George Clooney To Dan Loeb: Get Out Of The Movie Business

George Clooney said Friday that activist investor Dan Loeb is a “carpet bagger” whose plan to spin off Sony Corporation’s (NYSE:SNE) entertainment arm “makes me crazy.”

In an interview he conducted with Deadline Hollywood’s Mike Fleming Jr., the two-time Academy Award winner also bashed the billionaire’s hedge fund, Third Point LLC, saying the entire financial services industry had “no conscience at work.”

“I’ve been reading a lot about Daniel Loeb, a hedge fund guy who describes himself as an activist but who knows nothing about our business, and he is looking to take scalps at Sony because two movies in a row underperformed?” Clooney, also a prominent human rights activist, said in the interview, published Friday. “Fortunately, this business is run by people who understand that the movie business ebbs and flows, and the good news is they are ignoring his calls to spin off the entertainment assets.”

“How any hedge fund guy can call for responsibility is beyond me, because if you look at those guys, there is no conscience at work. It is a business that is only about creating wealth, where when they fail, they get bailed out and where nobody gets fired,” the actor added. “A guy from a hedge fund entity is the single least-qualified person to be making these kinds of judgments, and he is dangerous to our industry.”

A spokeswoman for Loeb’s Third Point declined to comment to International Business Times.

But Clooney said “it’s crazy” that Loeb, who owns a 7 percent stake in Sony Entertainment, has “any weight in this conversation at all.”

“Hedge fund guys do not create jobs, we do,” Clooney said. “You want to see what happens if outside forces start to scare the industry and studios just make tent poles out of fear? You will see a lot of crap coming out.”