Original subtitles

u redu, učini još jednom i pokušaj podići svoju glavu malo u redu ne zaslužujem

this to die like this I was building a kuća zaslužuje da nema nikakve veze s njom

Clint je vrlo učen pripovjedač i roll it on uvijek napravi zanimljiv film

uvijek napravi zanimljiv film Always now push to prema njemu gurni ga evo ti CL folije za drvo

imaju vrlo sretna društva i on dolazi ispod rasporedu i on je svaki put ispod budžeta

vrijeme i najveći utjecaj koji je imao to je nešto što nastojim učiniti, ali

Nikada to nisam mogao tako dobro kao on ako imate dobar scenarij, tu ste 50% i

ako ga dobro zabacite, povrh toga imate 40%. a tu je i 10% od kojih se možeš zajebavati

gore samo naprijed uljepšaj mi dan većini glumaca najveća bi filmska zvijezda na svijetu bila

dovoljno ali za Clinta Eastwooda Nemirna želja kretati se iza kamere počelo je rano kada

Rano sam bio mlad ugovorni igrač U 50-ima sam silazio na zvučne pozornice

Univerzalno cijelo vrijeme i uvijek sam bio znatiželjan o redateljima i znatiželjan kako oni

sastavljali i ja uh gledam razne emisije počinjete uh saznati što

volite i što ne volite kod raznih uh karakteristike koje redatelji imaju i uh

konačno sam jednog dana počeo razmišljati da pokušam ovo ja kao novopečeni redatelj Eastwood

Najprije je crpio inspiraciju od filmaša kojima se divio a prije svega njegov prljavi dlakavi redatelj Don galeb

Don je definitivno imao najveći utjecaj na ja sam Don bio tip koji je mogao dobiti puno filmova

puno na filmu s vrlo malo vrlo malo unutra način proračuna i U Pokušao sam to zgrabiti

sada više ne pucam tako mršavo kao Don ali njegov utjecaj na mene bio je biti odlučujući i

što želite raditi i koji je vaš program za film koji je bio bio je sjajan na taj način

bio je malo drugačiji od Sergia koji je bio još jedan moj utjecaj kao dobro uhodan

televizijska zvijezda Eastwood pokušala je bez puno uspjeha u probijanju u igrane filmove

poveo mladog redatelja iz Italije da vidi svoju veliku ekranski potencijal redatelj je bio Sergio Leone

on nije govorio engleski, a ja nisam govorio bilo koji Talijan kad smo se prvi put sreli, tako da ima puno

jezika ruku koji ide naprijed-natrag koji bio je puno bolji jer je Talijan od mene

[Glazba] ne, mislim da je Leoneov utjecaj bio to

imao je vrlo dobar vid smisao kao i osjećaj za

humor jako je volio Panoramu i znao raditi Panoramu i bio je

hrabar on je bio izuzetno hrabar nikada se ne boji isprobati ništa novo

bila je to velika avantura kad se dogodila i kad je nekako kliknulo, to je naravno bilo sjajno

avantura za mene jer je dovela do drugih stvari koje je napravio špageti vesterni Sergia Leonea

Eastwood je bio međunarodna superzvijezda Hollywooda sada nestrpljiv da bude u poslu Clinta Eastwooda

kao što je brzo otkrio kad je bacao svoj debi filma kao redatelj do čelnika studija Universal

Uh 1970. pronašao sam ovaj scenarij Igraj Misty za mene i baš sam bila fascinirana time pa sam otišla u l

i rekao sam da ovdje imaš projekt koji bi mi se svidio učiniti i uh ja bih to režirao i on je rekao uh

da, to je u redu i bio sam potpuno iznenađen zapravo nisam znao što bih rekao jer sam

očekujući da će postavljati puno pitanja i on rekao je da će to biti u redu i tako sam izašao

ured i ja smo prošetali i i moj agent Lenny Heran je bio tamo sa mnom i došao je k sebi

mene i kaže da, postoji samo jedna dodatna stvar da su zaboravili spomenuti da ne žele platiti

sve što sam rekao da mi ne bi trebali ništa platiti Platit ću im jer sam se prije trebao dokazati

ti se brineš hoćeš li biti plaćen I nastavio sam i napravio sliku i to mi je postalo prvo

film s kojim je Dave Garver malo stihova malo pričati i

5 sati glazbe kako bi svakome bili jako blizu

Drugo, Clinta sam poznavao kao ogromnog filma zvijezda samo ovu međunarodnu ikonu i

što me potpuno promijenilo i mislim promijenio većinu ostatka Hollywooda

bilo je kad smo svi gledali igru Misti za ja prvi put i shvatio da

postojao je Pripovjedač ne samo glumac čiji je posao bio pričati tuđe

priče također su bile vrlo hitchcockovske moderno, to je jedna od onih slika gdje

zaplet zapravo nije bitan nakon nekog vremena koji ti se sviđa gledate film jer vam se sviđa lik

sviđa nam se razvoj kako to eskalira priču oprezno bih mogao

izvadi oko on je zadržao duh I pomislite na klasičnu američku kinematografiju

klasični film i preveo ga za njegovo vrijeme morati dobiti sve lijepo za

David za Davida i kao što je počeo shvati da znaš da bih mogao ovo [Glazba]

uz učinkovitost i odlučnost Donskog galeba jedna ruka i smjelost i suha duhovitost Sergia Leonea

u drugom je Eastwood započeo redateljsku karijeru čvrsto ukorijenjen u klasičnoj američkoj kinematografiji Clint

vraća se u studijske dane koje poznajete svojevrsno je vraćanje u stare dane of

uh od filma koji cijeni isto što i mi za filmove Williama Mare i svakako Johna Forda

a Howard Hawks je ono što nalazim u Eastwoodu I mislim da je možda Clint posljednji tragovi

zlatno doba filma holivudskog studija nema sumnje da je on poveznica s

kino uz koje sam odrastao i volim moderno prije svega postoji nevidljivo uređivanje

Jednostavnost u stilu od kojeg sam otišao, udario sam njegov glava na parkingu posvuda krv

Možda sam ga ubio, ubio sam ga njegovu osobnost kao filmaš nije prisiljen na vas i to za

ja sam u tradiciji Wildera o Fordu stvar kod Clinta Eastwooda je da su njegovi filmovi postavljeni

zajedno u puno staromodnijem Hollywoodu stil Taj stil je nestao nije tu posljednji

poveznica za koju mislim da je uh s Eastwoodom filmaši zlatnog doba Hollywooda

za Eastwooda snimanje filmova je pripovijedanje scenarij je Paramount on neće započeti projekt

s pola skripte ili 2/3 skripte ili 3/4 skripte samo je cijela skripta napravljena to je

ono što će snimiti neće promijeniti riječ u njoj on točno zna što je priča

i zna kad ima na filmu što Clint čini je da uzme komad materijala i i on

razumijem to na vrlo osoban način ako želim materijal i spreman sam napraviti projekt što

Učinit ću, ići ću, pročitat ću, uh, pročitao sam nekoliko puta ću sjediti i razmišljati o tome a

a onda ću pričekati možda nekoliko tjedana a onda ponovno pročitaj moje iskustvo je

Gledao sam njegove filmove kako oživljavaju na licu mjesta i zato ne voli imati puno

scenarij sastanaka on ne želi samo razgovarati o tome do smrti sam pokušao napraviti neke prepisi uh na U on

Unforgiven with David peoples i ja i on smo rekli idi unaprijed sve što želite učiniti s tim i tako

