George Clooney had his first kiss "in the back of a church".

The 64-year-old actor - who has eight-year-old twins Alexander and Ella with wife Amal - was just 11 years old when he shared a smooch with a girl for the first time and recalled how they were "hiding" from their pals in the place of worship to get some privacy.

Speaking to W magazine, he said: "[I had my first kiss] in the back of a church in my hometown of Augusta, Kentucky. I was 11.

"We were hiding from all of our friends who were outside waiting, saying, 'Kiss her! Kiss her!' The relationship didn't last -- 11 year olds move on pretty quickly."

Elsewhere in the interview, the Jay Kelly actor recalled fearing his career was over before it had really begun after getting into an argument with an executive on an unnamed producer, but he was ultimately helped out by someone he had offered a hand to some time before.

He recalled: "About 10 years in, I got in an argument with an executive producer. I was the third or fourth banana on a TV show, and I had to leave. I thought that was the end of my career.

"I wasn't in a position of power, but I wasn't going to be spoken to the way that I was. I told him to knock it off. He yelled at me. I yelled back.

"It's still debatable whether I was fired or I quit. But someone who I had helped out years earlier read that I'd been fired. He brought me in for an audition and gave me a pilot. That kept me in town."

George cited "selfishness" and "lack of integrity" as his pet peeves.

He said: "Those are things that I dislike the most in mankind when I see it."

The veteran actor plays a movie star in his new movie Jay Kelly but he insisted the role is very different to his own experiences in Hollywood.

He said: "It's funny, because I get why people go, 'Isn't this a little close to home?''

"It didn't feel that way to me because the guy has made such mistakes in his life. He's isolated from his family, which I'm not. He has only friends that he pays, which I haven't. I should maybe start paying my friends, but I haven't yet done that.

"It didn't feel like me, so it was easy to remove myself and just play a character."