Movie star George Clooney has stunned fans by revealing he had a loaded gun held to his chest during a recent humanitarian trip to Sudan.
The Ocean's Eleven star has been a longtime advocate for Sudanese refugees desperate for an end to decades of civil war, and he has often put his own welfare in jeopardy to visit the war-torn nation and shoot footage of the refugees at peril.
But Clooney admits one particular trip almost cost him his life when his vehicle was stopped by gun-toting teen soldiers.
During an appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman on Wednesday (05Oct11), he said, "It's not safe... I've (been) taken out of my truck with my father once and a couple people we were travelling with. I think there was only four of us there at the time, you know, they have check points and things. And you're in the middle of nowhere...
"Everybody's got a gun, and this 13-year-old kid brought me out, sat us down and put a gun to my chest, and was standing there. I had not been to that region and sort of was a little off-put by having a gun put underneath my chin.
"And then the guy who was with us, who's been there like 40 times, just grabbed the gun and said, 'Don't do that, absolutely not'. He treated him like a 13-year-old kid, you know, and then he (the kid) was like, 'Oh I'm sorry.' And then I felt really, really small (for not having done something brave)."