Like many scripts in Hollywood, that of “Leatherheads” has floated around for years. It finally found a home — and a leading man — when actor-director George Clooney got his hands on the story, rewrote the ending a little bit, and cast himself as Jimmy “Dodge” Connelly, the aging veteran of a fledgling pro football team that is on the verge of going under. That is, until the league is benefited by the arrival of college star Carter Rutherford (The Office’s John Krasinski). Suddenly, the crowds grow en masse, mirroring the story of Red Grange and the birth of the NFL, but there might be more — or less — to hero Rutherford’s story, as nosy journalist Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger) finds out.

Clooney took a few minutes this week to chat with PFW about the film, which he also directed. It opens nationwide Friday. Clooney also spends time talking about his own athletic prowess, including a baseball career and taking on his co-star in hoops, rooting for the Bengals growing up, his favorite football movies, Brett Favre and, naturally, how his NCAA brackets are shaping up.

How did the project come to be? How did it get into your hands?

GC: There was a screenplay out there written by (Sports Illustrated writers) Rick Reilly and Duncan Brantley. And, at one point, Steven Soderbergh was going to direct. But we never figured out the end of the movie. I spent last summer maneuvering with the script to get us through the movie and sort of solved the puzzle and took what we had to Universal. I called them from Italy and said, “I think I solved it.” And they said, “Go.” And that was sort of the incarnation.

I have to admit, in an election year, I was the loser of the office pool of what type of film you were slated to direct next.

GC: (laughs) Well, I had done all these other … when you do political films, you’re facing the sort of … part of the reason I had done those things before was because of all the issues going on that I wanted to make comments on. "Syriana," "Michael Clayton," these sorts of things. But every movie I got sent to direct after that was like the Richard Clarke book ["Against All Enemies"], every one of them after that. But the truth is I want to be a director, I don’t want to be an ‘issues director.’ I wanted to do something different. Having done a couple of different comedies with the Coen brothers that were reminiscent of this kind of screwball comedy, I wanted to really go out of the box. You know, you have got to keep trying different things.

You used to play baseball, right?

GC: Yeah, I played a little baseball. [Clooney tried out for the Cincinnati Reds in 1977.]

Football?

GC: No football. We were a small school in western Kentucky. We had 23 kids in my class.

Hey, that’s enough for an offense and a defense.

GC: Yeah, right.

Were you a Bengals fan growing up?

GC: Yeah, imagine my life over the years. I have had two moments of almost glory in my life, and the San Francisco 49ers killed me both times. Oh my God. Pete Johnson couldn’t get one yard in four tries. I wake up screaming.

Even as popular as football is, was the movie a bit of a tough sell at all considering the decade and the subject?

GC: The hardest part was, now films are driven by foreign sales, so it was really convincing people to make a fairly large-scale film on football. Even baseball you have a better shot at doing well overseas with the Japanese baseball market. But football is a tough sell. To me, though, the idea was that this film represents the sort of football that’s played in the backyard instead of the professional football that we know now.

The complaint I always have with football movies is that the football action looks like bunk. Did you bring in anyone to help with the authenticity of it or did you just bank on the fact that 98 percent of your audience wasn’t alive when this stuff happened?

GC: Good point (laughs). Well, we brought in a guy from the Pro Football Hall of Fame so we could learn how to do … you know, they had different stances and they didn’t really hit each other, they kind of grabbed and pulled each other. So a lot of it wasn’t learning plays, but more about learning how the game was played. If you went out of bounds, they could hit you (within) one yard of the out of bounds line. It’s like, gee, I wonder which way they are going to run it? It was a lot of that kind of stuff. They had these great guys from the Hall of Fame there who came out and really worked with us. It was fun.

OK, but they did draw up some plays for you?

GC: Yeah, and we had a camp for about three weeks with our actors and a bunch of kids who were playing for Clemson [the movie was shot mostly in South Carolina] and places like that. And we had to get smaller guys that played college football now because, you know, I am 5-11 and most of the guys back then were about my height. You didn’t have a lot of 200-pounders back then. Now that’s considered small.

And John Krasinski is at least 6-3, right?

GC: He’s a big boy. He’s skinny, but he’s tall.

George Clooney in "Leatherheads"

GC: Yeah, Rick and Duncan absolutely did. There are some great, old documentaries about that guy. He saw “Blood and Sand” and took the last name. He was a fun, fun guy. Even when you see him later in life, when he was 65 years old, he’s still sort of, you know, looking for trouble. And of course, the movie is sort of based on the idea of Red Grange coming out. You know, he came out (for professional football) on a Saturday and played in the pros four days later and the crowd literally went from 120 people to 55,000. Before that, back then, they were playing like three or four games a week, but they were like exhibition games. Somebody would have a broken foot, but they were just going out there. The most we learned about it, the more we were like, “Geez, this was like a rock and roll tour.”

