George Clooney: I'm not ill, I'm just on a diet

While recent pictures of a rake-thin George Clooney relaxing in just a pair of swimming shorts near his beloved villa in the Italian lakes have done little quell speculation about his state of health.

However the actor and director, who is without doubt one of Hollywood's finest and most successful, put an end to those stories yesterday when he spoke for the first time about the real reason for his slight new appearance.

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Clooney, 46, told the gathered world's media at the Venice Film Festival's press conference for his new movie Michael Clayton that he is actually a new devotee of a range of faddish fitness regimes.

At the end of what was an unusually dreary – in George's terms anyway – set of questions about the new film, Clooney was asked just how he kept so spectacularly trim.

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Answering the Daily Mail's question, Mr Clooney said: "Well, we do a lot of aerobics, a lot of dance, there is a lot of jazz-ercise, the ab-master, there's the butt-blaster or whatever it's called. And also there is a lot of yoga.

"And I have also just finished doing a movie where I did (American) football with a bunch of 21-year-olds which I highly recomend. That's going to keep anyone in shape."

The popular actor's words attracted a round of cheers from the gathered press. "Thank you for asking that question" he added, clearly pleased to finally put such speculation to rest.

Of course whether he should be taken seriously in the matter is up for debate - he is after all known to be something of a joker in Hollywood.

There is little doubt that Gorgeous George has shrunk dramatically in size recently.

Since putting on three stone for his role as a CIA agent in the 2005 espionage thriller Syriana, he has embarked on a major diet.

Once he reached his old weight (10st 3lb), it seems he decided to keep going. He appears to be thinner than ever — and shows no signs of stopping.

Inevitably, there is speculation that this honed new figure is down to plastic surgery rather than willpower.

Those pictures of him in swimming trunks with a curious line across his abdomen led to talk of a tummy tuck or liposuction.

However, it has been pointed out that the line was above his navel, and tummy tuck incisions are always much lower, below the normal line of underwear.

Liposuction does not leave such an enormous mark, either. It seems likely that this is just a crease in his skin — and the result of his dramatic slimming down.

And as it turned out, Mr Clooney has not been the only A-list actor with something about his private life to clear up this week in Venice.

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Jude Law also was quick to quell speculation, during the promotion of his latest movie, Sleuth, a thriller where he plays an aspiring young actor who has an affair with a married woman, that he draws on his own real-life experiences of relationships in his film roles.

He was asked by the Daily Mail: "What real life relationship experiences did you draw on to understand this part?"

And quick came the answer: "I must be honest I didn't really. I don't think I ever consciously draw - in any part I play - on my own experiences. I tend to look at what the words are throwing out, and serving the piece and the director, so I didn't really have any."

An intriguing answer, some might say, coming from a man who has played a womanizing roles of late in such films as Alfie and Closer, but who also privately (or not so privately, as it turned out) was forced to admit he had an affair with his childrens' nanny behind the back of then girlfriend Sienna Miller.