The producers of The Conners reveal that they reached out to George Clooney about reprising his Roseanne role, revealing his candid response. The hour-long series finale of The Conners will premiere on April 23 at 8 PM on ABC and stream the next day on Hulu. It’ll bring an end to the spinoff, but also serve as a last farewell to the Roseanne series. It’s an opportunity to bring back several familiar faces, though one two-time Oscar winner politely declined the request to reprise his role.
Speaking with TVLine, executive producers Bruce Helford and Dave Caplan revealed that they reached out to George Clooney about returning for The Conners and reprising the role of Booker Brooks. Clooney, who appeared heavily in Roseanne season 1, and returned for an episode of Roseanne season 4, explained that he would be open to making a guest appearance, except that it would create an unintended knock-on effect where he would then get asked to make cameos on other shows. Caplan and Helford’s quotes are below:
Helford: “Martin Mull passed before we had a chance to [bring back Leon]. We would have liked Johnny [Galecki] to come back [as David after Season 2], but we respected that….”
Caplan: “And we never got Clooney! I don’t know what the hell else he was doing that was more important!”
Helford: “We did reach out to him numerous times, and he said, ‘You know that I would, but if I do it for you guys, I gotta do it for everybody I’ve ever worked with who has a TV show because it would be wrong for me not to,’ so that was his out on that.”
What Clooney’s Return As Booker Brooks Would Mean
He’s Been Asked Before
Clooney plays the boss of Roseanne, Jackie, and Crystal in the first season of Roseanne. He appears in ten episodes during that first season, briefly becoming a love interest for Jackie. Booker returns for an episode of season 4, during a Halloween episode, to offer comfort to Jackie when she was at a low point. Jackie actually mentions Booker during an episode of The Conners season 3, observing that he looks like just George Clooney.
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The Conners: 20 Best Episodes, Ranked
The Conners doesn’t always manage to live up to Roseanne’s legacy, but the sitcom spinoff’s best episodes give its predecessor a run for its money.
Rosenne Barr previously noted that Clooney was asked to make a guest appearance for the Roseanne revival, though he declined. In terms of his other TV roles, ER is at the center of a lawsuit, which involves Max’s The Pitt, and is unlikely to be revived. Still, early on in his career, Clooney did appear in seminal series like The Facts of Life and The Golden Girls. That could conceivably be revived in some form.
Our Take On Clooney’s Absence
It Makes Sense For Everyone Involved
Considering his well-known status, it makes sense for the producers to ask Clooney to join the cast of The Conners. But the spinoff has evolved beyond Roseanne. The final episodes should probably be focused, as they have been, on the characters that have been all along, rather than a headline-grabbing guest star that would be amusing but wouldn’t make sense for where the story is.
Source: TVLine
The Conners
7/10
- Release Date
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2018 – 2025-00-00
- Showrunner
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Bruce Helford, Matt Williams
- Writers
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Dave Caplan, Bruce Helford, Matt Williams