With your other directorial efforts, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and “Good Night, and Good Luck,” you obviously were taking on more serious material. But you were looking back in time with those, too. Is there something you find too boring about current-day material?

GC: When you’re trying to do a movie, mostly what you are looking for is something unique. With “Confessions,” the script had been around before, but it was a unique script. With [“Good Night”] I was trying to talk about some of the things I was ticked off about without talking directly about the issue. And that seemed like a good way to do it. And then this movie was one of those … if you are going to do comedy, pretty much everything has been done. You’ve seen everything. But then it becomes, “What world can we house it in?” You know, “Horsefeathers” and “Jim Thorpe: All-American” and the movies that have this kind of era, there just aren’t that many of them.

Would you say — and this might be a stretch — that directing is like playing quarterback and acting is like playing receiver?

GC: I would think that directing is more like coaching. Literally, you have to plan out all the things: offense, defense, special teams. You have to plan for everything. And you have to plan with a six-plays-ahead kind of concept. So there’s certainly that. And then acting depends on what role you’re in. The fun part about directing is you get to do … well, you’re the boss. Acting, you’re still an employee.

You mentioned the Coen brothers — some of my favorite brothers, I might mention. What, if anything, did you draw from “O Brother Where Art Thou?” in terms of pace, style, feel, that sort of thing?

GC: Well, a couple of the actors. Three of the actors. But, you know, they have certain rules that I always liked because they are absolutely willing to take certain risks — breaks from reality, so to speak. People watching “O Brother” and all of a sudden we’re breaking into song, it’s just ridiculous. It always sort of pays off if everyone sort of agrees to the genre. But that’s the trick: to make sure everyone’s fully committed to it.

What other non-football movies did you use for inspiration?

GC: I literally watch every movie in the world. I have been a movie nut forever. I went back and started looking at some obvious ones — “His Girl Friday,” “The Front Page,” “The Philadelphia Story.” But also there was a film called “The More The Merrier” that was done in the 1930s. Really interesting film. There’s a bunch of movies like that — “Hail The Conquering Hero” — that played into it.

Couple of quick-hitters for you here … You are known as the prankster on movie sets. What was your best prank for this one?

GC: The last day I set the guys up, all the players. We told them we had a scene in the mud. I told them all like months out that we had to do some reshoots for it. So I kept them an extra week at the hotel and kept bringing them out to the set. And then basically, the last day, the last shoot, we put a giant greenscreen in this parking lot and had a big kids’ swimming pool filled with mud, covered them all in mud and then had them lay on the ground like they were tackled. The whole crew was in on it. And then I said, “You know, we don’t even need this shot.” And they said, “You had us stay here for an extra [expletive] week?!”

Nice! And of course, it being the last day, they couldn’t get you back.

GC: Yeah, so they couldn’t … I made sure I got them on the plane!

Who was the most surprising athlete on the set?

GC: I have to think. You know, I had a big competition with Krasinski. We talked a lot of smack. The first day we met, we were at a restaurant. I said, “I play a little hoops.” You know, I play two or three times a week. He said, “I’ll kick your ass.” And I was like, “Oh, all right.” He asked for a thousand bucks. And he said, “I’ll spot you six points and still take you.” And this guy, Grant [Heslov], that I play with goes, “I’ll take that.” And I said, “Listen, I tell you what. I’ll bet you straight up another thousand. I won’t take any points.” Because he’s 27, he’s 6-foot-3, he played some basketball in college, he’s going to take me, but he’s not going to [beat me by more than] six points. I’ll get some points on him. So [laughing] we talk [smack] for the entire shoot. Three-and-a-half months. Every day. You know, it was just like, “How are your skills coming?” The very last day of shooting — at that point we’re doing a night shoot — we all went to the local YMCA and put a thousand bucks down on the bench and I went out and beat him like, 11 to seven.

Your shot was falling that day?

GC: I take it to the rack, man! I go left and right hand. It was fun because he could have had me if he would have kept coming inside. He’s a big guy. His brothers are like 6-9 and 6-10, so in that family he’s like a shooting guard. So believe me, don’t think that doesn’t come up every chance I get when I see him.

Cutting-room floor scene most likely to end up on the DVD extras?

GC: Probably the “mud” scene. It’s hilarious. It looks great. Keith Loneker is hysterical. He actually played pro football with the Rams and played in college at Kansas — he’s having a very good week right now …

Yeah, don’t remind me. I am a poor Missouri fan.

