The Hollywood star George Clooney shocked his fans this week by revealing that he nearly starred in the movie The Notebook with the legendary Paul Newman.

Clooney revealed that Newman, who died in 2008, was nearly cast in the beloved 2004 film that was based on the book by Nicholas Sparks. Clooney said this while promoting his own new Netflix film The Midnight Sky during a virtual chat for the 64th BFI London Film Festival.

“We were going to do The Notebook together,” Clooney explained, according to Deadline. “Basically, I was going to play him as a young man, and it was funny. We met and said, ‘This is it. It’s going to be great.’”

Clooney went on to say that he got cold feet after going home and watching some of Newman’s movies.

“He’s one of the handsomest guys you’ve ever seen. We met up [again] and I said, ‘I can’t play you. I don’t look anything like you. This is insane,’ ” Clooney remembered. “We just wanted to do it because we wanted to work together, [but] it ended up being not the right thing for us to do.”

Ryan Gosling would eventually be cast to play Noah Calhoun, with James Garner playing the older version of the character. Rachel McAdams was then cast as Allie Hamilton, with Gena Rowlands playing the older version of her.

Clooney directed The Midnight Sky, which was based on a novel by Lily Brooks-Dalton. It tells the story of a a lonely scientist in the Arctic racing to stop a group of fellow astronauts, who are led by actress Felicity Jones, from returning to earth after a global catastrophe decimates humanity. Clooney recalled in this virtual chat the moment he learned that Jones was pregnant while they were filming the movie in Iceland.

“I was in the middle of Iceland, really miserable, and she goes, ‘So, there’s news. I’m pregnant.’ I’m like, ‘Great.’ And then I go, ‘Okay, that complicates things,’ ” Clooney said. “She was so gung-ho. She wanted to do all the wirework. But I was like ‘No, we’re not putting anyone pregnant on a wire.’”

Clooney ended up revising the script, making it so that Jones’ character had gotten pregnant in space.

“And it changed everything for us,” he said. “It gave us something to lean into for the end of the movie, which I think ends up being a big bonus for us, along the way.”