George Clooney Was Hospitalized After Losing Weight for Netflix Movie ‘Midnight Sky’

George Clooney’s preparations for his upcoming film, Midnight Sky, landed him in the hospital, the 59-year-old actor revealed to the UK’s Mirror Wednesday. Getting ready to star in the post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama, Clooney lost more than 20 pounds but ended up being hospitalized with pancreatitis just four days before the filming’s start after suffering severe stomach pains.

After recovering, Clooney told the British publication that while readying himself for his role as a lone scientist trying to contact astronauts returning home to a global catastrophe, he “probably wasn’t taking care of [himself]” while “trying too hard to lose the weight quickly.” The movie was also directed by Clooney, and filmed in harsh conditions, making his recovery even more difficult. “It took a few weeks to get better and as a director, it’s not so easy because you need energy,” he explained. “We were out on this glacier in Finland, which made it a lot harder work. But it certainly helped with the character.”

Clooney added to Entertainment Tonight in a recent interview that losing the weight left him “pretty weak,” adding, “I did not need a fitness trainer. At that point, I was trying to stay at that spot, which is not eating and it’s a lot harder the older you get, to do those things, to transform yourself in a way.” Yo-yo dieting for roles “gets tricky” as you progress in age, he added: “It gets really easy to put weight on and a lot harder to take it off.”

Working on Midnight Sky, which will begin streaming on Netflix on Dec. 23 and will be available in select theaters beginning this month, made Clooney much more aware of the legacy he is leaving behind for his family, which includes wife Amal Clooney and their 3-year-old twins, Ella and Alexander.

“When you are having children, it makes you [think] infinitely even more [about] what we are leaving them, what legacy we are leaving them, if we are going to deny science, if we are going to have a world of divisiveness and anger and hatred, not just in this country, but all around the world, and what those elements can lead to if they are allowed to fester,” he said of the movie’s relevance especially today. “I certainly am aware of it when I am telling the story… It gets sort of put on steroids when you have kids.”