"If something comes along where the story itself, the telling of it, is fun, I'm open to it," the filmmaker said.
Clint Eastwood, born on May 31, 1930, recently turned 92 and the actor has achieved a lot in life. Despite being around in the industry for a long time, it seems like Eastwood's career is far from over. 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.
The actor and director opened up about why he's still hard at work in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
"I never think about it," Eastwood said when asked if there was anything different from making a movie now compared to when he first started working. "If I'm not the same guy, I don't want to know anything about it. I might not like the new guy. I might think, 'What am I doing with this idiot?' "
Eastwood revealed he first started directing with 1971's Play Misty for Me because initially "the whole point of directing was something you can do as an older guy."
Now, the filmmaker said he continues directing because "I just like it."
"I have nothing against other directors, but I might have a whole different take on things and I don't want to be thinking, 'Why did I give it to him?' " he said.
As for acting, Eastwood admitted to being more conflicted, at times wondering to himself, "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," he said. "If you roll out a few turkeys, they'll tell you soon enough."
Meanwhile, he shared that he is open to new projects in the future, despite not knowing what might be next.
"I don't have anything percolating at the moment," he said, adding, "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."
As for his personal life, Eastwood fathered eight children with six different women, of which he had been aware of only seven of them for a very long time. Even his relationships were not perfect. In fact, his relationship with Sondra Locke, for 13 years, was a tumultuous relationship; it was never all rainbows and unicorns.
Locke opened up about her turbulent relationship and the unpleasant experience she had with the veteran actor in a report by PEOPLE. She described it as "Humiliation, mental anguish... severe emotional and physical distress and... mental and physical harm."
According to The Guardian, her relationship with Eastwood was one of the most toxic relationships with an ugly and messy overlap of personal and professional life. Locke died on November 3, 2018, at her Los Angeles home of cardiac arrest stemming from bone and breast cancer, according to Vanity Fair.
References:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-09-12/clint-eastwood-cry-macho-hbo-max
https://people.com/archive/suing-clint-eastwood-sondra-locke-strikes-with-magnum-force-vol-31-no-19/
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/12/sondra-locke-obit
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Derek White
