Fall TV Blog

George Clooney has agreed to come back to the show that launched his career: ER.

Sources close to the series tell PEOPLE that ER co-creator John Wells has ordered a closed set to keep Clooney’s appearance under wraps.

It’s not known how many episodes will feature Clooney as the show films its final season. Neither NBC nor Warner Bros. reps would comment, nor did Clooney’s publicist.

Clooney, himself, denied reports last March he was returning.

Clooney’s Dr. Doug Ross was last seen on ER in a 2000 cameo walk-through in a remote lake scene with Ross’s ex-Julianna Margulies.

Clooney is the most famous ER alum and Wells has always wanted him to return for the show’s last season. The 15th season was extended by an extra four episodes by NBC executives last week. — Pamela Warrick.

George Clooney denies reports claiming the actor, 46, will return to ER for a 15th season next fall to reprise his role as Dr. Doug Ross.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight Canada airing Monday, Clooney was asked if he is indeed returning to the NBC show. “No, never — we never even talked about it,” he says in the interview. “No one has ever asked me. It’s the funniest thing. The story came out, and I was like ‘Where did that come from?’ It was everywhere — I mean in one day!”

Clooney added that the reports were news to TV execs, as well. “I ran into [ER Executive Producer] John Wells two days ago on the lot … and said to him, ‘What the hell happened?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know where that came from.”

But Clooney isn’t discounting how crucial the role was to his career. “I was 33 when ER hit, so I have a very different outlook on the way things work,” he says. “I don’t think I was supposed to have been famous. I realize how much of this is luck.”

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