Počeo sam pisati i pisati i zajebavati se stvari i mijenjanje stvari i odjednom

Shvatio sam da kvarim pa sam ga nazvao i rekao sam zaboravi što sam rekao o tome što sam rekao

Još više ću ga snimiti onakvog kakav jest Petljam u njega, ubijam ga poboljšanjima

pa moraš znati kada se maknuti s puta I stvarno mislim da Clint samo vidi i čuje

filmova kada stigne na mjesto s glumačkom postavom Garniture Clinta Ewooda razlikuju se od drugih

redatelj odražava osobnost čovjeka na vrh on sam stvara atmosferu koju je

vrlo tih čovjek, on je vrlo pedantan čovjek šarmantan čovjek i to ide ravno kroz

cijela tvrtka bilo tko s kim će raditi Clint traži ljude koji moraju otkriti

ako je bilo koja od priča istinita ispada da su sve su sve priče istinite on ne

reci akciju on ne kaže rez hej prestani prestani čak ni ne kažu da je njegova posada obučena

da ga smiriš pa ako se približavaš setu kad se spremaju početi raditi scenu koju vidite

svi ti ljudi koji idu ovako i onako znači imamo vrlo usko povezanu ekipu

ljudi s kojima je radio godinama film veterani tako reći divna stvar raditi s

Clint je gotovo kao u starim studijskim danima znate da sam u tome 63 godine svi

je radio s Clintom i svi se poznajemo tako da je nešto poput buđenja stare kuće, super je

tim i zato ih uvijek iznova koristim opet jer znam da su pouzdani i sjajni

poštovanje koje postoji za sve radnike sve tehničari i glumac ispred kamere

pa dobar dan gospodo, uzet ću taj 32 Bob, slikao sam i prije kad sam mislio

bio je apsolutno briljantan, sve u redu, sljedeći set gore, molim te, pomakni se ovamo

bum i totalno si zaboravio sada mali Bill ti ostavit će me na milost i nemilost mojih neprijatelja

nema tužbe za ono što si učinio, ali evo ga suprotno čuti da nešto dobro radite oni

svi kažu super, cijela ekipa ide super, to je super super znaš da žele da uspiješ

tebe, njih je briga što radiš, šefe mala kućica pričali smo o šefu dobro pametnom

djevojka u svojih 50 godina Warner Brothers Eastwood je stekao pravo riskirati u vezi s predmetom

materija koju bi se većina redatelja bojala dotaknuti Clint je bio vrlo sretan jer ima

aranžman s Warner Brothers i preko godina zbog svoje zvjezdane moći koju je koristio

moć da radi filmove koje želi raditi Million Dollar Baby samo znaš

to nije vrsta filma koju studio učinilo bi da sam dobro razmišljao da bih otišao

povratak kući pronaći rabljenu prikolicu kupiti fritezu i neki Oreos problem je što je ovo jedini

stvar koju sam ikad osjećao dobro raditi ako sam prestar za ovo onda nisam dobio ništa da je dovoljno istine

da ti odgovara on zna što želi on zna kako da dobije i zna kad je dobio nije

sjedite radeći četiri ili pet puta i tako tu vrstu energije skoro da mrzim koristiti

ovo ter jer se Clint naljutio na mene nije to je neuglađeno, stvarno je dobro, što je s tobom

škart što je tvoj menadžer napravio bio si pakao borca puno boljeg od Willieja

boriš se za naslov ili te je samo izbacio lupati glavom o tuđe šake

sve dok nisi izgubio oko Imao sam priliku Izašao sam zamahujući i nitko ne može reći da nisam dobro prošao

Sjećam se i ispričaj me ako nisam htio svoje borac koji provodi drugu polovicu života

čišćenje tuđe pljuvačke yeah right right ti si onaj pametan ti si taj koji uči grčki

dobro je što si se zaštitio prvenstvene borbe kako se to kaže u

gelic sjećam se nečega što je rekao na to vrijeme koje je uvijek ostalo sa mnom rekao je

uvijek ciljaš u metak ali ne uvijek ga udari tako da je to lijepo kada

funkcionira, mislim da je iznutra zahvaćen sa strašću da priča ove priče koje on ne čini

javno isijavati strast, ali samo strast izlazi u programeru koji razvija

dnevne novine u redu Izlazim bilo koji [ __ ] puca na mene ne samo da ide

da ga ubijem pobit ću mu svu ženu njegovi prijatelji spalili su mu prokletu kuću [Glazba].

Strast Eastwooda Wooda za snimanje filmova nikad nije bila očitija nego u njegovoj

najveći vestern film koji preokreće legenda o mitskom revolverašu iznutra

Nisam bio upoznat s Clint Eastwoodom Cannon, mislim da sam gledao Play Misty For Me i

mislio sam da je to sjajan film, ali ne sviđa mi se špageti vesterni uz sve isprike to je

samo to nije žanr koji mi se obraća, nego mi se ne da bio je stvarno film zbog kojeg sam mislio da je moj Bože

ovo je veliki umjetnik kakav bi bio za svoj novac iz Missouri Killer Women and Children to je

točno sam ubio žene i djecu ubio baš sve što hoda ili puže

u ovom ili onom trenutku, a ja sam ovdje da te ubijem mali Bill Unforgiven svojevrsna je kulminacija

Mislim jer se ne boji tamo uzeti na stvarno užasan karakter i reci da

to sam ja to sam ja ti si čovjek koji pobili te žene i djecu to je točno

Mislio sam da Unforgiven govori o žaljenju nasilja kako je to za bilo koga sve

iznenada se jednog dana osvrnuo na to i ti kažeš što sam dovraga napravio ja sam ja

umrijeti želiš

oh nemoj reći nikome nemoj reći mojoj djeci ništa stvari koje sam učinio dobro me čuješ

bill stavio bih Unforgiven u kategoriju od klasike za mene uh znaš sa sličnim tebi

znati sa Shaneom i sa Searchersima i Redom Rijeka jer sam osjećao da se oslanja na njegovu pismenost

iako tehnički nije western cry mnogo dao Eastwoodu priliku da ponovno pregleda neke

poznati teren i geografski i emocionalni ono što svi vole vidjeti je Clinton

kaubojski šešir i na konju na kojem još nije bio konj od Unforgiven da vidimo jesmo li mi

desna noga kao prvog dana kad smo snimali scena njega gore na konju posade na

bili su kao i svi tako uzbuđeni da je to bilo a poseban trenutak kada se ponovno vratio u sjenku

dobro spusti pete tvoj će tata biti sretan čovjek vidi da postoji i Sparks za a

ponovno vezu sa ženom u svom životu u redu, hvatam se ove stvari, vidi da jest

ljubavna priča da, ima to u sebi puno različitih drugih aspekata toga i publike

jednostavno se mora nekako složiti s putovanjem vrlo je dirljivo i uh daje ti sve

ti veliki ikonski trenuci koje ste vidjeli u svim druge Eastwoodove filmove želite da ide i jaše

konj u zalazak sunca da, čujem te glasno i [Glazba] razjasni najčudesniju stvar o Clintu

Eastwood je među svima nama za koje znate da je Clint najeklektičnije njegove priče mijenjaju njegov pristup

vizualno pripovijedanje se mijenja on je kameleon i da se prilagođava knjizi ili scenariju

a scenarij diktira njegov stil pa on mijenja se jer Clint voli moje stare heroje tebe

poznajem ljude poput Michaela Czesa i Victora Flamanac svijeta Clint je za mene upao u to

