George Clooney was shocked to see his 1980s mullet make a surprise cameo appearance in his new movie Jay Kelly

Clooney addressed the mullet during Entertainment Weekly's Around the Table with his Jay Kelly co-star Adam Sandler, saying: "Oh, it was a surprise all right. I was surprised ...

"We [Sandler and I] held hands. No, I didn't know he was going to use sort of clips from my own actual career, which was a surprise.

"And you get to look at a lot of bad haircuts over the ... mullets."

He then turned to Sandler and said: "Don't you laugh,. You had a mullet."

The Happy Gilmour star joked back: "My mullet was fluffy. Mine wasn't as good as yours. Yours laid there nicely."

Clooney then laughed: "I had a good mullet ... Full party in the back. Who would put it up on a screen that people could see now with a beautiful score?"

The Oscar-winner previously addressed his 1980s hair issues during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in November after the host showed him pictures of his infamous hair 'do.

Clooney said: "That's the early stages, later, it got longer in the back and shorter at the sides, as you do."

When asked who was responsible for the mullet, Clooney replied: "I don't know! It wasn't my fault. My parents weren't taking me to the barber [in the '80s]."

Clooney rocked the style for many years from the late 1980s until the early 1990s but chopped it all off after landing his break-out role on medical drama E.R.

He also previously discussed the hair style in a joint interview with Brad Pitt for GQ in 2014 with the pair comparing their matching mullets.

Clooney told the publication: "It's fun to look around - I look at him [Pitt], and I also see the kid with really s***** hair on a bad sitcom that both of us were [wearing] ..."

Pitt added: "I would say one of the greatest mullets that ever existed."

Clooney insisted his mullet was better adding: "Yeah, I might say mine. But again, that's part of a really good shared experience ..."