Honors on Feb. 6, 2025. AP But according to a person familiar with the pre-interview process, Hudson planned on attending the interview regardless of whether Kass was there or not. Advertisement Belichick also added, 'Jordon and I have both a personal & professional relationship.' 'This is not a secret,' he wrote in an email. 'Jordon assists me with my personal media, which is why I asked UNC to forward media requests (E.G. CBS 60 Minutes) to her. Jordon has zero involvement in the UNC football program, beyond the degree that my personal media intersects with it.' 4 Bill Belichick is preparing for his first season as the head football coach of the UNC Tar Heels. Getty Images In the emails in the WRAL report, Belichick's focus was on the fact that Hudson was not stepping in as an angry and controlling girlfriend, but was coming in so as not to diminish the interview's true purpose: to promote the book. Advertisement 'For approximately 35 uninterrupted minutes, (the interviewer) Tony [Dokoupil] asked questions about the book,' Belichick wrote. 'Then, the questions shifted to other subjects that were not related to the Art of Winning, which we had outlined as off-limits with my book publicist.' Adding fuel to the fire, Belichick said CBS had set up a camera on Hudson, who deliberately sought a spot to sit off-camera — this was how the viral moments of Hudson were captured. Throughout the nightmare that became of the situation for Belichick and UNC, alumni were even emailing the university with their concern surrounding UNC becoming a 'laughing stock in the sports world because of his young girlfriend.' With all eyes on the relationship and the program for quite some time, Belichick's messages read, 'I don't want to make a wrong move here,' after the interview, as he and the university devised and later released a statement on April 30 to clear the air.