George Clooney needs to look to his own marbles, says Boris after star says Elgin version should be returned to Greece

 
13 February 2014
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Boris Johnson today hit back at George Clooney after the Hollywood star suggested London should return the Elgin marbles to Athens.

The fate of the 2,500-year-old sculptures have been fiercely debated ever since they were removed from the Parthenon 200 years ago. They now reside at the British Museum.

Clooney spoke out after directing and starring in his new film The Monuments Men, which tells how millions of artworks stolen by the Nazis were rescued and returned to their owners.

At a press conference in London yesterday, he said returning the marbles was “probably the right thing to do”, and he was backed by his co-stars Matt Damon and Bill Murray.

The Monuments Men premiere

1/19

But today the Mayor said: “Someone urgently needs to restore George Clooney’s marbles. Here he is plugging a film about looted Nazi art without realising that Göring himself had plans to plunder the British Museum.

“And where were the Nazis going to send the Elgin marbles? To Athens! This Clooney is advocating nothing less than the Hitlerian agenda for London’s cultural treasures. He should stuff the Hollywood script and stick to history.”

The friezes and sculptures were removed from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, from 1801 to 1812. He later became bankrupt and sold them to the British government for £35,000.

Clooney said the issue was first raised by a Greek journalist in Berlin on Saturday: “I do think it’s worth having an open discussion. It was one of a hundred questions at a press conference, a Greek reporter asking me about the marbles, and I just said I thought it was probably a good idea if they found a way back at some point.”

Murray agreed, saying they had had “a very nice stay here” but now should be returned.

The comedy’s stars were in Leicester Square for the movie premiere last night, where they were joined by John Goodman, Jean Dujardin and Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville. Clooney told how he managed to have plenty of laughs on set with the cast despite being director, adding: “I’ve done it a few times now but these guys are fun because they’re friends of mine, so I really enjoyed their company.

“We based it on all those old films that we like, like The Great Escape and films like that, because we wanted to have a little humour in it too.” Matt Damon, who has worked with Clooney many times, said: “It’s actually much easier to be directed by a friend. When you’re partnered with somebody who’s a friend you cut out all of the diplomacy which really wastes a lot of time.

“There’s a whole way you’re supposed to speak to each other on film sets or in theatre, and it’s all about protecting people’s egos. And when you’re working with your friend they just say, ‘That sucked!’ There’s a baseline of trust that never comes into question, and you solve the problems a lot quicker.”

Bonneville, who plays British lieutenant Donald Jeffries, said he felt “incredibly lucky” to be representing the UK: “There’s only one Brit in a principal part and it was really nice of the Americans to let me in.”

The Monuments Men opens in cinemas on Friday.

Read More

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in