žanr u kojem bi redatelj mogao promijeniti svoj stil i iznenaditi nas i nikada ne izaći iz istog

can I tell you something your dad he's a hero that's right he saved my life and he uh he help

me get back to my little girl I wouldn't be here without him they called him the

legend and in Texas he is a hero major hero I had many a seal come up to me and say you

better not F this up did he do it Watson no he did not Richard jeel is an innocent man

he's a hero Richard is not a murderer he saved people's lives there's so many movies made about

Comic Book Heroes and stuff but people who have actually done some Feats that are beneficial to

society that's always nice when you can do it anyone can be a hero you don't need to have

a cape to be a hero go they're everyday people doing extraordinary things

since the birth of Cinema the movies have excelled at telling Hero Stories but in

Clint Eastwood's Films Heroes are rarely black and white you don't have to worry kid I ain't

going to kill you you're the only friend I got I don't know what a hero is really just a hero

is a person who can get through life and maybe be helpful to society or leave his Mark somewhere you

could ask yourself question do I feel lucky well do you punk nowadays everybody calls everybody a

hero but when I was growing up there was always somebody who did something extraordinary how do

we Inspire ourselves to Greatness where nothing less will do how do we inspire

everyone around us inspirational stories of heroism are Central to Eastwood's body of

work none more so than his portrait of American Sniper Chris Kyle baby Chris baby I can't baby I

can't hear you hello Eastwood's film of his life and tragic death paints a complex portrait of a

warrior both in battle and at home okay Bubba we're going to pick you up we're going to take

you downstairs I think it would be easy to make this like action movie and it's all about the guns

and it's all about the this this was all about the man this is a story about a hero and it's a story

about his journey it's not about them it's about us you have to make it back to us it's not just a

big pro war picture it shows the toll War takes on you we made it a point to constantly remind

ourselves that he's a real human being and we have to stay true to that story that we've gotten to

know under Eastwood's guidance Bradley kooper brought to the screen a Chris Kyle so authentic it

surprised even those who had known Chris well it was so impressive to see how Bradley transformed

and was committed to Chris Kyle you could see his level of commitment every day and I think it was

like it it inspired us he could have made a very good movie without doing all the work he did to be

Chris he has the talent he's very gifted at his craft can't do it man we need you

on OverWatch what if I'm down on the street Mar cast the house is the deadliest job here

you got some sort of Savior complex I just want to get the bad guys but if I can't see

them I can't shoot them like all these guys they know your name they feel Invincible with

you up there they're not they are if they think they are don't you just keep banging on the long

gun we let these dog sniff out zaka people see this movie they get the heart the soul the Char

the real Chris not one-dimensional multifaceted Chris he embraced this role to the point where

he had the mannerisms down so I'd seen Chris shoot enough times to know just the nuances of how he'd

support the gun with his hands how he'd dial it in how he would look with you know intent and calm at

the same time and Bradley nailed it I mean to the point where in the trailer there's a part

where Bradley is looking through the scope and he does a little sniff and sort of readjusts the dip

in his mouth and I noticed it my mom noticed it and I just thought that's cuz we know him so well

but when I talked to a few of Chris's friends they were in awe they said I mean he even has that part

down I'm better when it's breathing the only director that Chris Kyle ever said he wanted

to do this movie was Clint it's like he's the perfect guy for American Sniper I think Chris

wanted Clint Eastwood like he wanted a Ferrari but I don't think he thought there was a pig chance

in hell that he was getting Clint Eastwood the performances in American Sniper are part of an

Eastwood Legacy of telling true stories without embellishment or theatricality Clint is what

I found him to be was very instinctual he really trusts himself and he has this inherent ability to

know where the truth is he brought a gritty to the movie and a sort of sand in your mouth where it

felt authentic and it didn't feel like something that was trying to ring emotion out of you or or

manipulate you in any way he let this thing happen in front of us and is letting the audience choose

if they want to go along with this journey or not from the very first moment I met TAA and the rest

of the family down in Texas on back I had a pretty good idea of how I thought everything should be I

just took advantage of what everybody else knew and put it all in the mix he has the ability at

this point in his career to be so confident that he's willing to step aside and let Chris take over

it wasn't an overly directed film it wasn't an overly scored film and the camera movements are

not anything other than economical and I think it's because he really was aware of well for

this one we're going to focus on him I'm willing to meet my Creator and asked for every shot that I

took the thing that to haunts me or all the guys that I couldn't

save I'm willing and able to be there but I'm not I'm here I quit so you wish you could have saved

more guys yes sir Eastwood never got to meet Chris Kyle who was murdered during development

of the film's screenplay so he and his leading man did the next best thing Bradley and I took

a trip down to Texas and met with TAA met the family and the kids he has two adorable kids

it was just an incredibly intimate experience researching this movie I didn't view them as

Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper coming to my house I viewed them as people that I'm going

to need to work with to really give whatever I can give to contribute to this project I got to

see hundreds of hours of footage of Chris just behaving with his family with his two children

before his children were born when they were were born Bradley played soccer in the backyard with

the kids and laid on the floor playing with the dog and you know Clint refused to put his feet up

on my coffee table until I finally sat down and was like look I'm sitting on the coffee table I

want you to be comfortable please put your feet up it was very informative cuz we got a idea of

the guy without actually seeing him I haven't changed very many things from when Chris was

alive you know his closets the same I can't bring myself to change it yet so they got to see our

life I sat across the dining room table from Wayne Kyle Chris's father with with Debbie his

wife there and gave them our word that we were going to do right by them it's a big

deal to sit across from a guy's father lost his son and say I'm going to do justice to your son

cuz it's really easy for that father to say you don't know who my son is you don't know

what I sacrifice you don't know what this means to me and he'd be absolutely right

Clen Eastwood's respect for the life Chris Kyle LED colored the approach of all his collaborators

as they brought this hero story to the screen everybody from Clint Eastwood to the people that

were doing the props were so heartfelt there's The Stereotype that Hollywood doesn't get it but the

people who worked on this movie they get it Clint and I felt a massive responsibility I mean just

incredible responsibility you know they put their precious son their precious husband their precious

brother's story in our hands and so uh you know it meant a lot to us that we got it right I ended

up just really embracing it as a movie but it surprised me that it was much much more than that

by the time I left it was a piece of Cris and I can't ask for better than that as Clint Eastwood's

films reveal some Heroes come from the unlikeliest of places I do this Olympics gig well maybe

somebody make me a cop again but as the filmmakers discovered the man who saved countless lives at

the Olympic Park bombing was remembered not as the hero but as the villain we got to move there's a

b wherever we went location scouting everybody when you said Richard Jewel they didn't say the

hero they remember him as the bomber and he wasn't the bomber and that's what the

whole story is about and what Clint wants to get across that here's an American hero but

he's still remembered as the bomber it did happen it could happen again it could happen

to anybody I asked Clint the first thing I asked him was why do you want to make

this movie he said he really felt it was an American Tragedy that this man was treated so

badly by the FBI Mr Jewel did you conspire to plant a bomb in Centennial Park [Music]

[Applause]

no then how did you know to be on the other side of that AT&T tower where you knew you'd

be protected from the blast a bomb went off right where you were stationed chaos erupts Bodies Hit

