George Clooney has said he turned down $35m (£29.8m) for one day’s work after deciding “it’s not worth it”.

The Hollywood actor said the offer was for him to star in an airline commercial – but after discussing it with his wife, he declined.

In an interview with The Guardian, he was asked if he ever thought, “You know what? I think I have enough money.”

He replied: “Well, yeah. I was offered 35 million dollars for one day’s work for an airline commercial, but I talked to Amal about it and we decided it’s not worth it.

“It was (associated with) a country that, although it’s an ally, is questionable at times, and so I thought, ‘Well, if it takes a minute’s sleep away from me, it’s not worth it’.”

In addition to his lucrative movie deals, the icon has reportedly earned more than £30m by advertising Nespresso coffee and previously sold his tequila company Casamigos for $1bn (£780m).

His net worth is estimated at $500m (£377m), according to the Celebrity Net Worth website, and he was named the world’s highest-paid actor in 2018.

Clooney, who turned 60 in May, married Amal in 2014 and they have two four-year-old children, twins Ella and Alexander.

Speaking about childcare, he said they only have a nanny “four days a week” because it’s so important to Amal to be involved.

He told the newspaper: “And during lockdown it was just us – for a full year! I felt like my mother in 1964 – doing dishes and six loads of laundry a day.”

He said he and Amal gave their children “normal names” to give them a “head start”, deciding that their lives would be unusual enough already.

Subscribe to the Backstage podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker

The star has directed a new film, The Tender Bar, released this month, and is about a boy who looks for father figures at his uncle’s bar.

Based on a book of the same name by JR Moehringer, the movie stars Ben Affleck as bar owner Charlie and Tye Sheridan as his nephew J.R.

It premiered in the UK in October at the London Film Festival, where Clooney said it had been a welcome change from the types of films he usually works on.

“Most of the films I do are pretty dark and this one felt light, and it felt like the world was pretty dark so I wanted to work on something that was a little lighter, you know,” he said.