George Clooney Talks His 60th Birthday With Classic Clooney Wisecrack

George Clooney is preparing to mark a major milestone. On May 6, the Oscar-winning actor will celebrate his 60th birthday, and he’s counting down the days with some humor. The actor recently opened up about turning the big 6-0 when speaking with Entertainment Tonight, admitting that while the idea of turning that new number isn’t his favorite, he likes it far more than the alternative.

Clooney opened up about his age with the outlet during a press conference this week. The actor recently teamed up with Yvette Nicole Brown, Jodie Foster, Tony Goldwyn, and other Hollywood A-listers more to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Motion Picture & Television Fund, and he was asked how he felt about celebrating that other milestone. In his hilarious response, he told ET, “As far as turning 60, listen, I’m not thrilled with it but it’s better than dead,” adding, “So I’ll take it. I got two options.”

Along with serving on the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s Board of Directors, Clooney has another important title: Dad. The Midnight Sky actor is a proud father to 3-year-old twins Alexander and Ella, whom he welcomed with wife Amal Clooney back in July of 2017. As he heads into a new decade of life, Clooney recently reflected on his decision to wait to have children until he was in his 50s, telling Today‘s Hoda Kotb that he “found the right person to have them with.”

“There are some people, their goal was, ‘I have to have children.’ Mine wasn’t. I wasn’t looking at life, going, ‘My life will be unfulfilled without children.’ I felt like I had a pretty full life,” he explained. “Then I met Amal and realized that my life had been pretty empty. And then when you throw these two kids in there, then suddenly you realize how incredibly empty it was.”

Now several years into fatherhood, Clooney opened up about parenting when speaking with ET, revealing the sweet way in which his kids are following in his and his wife’s footsteps. Clooney told the outlet he and his wife are teaching their toddlers to give back. While he noted the youngsters are “not quite four yet so they don’t quite understand,” they “will always say, they’ll pick up a toy and they’ll go, ‘This is for the poor people.’ And I go, ‘Good. OK, so let’s put it in the basket and we’ll take it to the poor people.’ And then there’s this shock on their face when reality hits.”