The Ground cops go flying I was one of them you come out without a goddamn scratch how does that

happen Richard I think it was very important for Clint to reveal that I just wanted the real people

the real victims of it all to get some sort of relief that the truth is put out there I don't

know how to protect you from these people you know you know what you don't have to protect

me I do the protect him I do they knew that Clint would tell the true story what happened

and make Richard the hero that he deserved to be for those closely connected to the the

real life event Eastwood's decision to bring to light the story of an American hero was a

kind of redemption you know I've carried this in my heart all these years and they really

need to know that Clint Eastwood is going to do something about it you ready to start fighting

back yeah

for three young men on vacation in Europe becoming Heroes was the furthest thing from

their minds they were young Americans that you don't expect them in this so-called millennial

generation to really step up and do much but uh these guys did when Spencer Stone Alex

gados and Anthony Saddler stopped a terrorist on a train Bound for Paris they made history

yeah I don't know man you ever just feel like life is just catapulting you towards something like

some greater purpose to tell their true story in the 1517 of Paris Clint Eastwood made some movie

history of his own casting the three Heroes to play themselves how we went after the leads was

the same as any other project that I would done before we auditioned actors I was going through

the regular casting thing of looking through a lot of actors on tape good actors too and they

they would have would have done a good job but every time he saw the real guys he kept saying

they have such great faces they don't make faces like this anymore Clint has been in the

business for 63 years I mean that was one of the things when he made the decision to go with these

non-actors he knew what he was up against still at 87 you know he's out there taking chances I

didn't know whether uh this would work or not but uh I've done a lot of pictures over a lot of years

and I thought I'm willing to try crazy things when he asked us we were kind of taken aback

but if he felt like we could do it he basically just gave us the confidence to do it Eastwood

avoided portraying the men as Larger than Life resulting in a film full of genuine

moments shared by three real life friends at the end of the day we're just regular guys

honestly so there's nothing special about us I mean to be like referred to as Heroes is kind

of a trip because you know I have Heroes and now I've read notes from kids and stuff about

how they did book reports on me and that just is kind of crazy cuz it was only just a few

years ago that I was doing book reports on my heroes the way I look at it is that I had an

opportunity to do something good and I took it and obviously God was watched my back I still

feel like we're just everyday people and everyday people can do great things as long as they do

their part to be honest we're just incredibly grateful that we survived that day

I'm ready to come home baby

reconciliation Starts Here forgiveness starts here too we're doing a real story with real people you

want to get it the way it was I want you to be acting director of the Bureau of Investigation I

will take the job Mr Stone I'm always fascinated with real life stories just on a personal level

because life is almost always so much more bizarre than anything you could write on the

page we're going to end up in the Hudson low sorry say again Cactus as much as a motion

picture can that is trying to encapsulate a real moment that was important to people I

think Mr Eastwood has succeeded I think he's encapsulated a moment that somehow binds us

all together in the best of all possible ways we are either survivors or we Are Witnesses

go ahead right to do justice to a true life story a filmmaker must have imagination and integrity

Clint Eastwood has met that challenge numerous times this is the captain brace for impact the

story of The Miracle on the Hudson made Front Page News around the world but Eastwood went beyond the

headlines to tell a side of the sull solenberger story few people knew I was reading some other

things at the time and every night the girls in my office would say have you read this thing on

Su about the third time I thought well there must be some reason so I picked it up and read it and

liked it right away when Clint wanted to do this it was kind of a dream come true for us because

this is such a human story and a story about Hope and about extraordinary things happening

to Ordinary People and that's the kind of story he tells the best I don't feel like a hero I'm just

a man who was doing his job Sul is the real deal and Clint is the real deal so these two guys met

and within 5 minutes they got along like like a house on fire Clint read the script on a Monday

and then a week and a half after that he was at our house Clint told us that it was important to

him that he come to our house and meet us before he made any casting decisions you know I can see

why he became sort of an iconic figure cuz he's I mean he's like Gary Cooper or somebody he just

walking in off the room you kind of go oh yeah after meeting Sully I think he felt like Sully

has that kind of Everyman quality you know he's just a normal really lovely man and I think it

really reminded Clint of Jimmy Stewart who Clint knew of course and Clint said who's today's Jimmy

Stewart and of course it was Tom Hanks when you're kind of making a list in your mind of possible

people who could play it Tom was one of the first people we thought about we didn't think he'd be

available at that time I think he was planning on taking a little time off for about 6 years

my head was down and I was plowing through a work schedule which really meant mentally spiritually

physically I was beat but now look I'm a selfish actor I'm a competitive actor and the screenplay

that Todd wrote plays I think just like the movie did I I think I read it in probably 17 minutes he

got five pages in and said well this isn't what I expected and then he got 20 pages in and he's like

wow I even had to call my wife she say so how was it and I and I said uh it's so great and she said

oh well then I guess you're going to have you're just going to have to go off and do it then aren't

you I've delivered a million passengers over 40 years in the air but in the end I'm going to be

judged on 208 seconds good afternoon suly was not interested in him being made into more of

a obvious hero he wanted it to be the authentic procedure and you understood after 10 minutes with

the guy of course he pulled us off no one else could have no one warned us no one said you were

going to lose both engines at a lower altitude than any jet in history but be cool just make a

left turn for LaGuardia like you're going back to pick up the milk this was dual engine loss at 2800

ft followed by an immediate water landing with 155 Souls on board no one has ever trained for

an incident like that no one if you're a fireman if you're a you're a soldier if you're an aviator

heroism is going to be expected of you at any time mounting that burden on yourself is something that

Heroes do as the captain of that ship his heroic act I think was to follow his instincts as opposed

to the steps in the book I had to rely on my experience of managing the altitude and speed

of thousands of flights over four decades you're saying you didn't do any I eyeballed his instincts

kicked in and made a landing that actually I don't believe it has ever been made before

oh that's not supposed to happen the plant's not supposed to come out of the sky and you're

not supposed to be able to make a landing like that I went back and looked at all of

the other YouTube videos of these kind of like Aviation disasters and planes cartwheel where

that happens and they fall apart you know on impact and they don't come in and they're not

able to make those Landings they were 155 people on the pier in a circumstance where there could

have been 82 body bags and then a bunch of other bodies that disappeared we're never seen again

that didn't happen you put it on the shoulders of uh literally you know one guy got a count

155 155 it's official 155 155 he will never say

that he's a hero but that is that that was one heroic thing that he

did it wasn't just me it was all of us it is Jeff and Donna and Sheila and darene and

all of the passengers their rescue workers Air Traffic Control Fury booat Crews and the scuba

cops we all did it we survived in his commitment to telling the story as truthfully as possible

Eastwood hired some of the real life Heroes who had lived it to play themselves on

screen we ended up using the real fery Captain that was the first fery to arrive he be coming

poli1 the people were actually in the raft and looking up and you know they were all actors so

they were acting scared and wet and cold and was just like that day almost just like it

when we're in New York we had the opportunity to use the real rescue divers it was really a

thrill to have the two real guys jumping out of the helicopter reenacting what they did on

the day this is the job that kind of defines your career I became a New York City Cop to

help people and this was the opportunity to have that done and have it done on such a great event

and all the guys on the tugs they remembered everything down to a tea they knew what line

they were coming across they knew what happened it's astounding how many people jumped into The

Fray and helped save all those [Music] people all those attentions to detail have been really

important for Clint we don't deviate very much from the real look and the real feeling I you

to know I did the best I could Clint had a very clear vision for how to tell this story he said

I just get my idea that I want to do something and I just will it to happen and as I've been

on the set for the first time on a shoot it's obvious to me that what really happens

is he wills it and then hundred or more people create it and make it happen under his [Music]

Direction never one to shy away from controversy Eastwood added to his list of true stories a

film about one of the most powerful figures in American history Jay Edgar Hoover both

