Celebrity Parents George Clooney Reveals Why He and Wife Amal Only Have a Part-Time Nanny for Their Two Kids "We have a nanny four days a week and the rest of the time it’s just us. And during lockdown it was just us – for a full year!" the actor shares By Georgia Slater Georgia Slater Georgia Slater is an associate editor on the Parents team at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2018. Her work has previously appeared in USA Today and Washington Life Magazine. People Editorial Guidelines Published on December 3, 2021 01:05PM EST Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage George Clooney is opening up about the importance of family time. In a new interview with The Guardian, the 60-year-old actor shares why he and wife Amal choose to not have a full-time nanny for their 4-year-old twins Ella and Alexander. Asked whether the successful couple has several nannies at home to take care of their kids, Clooney says, "We don't, because it's so important to Amal [to be involved]." "We have a nanny four days a week and the rest of the time it's just us," he explains. "And during lockdown it was just us – for a full year! I felt like my mother in 1964, doing dishes and six loads of laundry a day." The Tender Bar star also reveals why he and Amal, 43, decided on "normal names" when picking monikers for their little ones. "We talked about it from the beginning and said: 'Their lives are going to be unusual, right? There's no denying that. So let's give them a head start by giving them normal names,' " he explains. Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. NINA PROMMER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock George Clooney Opens Up About the 'Very Emotional' Moment He and Wife Amal Decided to Have Kids Speaking about his young twins, the actor says they are "so different; it's like night and day." "Alexander loves to laugh and Ella's very serious, always making sure everybody plays by the rules," he shares. "They really are born with their personalities!" Last month, the Up in the Air star caught up with Marc Maron on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast and recalled the day he found out he and Amal were expecting twins. "Listen, I didn't want to get married. I didn't want to have kids. And then this extraordinary human being walked into my life and I just fell madly in love. Then I knew from the minute I met her that everything was going to be different," he began. "I didn't know I'd have twins," he said. "There is that moment when you go to the doctor and they pull out this piece of paper which is a sonogram and they go, 'Here' and you go, 'It's a baby boy.' I'm like, 'Baby boy, fantastic,' " he recalled. "And then they said, 'And the other one is the girl' and I was like, 'Oh s—t.' " "[Amal's] sister has twins and I was gobsmacked because ... I was kind of up for one. … I love it now," he added. "And thank God they have each other during the pandemic."