London, Nov 6 (IANS): Actor-filmmaker George Clooney says that his daughter Ella is a "mystery" to him as he talks about how easy it is to entertain his son Alexander, both of whom he shares with wife Amal.

Speaking to the Daily Mail newspaper columnist Baz Bamigboye, Clooney said: "Here's my biggest problem in life. That's my daughter Ella.

"Boys at this age are easy. Give them a stick and they start banging on things. They're fine. Ella woke up this morning with a sad face. I said, 'Are you OK, Ella?' It turns out that her doll was missing a shoe.

"It was a very tragic morning for us and believe me, all you want in life is to find that shoe."

The 'Ocean's Eleven' star enjoyed spending more time with his children during lockdown because there were no academic pressures, and he embraced doing domestic tasks, including cooking because his lawyer wife isn't so adept in the kitchen.

He said: "They weren't old enough that I had to re-learn trigonometry. (I was doing) six loads of laundry a day and I was doing the food, because my wife doesn't cook."

'The Tender Bar' is adapted from a memoir by American Pulitzer-prize winning journalist J.R. Moehringer, and tells the story of the author's mother relocating the family to his grandparents' Long Island pub, which was brimming with intellectuals and criminals.

Clooney quipped if his children could not handle being in such an establishment, he had "failed" as a father, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

He said: "If my kids aren't able to handle themselves in situations that they're less comfortable with, I think we would have failed them as parents.

"If you dropped my kids off at a place like the Tender Bar, they'd sit and ask questions about these guys and their families, I would hope. Ask people questions. It's amazing what you can learn."