George Clooney & Joel Edgerton on Battling Oprah at Christmas Box Office! (Exclusive)

Director-producer George Clooney and star Joel Edgerton are promoting their new project “The Boys in the Boat,” which tells the true story of a U.S. college rowing team that took on Hitler’s rowing team at the 1936 Olympics

“Extra’s” Billy Bush spoke with George and Joel, who joked about going up against Oprah at the Christmas box office since her movie “The Color Purple” will be out in theaters at the same time.

Referencing “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” Joel quipped, “We can’t really Barbenheimer that together, can we?”

George answered, “No.”

Clooney thinks “The Boys in the Boat” is perfect for the holidays, saying, “The thing in your soul is we need each other. We need to get through things together, and I thought that that made for a good Christmas Day movie.”

“The Boys in the Boat” is a story about sacrifice through the eyes of a team of young men who must pull together. George emphasized, “I think we get lost sometimes in the idea that we’re all at odds with one another, when the truth is we’re not really and we actually kind of like each other.”

The movie required all the actors to train hard to learn how to row. George shared, “They’re rowing through the whole movie. That’s all them… We had to train them for five months.”

Joel plays Al Ulbrickson, the coach of the rowing team. He shared, “I just love him in the script. There were two references to the fact that he doesn’t smile very often and that he should do it more. Just pointed me towards all those angry coaches that you ever see.”