Not only is George Clooney the dreamiest man in Hollywood, but as it turns out, he’s quite compassionate, too! During a segment of Late Night with Seth Meyers on Tuesday, June 12, George’s former ER co-star Julianna Margulies shared an emotional anecdote about the important role George played in her once-faltering career.

Despite becoming one of the most recognized actresses in the world, Julianna was virtually a nobody when ER premiered back in 1994. So much so, that her character wasn’t even supposed to last beyond the show’s pilot. That’s when George stepped in.

“I seriously owe my career to George Clooney, because my character died in the pilot of ‘ER.’ And I was about to sign on to a not-very-good sitcom, because I came back to New York and I needed a job,” Julianna explained to Seth Meyers.

As we all know, there’s no such thing as truly killing off a character on TV — take Dan Conner on the Roseanne reboot, for example. With that in mind, George reached out to Julianna following ER’s premiere.

er 1994

“He called me out of the blue, kinda put his neck out on the line for me, and said, ‘I overheard that your character tested well (in the pilot),'” the 52-year-old recalled. She also added that George gave her a very sage piece of advice: “If I were you, I wouldn’t take another job because I think they’re going to bring you back to life.”

And the rest, as they say, is history! George’s suspicions about NBC keeping Julianna on the show were correct and ER went on to gain incredible success — as did George and Julianna.