Clinton and I picked up this script and we're fascinated first of all with with J Edgar Hoover

he's been this very mysterious iconic figure in American history for such a long period of

time to see somebody tackle his life story was incredible this story that Clint tells is told

all from the internal point of view of Hoover psyche and in such an emotionally moving way

concentrating on really the Clyde Tolson relationship and I love you edar [Music]

it's a love story Clyde Telson and Hoover became fast friends they DED together every day and

Hoover never married and neither did tulson people kind of assumed that they were a couple

take my word for it Mr hoer all the admiration in the world can't F the spot where love goes in

a lot of ways this story is a story of a man that never got to have that part of Humanity

that kind of love that kind of relationship do you remember what happened to Daffy after the

school custodian discovered him in a hoop skirt and flower Bonnet yes Mother he he shot himself 6

weeks after that's right and I thank God every day that my own Sons don't suffer from his condition

Edgar I'd rather have a dead son than a daffodil for son

if you tell a kid an incredibly promising kid that he will not and should not ever have access

to love in his life what fills that hole and for him I think it was admiration and what was

so tragic is that he filled it with political admiration and there's nothing more fleeting in

this country than political admiration and so when he started to lose it he held on to it so strong

he held on to it like it was his lover do I kill everything that I love there are times when you're

repulsed by this man but there are times where you kind of fall in love with him too and you

feel for him I think it's a story ultimately of how absolute power corrupts absolutely sometimes

you need to bend the rules a little in order to keep your country safe right the more power he

gains the more paranoid and strange and diabolical he becomes and I think Clint was really intrigued

with that he's part good guy part bad guy the audiences will take away what they want to take

away from it For Better or For Worse no true story of courage and perseverance can match that of the

man who endured 27 years of imprisonment to lift South Africa out of a parthe and into the modern

era there's no one on our planet of the 7 billion of us who has

had more of a positive influence on more people than Nela Mandela

Morgan and I thought the best thing to do was to go in person and and ask meda's blessing to tell

this story he's been very welcoming very you know oh that's Morgan have him come over no no no I'm

happy the strangest thing about Meda or anybody like Meda is okay you're here in the presence

of greatness what do you say so so uh how about those Yankees where you going to go after that

sit and hope he has something to say to you and of course mediva does what I did tell him however

was that uh I was honored that he had mentioned me to play him in order to build our nation we

must all exceed our own expectations people you to say how do you feel about playing Mandela I mean

uh are you concerned are you worried I would say a little bit I have to get the voice I have to

get the Rhythm I have to get the accent this country is hungry for greatness Morgan has the

same stature and same sort of charismatic nature so it works it works well for us it's the the way

he walks I think that makes me to go oh by the way that's Mor so he I think he has mustered his work

so much that with without even thinking anything you're just like that's the man I live the life

every day of seeing Mr Mandela it is really the closest ever they look alike they sound alike

now they walk alike and I actually had to tell him the other day now stop speaking like medo

because you know it's scary it's good that Mor came here because otherwise I would not have seen

you you know if you have the right person for the role as Morgan is clearly the right person to play

Mandela there's an ease with which everything happens if if everyone's in the job that they

should be in can we see the president St yes of course you've done it up just the way it

was part of his greatness I think comes from the fact that he was forced to sit still for 27 years

and that was in his presence when he said 27 years in prison gives you a lot of time to think we

actually were concerned that the cell was too small to shoot in so we built one on stage and

uh Clint got in there with the camera and he said no this will work and he wanted to do it

where it really happened so we shot it all right there and never used to the set that

we built it's moving to be in that tiny cell and and think about having to spend so many years of

your life in such a small space it's profound as just no other way to describe it I thank

whatever God's may be for my uncomforable soul I think this is a really good use of our time

given everything that's happening in the world I mean it's a it's it's a good time to retell

this and remind all all of us that this happened and a reminder that we're all in this together

I was a kid the first time I saw Clint he was the cowboy

you know the tall laconic kind of tough Cowboy an admirable heroic figure a guy

with a gun and a mission you know this is something that he owns So

majestically Clintwood is the abstracted essence of the American hero the personification of

the Great Western of the American all the things we think we all are would like to

be there's very few people that you can put in Boots and a hat that the audience buys as

a cowboy character Clintwood embodies the West a man a few words stoic very tough he just seemed

to have you know the thousand yard thereare of a guy who shot too many guys it was great

to sit in the theater and eat your popcorn and watch him just selflessly shoot all these

bad guys and and keep our streets safe Clint was a student of John Ford and John Wayne he

took the best of each of those two and he took that to the next level

as a child of the West California born and bred kennywood's love for Western started

early when I was a kid I liked um westerns a lot I grew up uh watching uh Gary Cooper and

Joel McCrae and Randolph Scott Eastwood's first Big Break was playing Rowdy Yates on

the television series Rawhide the part fit him like a well-worn pair of boots

when we did Rawhide which was the first steady job I ever had as an actor it seemed like everybody

thought I was the natural to be in it for some reason I guess because I was a you know sort of a

rangy kid hanging around the back lot of universal and the secretaries around the lot used to call me

Coupe you know as a nickname so I guess they thought they had that Gary Cooper corrective

shoes on or something like that and I was looking rather looking rather awkward but the era of Gary

Cooper was over after Decades of reliable success Hollywood westerns were now dead at the box office

it took a Maverick Italian filmmaker named Sergio Leon to rejuvenate the genre having already been

turned down by Henry Fonda James cobor and Charles Bronson Leone offered the lead role in his new

Western to the rangy kid from rahy they sent the script to my agent and said does would Clint want

to do an Italian Spanish German co-production of a Japanese Samurai story into a western and I

said not particularly so he reads this thing it's very wordy it explains everything and it has lots

of problems with it but there's something there it's basically a transposition of kurosawa's movie

yimbo the samurai film into a western setting and that's unusual I was a huge fan of Yojimbo and so

when I uh started reading the script and realized it was Yojimbo I said yeah I'll I'll I'll do it

even though it was a very small production I I didn't know Leone he wasn't very well known

he'd only made one [Music] picture Sergio Leone's films were a new kind of Western and they inspired

Eastwood to break some new ground of his own I had always wanted to be a film director when I

went to Italy I kind of got reins stilled uh a little bit because Leone was very uh free and

I thought yeah I'd like to do this someday Eastwood's first Western as a director paid

homage to the genre's past and to his mentor the film was High Plains Drifter I've always seen High

Plains Drifter as kind of his investing in living in the Italian form and taking the Reigns from

those he had been learning from and whose films he had been in and making honestly an Italian

Western who are you and there's a very interesting press still for high Plaines Drifter which has

Clint Eastwood and he's standing there in his frock coat and he's leaning on a gravestone and

on the gravestone it says Donald seagull and the gravestone next to it says Leone he's saying those

are my two mentors and I'm saying goodbye to them I'm now on my own having established himself as a

western director in his own right Eastwood's next film cemented a reputation that would only grow

in the years to come Josie Wales the moment for me when Eastwood pops into kind of his own brand and

his own complete idea of what a western could be is Outlaw Josie Wales I kind of think with

Josie Wales that Clint had escaped the shadow of Leon in some ways I don't know it just feels like

a Clint movie to me it feels like Clint's Western why you going to pull those pistols and whistle

