McGill, Everett. Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) is the main character in the Coen brothers film O Brother, Where Art Thou. He is a member of a chain gang in rural Mississippi during the 1930s, and persuades his two partners Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) to escape with him in order to retrieve a treasure that he has supposedly hidden in a cabin. The three commence to travel all over Mississippi with the police on their trail as they endeavor to find the treasure. Their travels get them fame as the Soggy Bottom Boys for singing an old-timey song “Man of Constant Sorrow” and infamy as the miscreants who defiled a Ku Klux Klan ceremony. Pete is recaptured by the police, and after Everett and Pete bust him loose again Everett reveals that he has been lying about the treasure, and he was not jailed for robbing an armed car. He tells Pete and Delmar that he persuaded them to escape with him because he needed to get to his wife and persuade her to take him back before she gets married to a political campaign manager. In the end Everett gets his wife back, though she refuses to get remarried without her original ring. The film ends as Everett attempts to reason with her.

Everett is an interesting character. He is smooth, clever, and fast-talking, or at least he sees himself that way. He is quick to come up with alternate plans when things go awry. He seems to pride himself in his use of flowery language, though he tends to come off as a bit ridiculous. He is self-obsessed, particularly when it comes to his hair. He considers hairnets and pomade vital necessities, and refuses to use any hair treatment other than Dapper Dan. He can be quite oblivious, as demonstrated when it takes a wallop by Big Dan Teague upside the head with a tree branch to make him realize Big Dan’s intentions of robbing him and Delmar. He also is particularly unskilled at fist fighting, being soundly beaten by his wife’s fiancé. He is irreverent when it comes to religion, responding flippantly to Pete and Delmar’s comments on their baptism. He seems to have a sort of foxhole faith, however, pleading to the Lord when his end seems to be near and returning to his irreverence once he is safe.

Everett’s character is loosely based around the Greek Odysseus, the protagonist of The Odyssey by Homer. His first name Ulysses is actually Latin for Odysseus. Like Everett, Odysseus is clever and resourceful, though unlike Everett, he is wise, restrained, and skilled in combat. Many of Everett’s experiences parallel those of Odysseus, such as the encounter with the sirens and the defeat of the Cyclops (the one-eyed Big Dan Teague). His wife Penny is also short for Penelope, Odysseus’s wife. Though Odysseus is happily reunited with his wife in the end, we are left unsure as to whether Everett will be reunited with Penny.

Another person that Everett shares his name with is the actor Everett McGill, who was active mainly during the 1970s and 1980s, in television shows and with director David Lynch. It is speculated that the character Everett is named so as a reference to the actor’s role in Quest for Fire, a movie in which he leads a trio in a perilous journey.

Everett is played by actor George Clooney. O Brother, Where Art Thou was Clooney’s first film with the Coens, though he has gone on to act in two other films for the brothers: Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading.

 - James Larson