Believe it or not, George Clooney almost starred in The Notebook.
No, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. The Midnight Sky director discussed the role he would've had during a virtual chat at the 64th BFI London Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 18. In fact, George explained that he and legendary actor Paul Newman were going to star in the romantic drama.
"We were going to do The Notebook together," Clooney revealed, according to Deadline. "Basically, I was going to play him as a young man, and it was funny. We met and said, 'This is it. It's going to be great.'"
"He's one of the handsomest guys you've ever seen. We met up [again] and I said, 'I can't play you. I don't look anything like you. This is insane,'" Clooney explained. "We just wanted to do it because we wanted to work together, [but] it ended up being not the right thing for us to do."
Of course, Ryan Gosling played Noah Calhoun with James Garner portraying the older version. Rachel McAdams also starred in the fan-favorite movie as Allie Hamilton. Gena Rowlands played the older version as well.
While George and Paul didn't score any roles in The Notebook, the 59-year-old director did share a sweet story about Leatherheads and how it related to the iconic actor.
"We had a very funny relationship, late in life for him. I directed a movie that just completely bombed called Leatherheads," George recalled. "[Newman] was still racing at the time, and raced a car and crashed it. So, he took a photo of Leatherheads and superimposed it on the crashed car, and said, 'I was driving your car in the race.'"
Paul died in 2008 at the age of 83, following a battle with cancer.
In recent years, George has worked behind-the-scenes and his latest project will soon hit Netflix. The Midnight Sky is scheduled to premiere in December on the streaming service.