Dixie The Outlaw Jersey Wales begins as if it's going to be a traditional

Revenge Western his wife and son are massacred by the red

legs I don't think I'll ever forget that opening it's so economical and fast and

brutal the Man's family getting completely wiped out murdered burned alive you can't imagine any

man recovering from that loss and I think the question he poses at the front of that picture

is can a man survive that loss and what do you become it may seem like a cliche to start a movie

with a guy loses everything he has his family and then for the rest of the life he's going to

make up for it bad movies do that badly and good movies can take that theme and try to find the

humanity in it the level of understanding that goes with that kind of loss rain's giving us the

it in Eastwood's hands this well-worn Western theme became a deceptively complex tale of

redemption and Reconciliation instead of it being a bloodthirsty Revenge Weston it's about someone

who says I don't want nobody depending on me she's not going to Mexico with us with us now

wait a minute I got you a horse you're on your own now here's where completely subverts Western

conventional storytelling most westerns if you break them down if you analyze them are about a

character or a group of characters who have death nipping at their heels I hope you die that'll be

the day and they'll either Embrace death at the end or or buy some clever means avoid death Josie

Wales turns that Paradigm on its ear it reverses it here's a guy who goes out to seek death and

life won't leave him alone life keeps nipping at his heel you're all alone now whales not quite

alone he's trying to be alone and wants to be left alone but the more he travels the more people

gather around him even a dog dog he picks up at one point and the dog keeps following him and he

spits this W of tobacco hits the dog between the and the dog comes back wagging its tail he can't

even get rid of the dog you might as well ride along with us H everybody else is at the end he

has a he has kind of a whole family that is built around him and he's stuck with it and

slowly as he goes on his Odyssey he he understands what responsibility is so by the end he's become

the father of this extended family it's like Frank AA made a western to me you know filtered

through Clint Eastwood's greedy sensibilities but it's almost like a Frank kaer Western having been

raised on the films of John Ford and Howard Hawks and inspired by the boldness of Sergio

Leone Eastwood had begun to reinvent the Western in his own image I think of Clint Eastwood as kind

of the uniting force that kind of emerges from the spaghetti western comes back to this country

takes up the the lines that were coming from Allan lad and John Wayne and connects them to the kind

of urgency of the films coming out of Europe and the way he guided the rest of us in what a western

could be was in being proud of both sides Eastwood also brought to the screen a new kind of Western

hero a complex character with more ambiguity than most of the men portrayed by James Stewart or John

Wayne I know Don seagull when he did the shooter he he told John Wayne he was asking him says you

come in you see the guy in the mirror and then you shoot him and then and you come around and

you crawl down the bar and then you come up and the other guy is there and he says and you shoot

him right in the back and he said there was a long pause this is Don seagull telling me

this story and he said a long pause and he said John Wayne turned to him and said he says I don't

shoot anyone in that back you know and he goes oh and Don made the biggest error he could have

ever made after that he said well well Clint would have would shoot him right in the back

and and he said John Wayne got his r as a beat he was ready to kill him at that particular point he

says I don't give a goddamn what that kid's doing he just say you know and and it it went off and

he had a had good laugh telling the story for years after that Eastwood's willingness to play

characters of questionable virtue was on full display in his next we Western pale Ryder pale

ryer was a movie we did in 1984 it was a movie that had some of the elements of the serg leion

movies where Clint played sort of this preacher with no name well in pale ryer the the character

is uh another ambiguous character coming down out of the mountains much like the High Plains Drifter

one of the things that struck me about pale Ryder was the confidence that Eastwood keeps developing

in his style of film making and I think that there's a kind of greater and greater economy

less of an effort to wow with a shot Pale Rider signals for me and it's kind of almost

a preparatory work for Unforgiven in which it's kind of it's the refining of this style which I

think he will then kind of hit completely out of the park I'm heading up north in through

neera up to Wyoming going to kill a couple of no good Cowboys for what for cutting up a

lady Unforgiven was one of the real Great surprises when I I read that as a script it

was um it was extremely well written uh and it was very different but the time I thought

this would be a great script for me to do when I'm just a little bit older and finally at the

end of the 80s I thought I think I'd better revisit that so I I pulled it out and reread

it and it was still as good as ever Ned you remember that drover I shot through the mouth

his teeth came out the back of his head I think about him now and

again he didn't do anything to deserve to get shot if you see the The Arc of uh American

movie Western Good Guys the white hats bad guys and the black hats that whole thing has gone all

the way up to Unforgiven where characters are not quite so cut and DED in terms of good and

bad everybody had a purpose and everybody had an interest in something else and uh so nobody was a

villain outright they were just villains because of circumstances the Jee Hackman character was

written so well I mean he was a violent guy I guess you think I'm kicking you bop but he was

a guy who just wanted Comfort he just wanted to have a nice retir the Jee Hackman character

wasn't a buffoon he was a very tough guy right to the end and westerns and the heroics that go

with them never suffer when the bad guy is strong well I ain't gonna hurt no woman I'm going to hurt

you not gentle like before but bad I sore I I would never be involved in a picture uh with

this much violence in it but the more I read it and the more I I I came to understand the

the purpose of the film The more fascinated I became with with with this idea more than

perhaps any Western before it no Unforgiven presents an unflinching look at the cost

of violence on those who perpetrate it it's a hell of a thing killing a

man he take away all he's got and all he's ever going to have we don't don't often want to deal

with those themes you know too often the bad westerns people just they move on and everything's

happy and it's not you're marked with the killing of another human being it marks you forever coming

out of the tradition of the American Western which reflected America in the first half of the century

he seems to be tackling what is ultimately the truth about it and Unforgiven The Marvelous

thing about the picture was that he's actually looking back at his own past and John Wayne's past

and the other Western pasts and blowing it us under and saying you know the West was never

really like that this picture in a strange way debunks it all there's something about kind of

the nihilistic aspect of it that was like I mean he's telling everybody he's going to like you know

come back and murder their whole family you know I mean it's like and this is the hero of the of

the peace you better not cut up no otherwise harm no [ __ ] we're all come back and kill every one

of you sons of [ __ ] so it's not your classic Shane rides off into the sunset kind of thing

he rides off yeah but you know that if they mess around he's coming back and he's going to burn

down the whole town you know which is kind of cool if I were proposing that East would emerge

from Spaghetti Westerns and all this kind of chaos of style and then on the other side came and was

raised clearly on the kind of the American Western it is the movie in which it all comes together

the darkness the Revenge the level of dynamism that the early westerns American westerns never

really approached and then at the same time this kind of Panache in his reinvention of the western

Clint Eastwood never forgot the rich traditions of the Giants who came before him I have always

been so impressed with with Eastwood because he has always been so deeply respectful to

those filmmakers that he learned from in fact wasn't Unforgiven dedicated to Sergio and Don

filmmaker subsequent to him and have studied him I for example have studied what Eastwood

has done as a director and been inspired by it when you look at the pantheon of uh of American

filmmakers that that Clint is is right there I don't know how anybody can be a movie star for

