The actor, who is now gearing up for the release of his new movie, is perhaps the oldest American ever to both direct and star in a major motion picture.
Clint Eastwood has been around a long time, and it seems like the 91-year-old actor is nowhere close to ending his career in Hollywood. His first movie, Play Misty for Me, came out over half a century ago, and now his latest movie, Cry Macho, hit the screens on September 17, 2021. Per Outsider, the star plays a retired rodeo star who is attempting to bring his former boss’s son to Texas from rural Mexico.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Eastwood is perhaps the oldest American ever to both direct and star in a major motion picture. Now, the icon is reflecting on his legacy and his age. “I don’t look like I did at 20, so what?” he says, of life as a nonagenarian. “That just means there are more interesting guys you can play.”
With the years of experience in the field, Eastwood says he never thinks "of acting as an intellectual sport."
“You don’t want to overthink something. You want it to be emotional. If you think about it too much, you can take it apart to the point where you don’t like it anymore. If you think about it four different ways, you forget what dragged you into it in the first place. It’s like somebody throwing a fast pitch across the plate. Just swing at it, step in, and go.”
As for future projects, the Gran Torino star says he doesn't have any lined up yet. “I don’t have anything percolating at the moment… I didn’t have anything percolating before this one. If something comes along where the story itself, the telling of it, is fun, I’m open to it.”
Here's the thing, not many people have been around like Eastwood, but he admits to being conflicted about working, at this age. “What the hell am I still working for in my 90s? Are people going to start throwing tomatoes at you? I’ve gotten to the point where I wondered if that was enough, but not to the point where I decided it was. If you roll out a few turkeys, they’ll tell you soon enough.”
However, Eastwood says he’s grateful “not to be still bagging groceries at 37 cents an hour.”
He then spoke about his dad, and the kind of jobs he did, to feed Eastwood and his family. “All through the Depression and the war, my growing-up years, my dad had all kinds of jobs… He worked at a Standard Oil station at the corner of Sunset and Pacific Coast Highway, it’s not there anymore, and I remember him telling my mother when I was just a little kid that some ancient actor or other had come in to get gasoline."
“I wonder if my dad would have liked to have been an actor or a singer. He had a good voice. He and another fellow would perform at parties, but none of those breaks ever came his way."
Once, when he told his dad that he wanted to drop out of college to pursue his dreams of becoming an actor, he remembers how his dad told him, ‘"Don’t get too wrapped up in that, it could be really disappointing.’ I said, ‘I think it’s worth a try.’ But I always remember it could have gone the other way.”
It's good to remember where we've come from; it helps us remain grounded.
References:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-09-12/clint-eastwood-cry-macho-hbo-max
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