“And I just held up a map and I just pointed to all the places I got to go in the world and all the things I’ve gotten to see because of them,” he told GQ. “And I said, ‘How do you repay people like that?’ And I said, ‘Oh, well: How about a million bucks?'”

It’s one of several personal tidbits Clooney shares in the expansive interview, in which he also discusses how he learned the art of acting on ER,  the time he fell and spinal fluid leaked from his nose on a film set and the motorcycle accident from which he miraculously emerged relatively unscathed.