40 years performing at a very high level as both an actor and a director he's had a journey and uh

whatever his offering is you know as an artist because I think that that's how he's approached

his career we honor what he he's trying to make and go watch it he's a natural filmmaker just has

such Clarity and purpose when you work with them you feel that you know there ain't no forgetting

all right ready yeah go ahead he doesn't say action he doesn't say cut it's kind of

going it's there okay get ready and go he'll say anytime something like that whenever you

feel like it oh when the scenes over he'll say I ought to do it was pretty good it was

very good it's almost a part of the life goes on and he photographs the life I find

that marvelous he's just getting Al quick you you know when you're doing your first

take you're operating on adrenaline and I think he really responds to that okay just

quiet everyone let's let's do this speed I've never met anyone more in control of

anything Michael Jordan's jump shot wasn't as controlled as the Clint e would said when Clint

says go the crew is ready so if if the take wasn't good it's probably your fault

thought you might be interested in training me I don't train girls maybe you should people see

me fat say I'm pretty tough girly tough a enough in his 50 years as a filmmaker Clen Eastwood has

directed more award-winning performances than any of his contemporaries there's no mystery

why so many films that he makes the actors are nominated or they win or you know he just creates

an environment for actors to truly succeed in the character but before a performance can be captured

the right performer must be cast Eastwood's eye for selecting Talent is second to none casting is

the most important part about making a movie if you cast a movie right things kind of fall into

the place he hires actors the same way he hires crew people he knows that they're professional and

they're going to do their job and he lets them get on with it you know it's one thing if you say well

of course John Penn and Tim robers are going to be great you know they're great actors but the people

that would come in and just do a couple of lines you know were unbelievable then there was a loud

crack could it have been a gunshot yes maybe now did you ever a look out your window Mrs pry oh no

I was in my dressing gown by then I don't look out the window in my dressing gown no director

is better than Clint Eastwood at creating a safe environment where actors can do their best work

I feel a director's job the real responsibility is to make those people feel at home make them

feel comfortable set an atmosphere where everybody is extremely relaxed and there's

no tension so much of what you do as an actor is about you know trying to get rid of that

third wall to to get rid of all the eyes that are staring at you and immerse yourself in the moment

and so he has very few people around so you actually feel like you you are in that moment

I believe that I am a fast and accurate judge of character I know we've only gone out three times

but I don't need more than that most people do but I don't I see people right off for what they are

and please call me Edgar it's what my mother uses Eastwood's respect for actors is returned and kind

like their director the cast lives ready to work there's no actor on his movie that isn't going

to be fully prepared and know their lines it's not going to happen the actors on our shows know

that they were not rehearsing I mean a rehearsal could be the take so be ready and and fire on all

eight cylinders and if if it doesn't work we'll do it again and I remember the one of the first

scenes Hillary said uh Clint do you think we could rehearse this he said well you rehearse

it and I'll shoot it he told me a story about Unforgiven he was talking about Morgan and and

Jean Hackman and and how prepared they are and how the first day of shooting he asked them to

rehearse and he said each of them got one line out and I said stop and I went and got the cameras and

he said I never rehearsed with him again stop okay we would often have the cameras run on a

rehearsal and if he was pleased with the work of the rehearsal he had a a tendency to say let's

move on let's just uh let's just uh fire one off to see where we are I like uh working in a

succinct way I trust my first instincts and then I tend to embellish after that so it's probably less

good who knows it was just a great way to work and I was glad to to do it I'm looking for a bridge

uh cut one of those covered bridges out here in this neighborhood well I can take you if you want

or I can tell you I can take you or tell you either way it's up to you I don't care it's my

experience that uh the really great directors don't let you feel when they're directing you

at the end of the shoot you think boy I I got to do whatever I wanted on that and you don't

realize that you were subtly manipulated so I felt that anything that I wanted to

try was fine and I think actors do their best work when they feel that way you get the full

measure of somebody's talent and their work and their imagination and their Commitment if

you make them feel everything they do is wonderful generally something they do will be wonderful got

you oh don't take my picture come on me one of those French model looks seen a l ofes

oh no love the work that Merl stre did in that film how the relationship grew and buted it's

such an intricate piece it's so delicate you're a hypocrite and you're a fly I don't want to need

you what cuz I can't have you what difference does that make it also like it's like two

mature people falling in love but not trying to the teenagers trying to like just express

love in in the way that they would so I think it's that kind of growth of maturity embracing

that that allows him to always feel relevant because he's being truthful and [Music] honest

you're so hopeful from her that it feels like such a great loss when she doesn't travel with

him okay and that's cut came reload Clint he's been doing it for so long that he's come to a

place where he just trusts his instincts he's just right when he's right he's right you do have to

think about it there's a um confidence that he has a strong confidence and saying I don't need

anymore I don't need anymore on this let's move on over here because this is where we're going

to go I got that what that lends itself to is spontaneity and organic back and forth not so fast

and quite frankly a lot of surprises it's game day and you're ready to to do the best that you

can because that's what's asked of you and I think it's a lesson that all of us are

going to take you know for the rest of our careers uh to be 100% prepared okay I think

we got it now it was great for us playing these characters because these guys only had one take

too when he wants one more take it's going to cause tremendous panic in the room if there's

five actors in the room and he wants one more take they're all probably looking at each other

what did I do was it me was it you why does he want one more take he always walks away after

two if Clinton wants one more take that third take everybody's going to be the best they've

ever been in their careers okay good he puts an awful lot of stock in the actor bringing it at

the moment and it's true he doesn't do a lot of takes but he does a massive amount of coverage

so you have an ocean of opportunity in order to find the scene and you can even say can I have

another pass at that can I just one and he'll say no I think it no no I I was really impressed the

way it happened just then and you wanted to say well you know but you know I inverted the lines

and I don't think the pronouns were even proper but what he's saying is is that you're going to

have another chance at it so let's not waste time on something that I'm not going to use

like the Western Heroes he's played over the years Eastwood is a man of few words

which comes as a relief to many of his actors actors like me and there are a lot of us who

don't like to be directed director makes the movie you hire actress in my particular case

I like to be left alone but a lot of times the director will say could you try it with

this or could try and you know you try to keep an open mind and do it his or her way

my gnome okay good stuff rest everyone I don't say too much so when I say something that it

it means something tonight was the first time really he pulled me aside and he said what did

you what did you think of uh what did you think of that last take you worked there what 3 years

you never missed a day never called in sick right I said it's nothing personal oh that's BS and you

no he's trying to protect the guys who have wives and kids I get it you should hire a lawyer which

you should can't afford a lawyer and I just didn't say anything I just went back to where

started I'm no dummy I I said I I think we're doing another actors on an Eastwood set are given

the freedom to Discover Moments no screenwriter could script sometimes I'll let the actress play

a little bit I so just why don't you just just walk around and talk about it then you just walk

around you'll see it and they'll instinctively do something interesting for a Clint to sit behind

the camera and and see an actor do something that is unexpected and to be able to recognize that as

a plus that's great sometimes improvisation it works really well and sometimes it's terrible

except maybe there's 10% of something that's really a gem that you can never capture again

and maybe it's a mistake but it's a mistake that's so realistic that you like it in the film because

it's they're human it humanizes the characters you're obviously military what branch Branch I

just finished bugs are you kidding me your seal yes ma'am I mean it's pretty disal of you to think

you can protect us all isn't it Chris well our Birds officer Commander said that three okay he

said there's three things we got to worry about ego booze and women well sounds like you're on

attack improvisation goes both ways on an Eastwood set extending to the men behind the camera as well

I'm constantly in improvisation mode I know the script I know the story to tell but I'm in a

constant improvisational mode from then on so if it's supposed to be a clear day and it's snowing

outside I can shoot the scene I was doing a scene in the park what happened it started pouring rain

decided to go ahead and shoot the scene with me sitting in the middle of the park with the

rain storming down on me don't have pop he not going to drink anymore I about it he loves you

I know I read the note on the refrigerator because he was able to live with the elements

and know how to heighten the scene it actually became like much stronger of a of a moment you

know because I'm I'm drenched sitting there [Music] lost Eastwood's secret weapon and

his quest for Great Performances is his crew who have worked with him long enough to know

the boss has a few tricks of his sleeve I'll tell the cameraman I'll say when I

say say stop don't stop so you say stop the actor goes and he gets more relaxed and she

or he they kind of go okay okay now do that one line again and they'll do it from another

whole feeling because they haven't got the adrenaline going through the system they're

kind of okay oh yeah I'll do it again okay and all of a sudden it comes out and it's

really nice you love her who the lady who cooked the hamburger yeah I love her kiss your didn't