GC: Yeah, well, I am a Kentucky fan.

So we’re roughly in the same boat. At least your team made the tournament. Who did you root for in the Super Bowl?

GC: I wanted the Giants, just because of the underdog story.

How’s your NCAA bracket looking?

GC: I tell you what, it’s all four No. 1 (seed)s this year for the first time, and I picked all four No. 1s.

Really?

GC: I always like to go for underdogs, but I thought these four teams seemed so much better than the others. But this weekend might be a little trouble because I picked Kansas over North Carolina, and I think Memphis is going to do it. I just like the way they play, man. They are fun to watch play. And they run faster than any team I have seen. That Tennessee game, they were just up and down.

That Derrick Rose kid, I tell you what …

GC: He’s unbelievable. But UNC, it looks like it might be their year, too, so we’ll see.

How much crap did you give Krasinski (a Boston native) for the Patriots losing?

GC: Oh, believe me, nothing but [expletive]. We played basketball like the next day, and all the guys, the football players, they play basketball all the time. So we’re all playing basketball, and we’d be like [sarcastic tone], “So I didn’t see. What happened in the big game?” It just killed him. He kept saying, “A thousand times we play them, they’d win one.” I guess that was the one.

Who’d win a 40-yard dash — in your prime — between you and Krasinski?

GC: It’s a tough call. I might even … we’d be close now. We were shooting the movie, and he’s so long and lanky, even when he’s moving fast, he’s like Michael Jordan how he never looked like he was moving that fast but he was. He actually moves faster than you would think. He glides. Onscreen, sometimes it would look like he was moving slowly, and he’d be running by me. And I would be saying, “Pump your arms faster! Make it look like you are running faster!” But he’s actually pretty quick. I think he’d take me. I mean, he’s 27.

Would you ever do a sports movie again?

GC: Unless we’re doing something for the senior tour … (laughs) I think I have about had it with the sports movies.

You could be a coach. The Knute Rockne story or something.

GC: Exactly. This was one of those movies where I said, I had better do it now or it’s not going to happen again. And, of course, we put in all the old man jokes. What’s funny is, look at Jim Thorpe. At 22 years old, he looked like he was 50. Those guys all just looked like they were 100 years old.

Times were tougher back then I guess. Is there a football movie you like?

GC: Gosh, I don’t know. The first “Longest Yard” is really more of a prison movie. Hmm …

A lot of people say “North Dallas Forty.”

GC: That’s pretty great. It holds up. I think maybe “Rudy.” I thought “Rudy” was a really good one. [Director David Anspaugh] made two really good sports movies. “Hoosiers” was a really good movie. That’s one of my five favorites. “The Natural,” “Pride Of the Yankees” — they’re mostly baseball movies, I guess.

Current NFL player who would make the most interesting biopic subject?

GC: (laughs) Uhh, let me think … might it be a certain quarterback for Atlanta?

Oh, I wasn’t even thinking him! I was thinking more Brett Favre.

GC: Favre would work, but he’s not a current NFL player.

Neither is Vick!

GC: Good point. But it’s like, how does it write itself at the end? Favre is one of those stories, lasting that long, he’s sort of the “Lou Gehrig Story.” Boy, wasn’t that emotional when he was crying at his retirement? I thought it was great. He really was choked up.

OK, NFL player you would most like to get a beer with?

GC: Hey, I am a Bengals fan. And I like Chad Johnson a lot.

Not the most popular guy with Bengals fans these days. Chad, I mean. Not you.

GC: I like the guy. I also like T.J. Houshmandzadeh, those guys are great. And Carson Palmer. I’ll say Carson Palmer. That’s who I’d like to have a beer with. I think that guy, if he ever gets any defense, could be special.

What were the leather helmets like, the ones you used for the shoot?

GC: Well we had to make them. They obviously don’t make them anymore. The first thing you realize — probably what you always knew about them — is that they are of absolutely no help at all. You might as well be wearing a knit cap. They don’t keep you warm. They don’t protect your head. They literally do nothing … except make you look like a [male body part]. When we were shooting it was like 25 degrees outside, so it was miserable out.

You have done some interesting things with other feature writers lately. You had one climbing around in your attic; another was surfing the Internet with you. I am trying to think what the equivalent might be for us — watch a game together?

GC: We’ll go play some hoops, how's that?

I just had knee surgery, so I hope you spot me those six points — and we play on my turf, here in Chicago.

GC: Oh no. I am not spotting anyone anything.

For more on the movie, check out www.leatherheadsmovie.com/.