DeKALB - Nick Bourdages doesn't mind being a water boy - especially not if it's for George Clooney. Bourdages, 11, a St. Mary School sixth-grader, is set to leave later this month to appear in a Clooney-directed movie called “Leatherheads." “I'll play 'Bug,'" Bourdages said. “He's a tough-guy water boy." He said he will have lines in four scenes. The movie is about the beginnings of professional football in the 1920s, said Bourdages, who played in a youth football league for one year but didn't like it. He's a basketball player for the DeKalb Knights, a traveling team. Bourdages said he got the part after auditioning at an open casting call in Chicago on Dec. 2. “We waited in a lobby and my mom filled out some forms, and we got a number. I got number 5," Bourdages said. “They said they'd take (people with numbers) 1 through 8 and they put us in a room and asked us, 'Why do you like acting?' and stuff." He said he read part of the script and left the room. He was then called back to read a second time. When asked what he read the second time, he paused and looked over at his mom, Kim Bourdages. “Swear words," she said with a laugh. Nick did well and was called back about 10 days later and was put in front of a camera. “They kept asking me to do it over and over," Nick said about reading his lines. The tape, the family assumes, was sent to Clooney who also will star in the movie, along with Renée Zellweger. Nick knows of Clooney only from the 1997 movie “Batman & Robin." He said he's not familiar with Zellweger's work. But he still thinks it will be interesting to work with and talk to famous people. “I'm not going to be all 'It's George Clooney,'" he said, opening his eyes wide and pretending to enthusiastically shake a hand. “I'm just going to treat him like a regular guy I work with." Kim Bourdages said she thought the audition would be a fun thing for Nick to try. He's been in school plays and has participated for two years on the forensics team, for which he does original comedy pieces. His only production outside of school was when he played Tiny Tim in a Stage Coach Players production of “A Christmas Carol." The family thought that at most Nick might get a walk-on part, not because he lacked acting ability, but because he didn't have any experience. Just before Christmas, Nick and both of his parents were called for a third interview and to meet with a casting director in Chicago. He was told he was one of two finalists. “They said they loved Nick and that Mr. Clooney saw his tape," Kim Bourdages said. Nick's parents said they were interviewed, too. At school, Nick told his friends about his audition. “Pretty much every day, people would be asking, 'Didja get the part? Didja get the part?'" he said. On Jan. 9, Nick learned he got the part. “I was talking to my homeroom teacher and telling her I'll only have three hours of school in February, March and April," he said. “I told her I was doing a movie. She didn't believe me. She called over one of my friends and said, 'He's kidding me, right?'" The teacher called a second student to where the pair was talking. That student also confirmed Nick had a part in a movie. A second teacher was called in, and both teachers were skeptical about Nick's story. At the end of the school day, when his mom came to pick him up, they asked him to bring her in. “I love this story," Kim said with a laugh. “He comes out with a long face and I'm, like, 'Didn't you tell them?' and he said, 'Yeah. But they don't believe me.'" Kim Bourdages confirmed the story for the teachers. Nick said they're excited for him. Nick said he's going to miss his friends at school. He's going to be gone from school for three months, but his father, Dean Bourdages, said a tutor will be in touch with St. Mary staff in order to keep him on track when he returns in the middle of May. “We don't want to repeat the sixth grade," Dean Bourdages said, looking at his son, who shook his head, agreeing that he didn't want to repeat the sixth grade. Kim will take a leave of absence from her job as a nurse at Kishwaukee Community Hospital to go to South Carolina and North Carolina with Nick in February. She will switch off duties with Dean, who will use vacation time from his job at Nicor Gas. “We're eating away our vacation time," Dean said. “But it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Kim said. Kim said their responsibilities will be to drive Nick to the set and wait. “It won't be any different than now - I'll be his chauffeur, just in a different state," she said. Aracely Hernandez can be reached at ahernandez@daily-chronicle.com.