I I'll never forget we were doing a scene with a guy who came in I guess the guy was a little

nervous you know he was a little unsteady and uh Clint took me a sign he said you know sometimes

it helps if you could screw up a little bit cuz it might make the guy feel like if Kevin's screwing

up then anybody can screw up and I can do better and I was like well that's a really interesting

idea so the next take you know I I went in and I flubbed my line and sure enough the guy got

better he got his he got stronger and then I went in and did another take and flub my

mind sorry it's all right it's all right said okay that's enough screwing up helping actors

overcome obstacles is one of East Wood's strengths relying on his uniring instincts as a performer

there was a scene the other day in fact it wasn't working for me at all in the barber shop now if

you were to point a pistol at a king or a queen your hands would Shake as the PED no I wouldn't

point no pistol that nobody say we tried it this way that way it wasn't really working I couldn't

put my finger on it can't put my but he did he said if that light is in the wrong place

and it breaks up the rhythm of what you're doing what you're trying to achieve that's it that's

it so let's try it without that and we tried it without that it went like a symphony I can assure

you if you did that the sight of royalty would cause you to dismiss all thoughts of Bloodshed

and you would stand how should I put it in awe drawing upon his five decades behind the

camera Eastwood has mastered the art of nurturing Great Performances he was really like a corner

man you know it was like going into a boxing ring and having your coach there telling you

what movements to make you know you know in this world we need people who believe in US everybody

does and Clint believed in me just like Frankie believed in Maggie and he gave me that gift it was

an extraordinary feeling to have that support and that confidence behind you I got nobody but you

Frankie but you've got me when I saw the film I realized how he guided me in certain ways

yet I didn't know it when it was happening as an actor to get the opportunity to work with a

legend like him if I had to be done tomorrow and I could never do it again having the

experience with him would make it okay good man to have in a corner yes he is

can we get serious

now tell to my daughter please right

now is she in there

He you broke my gome Clint doesn't take himself or the idea of telling a story of making a movie

overly seriously it's just a movie Clint Eastwood is really funny he's got an amazing sense of

humor which surprised me why this is going to stop people are going to talk you know I had a

few films that had done pretty well so in the studio kind of said okay guy we'll let him do

the one with the ran is and uh then we'll get him committed to the insane asylum right turn

Clyde I've had uh reason to sort of talk with them over the years you know here and there you

bump into them and uh he's a funny guy what' you have for breakfast Frank let's see I had

vegetarian wus Rancheros egg whites only of course and then some sort of a filtered decaf

cappuccino that tasted like it was filtered through a jock strap he directs all kinds of

different film he directs films with monkeys and I mean he's just like he doesn't seem to say no he

seems to say why not and I think that's a really amazing quality for a director why not

tell me just what is the country western mentality well if the lyrics of the song are any indication

it's somewhere between [ __ ] and dull normal Oh my Jesus you're you are disgusting oh oh this wild

clam got out of control in his long career Clen Eastwood has made a wide variety of action films

but some of his biggest hits have been movies in which the action is tempered by a healthy dose of

humor when you're younger you play a lot of roles some of them have great social values and some of

them are just actionpack entertainment pieces and um there's room for all of that that's Ral you

understand Every Which Way but Loose and every going off and making pictures with a rang of tangs

everybody thought I'd lost my mind at that time but I done a lot of R-rated pictures action films

and what have you and I wanted to do something that families could go to see and kids might like

and so it was just another period in my life so I was looking at it from that point of view and

besides I thought there was craziness about the script that was appealing at that time how many

times have I told you I don't want him drinking beer except on Saturday night no you don't oh no

no you don't come on no you don't give me that give me it the whole concept of the movie was

a little a little much for some of the management here all right Clyde you're going to meet a lady

Now understand I want you to handle it that means no spitting pissing farting or picking your ass

you hear me one of the executives from from uh Warner Brother said to me uh come up to me

said Barry that movie is unreleasable then I took the picture to Tupa Mississippi that was the most

incredible screening I've ever seen they went wild hey buddy are you taking your mother for a

ride as a director Eastwood has always had a knack for coaxing Unforgettable performances

from his actors working with co-star Clyde was no exception God you're a handsome devil I used to

take dates and i' I'd put them in my pocket and then I'd sit there and I'd take the date out and

I'd be like eating it and I pretend like I didn't know he was there and I I would look over and you

see I'm just looking at you like this pretty soon you I go oh yeah you you here here give him a date

or two and pretty soon you know he's your buddy everything in life is fakery just like making

movies you're getting pretty tricky Clyde but it turned out okay and Studio made a lot of money on

it I think the movie eventually grossed somewhere around $78 million which is a huge amount of money

in in those days for a [Music] movie I got a lot of kisses from orangutan which is a little

bit it's okay Eastwood's down to earth approach an utter lack of pretention have kept audiences

coming back to his action movies for over 50 years I don't know he he manages to hit this kind of

nerve that uh that the country understands maybe a lot of filmmakers get out of touch with who who

they're making films for he certainly does not do that he's sort of in touch with with the Heartland

mayor inspector cahan all right let's have it have what you report what have you been doing oh well

for the past 3/4 of an hour I've been sitting on my ass in your outer office waiting on you I find

humor in a lot of the stuff he does even those dirty hairy things I think they're funny there

was this kind of undercurrent of humor in it that man had rights well I'm all broken up about that

man's rights you could laugh in his movies you could sit and be entertained like in a comedy

sometimes and at the same time two seconds later be totally scared and frightened because he got

very [Applause] intense so he gave you kind of a multi-dimensional character which I think worked

really well and became the new standard for action movies and for those kind of films combining

action with humor comes naturally to Clen Eastwood never more so than in the story of the idealistic

head of a wild west show named Bronco Billy are those real bullets it's a special buck shot that

doesn't go too far but don't worry I never miss Bronco Billy was great fun to play because you

know the dreamer and he dreams his life into something he he said he says literally in the

in the script he says I'm who I want to be when I first read it I just was so intrigued by it

it was one of those scripts you couldn't put down once you started reading a guy out there

with his obsolete Wild West show and he has has absolutely nothing going but he has this

dream of having property and a place for kids I save every dime every nickel goes into that

little tin box and one of these days we'll get that ranch we want so City kids could come out

and and see what cowboys and Indians are really like it was a great thing about loyalties too

I mean Brock Billy was terribly loyal he had great virtues even though he's a man in modern

day Society you're the best punch of wrangle as an American don't you ever forget it and you're

rid with Bronco Billy the fastest draw in the west now let's hit the trail it was a naive picture but

it was a sweet story it reminded me very much of a CA film if cpra was still directing films when

that came along I assume that's the kind of thing he might have done I wanted to do my CA

film Eastwood's sense of humor is not confined to his onscreen storytelling as his collaborators

have often discovered oh good lord one time we were doing this scene with all these guns were

you expecting a zombie invasion or something he picked up the 44 magnin 44 magnum most powery

had got in the world he put it back on the bed he left and Paul and I just looked at each other did

that just happen you're a great cop Harry you had a chance to join the team but you'd rather stick

with the system RS I hate the system but until someone comes along with some changes that make

sense I'll stick with it you're about to become extinct I remember when we did that scene in the

car frightening I think it was on a shot on a Sunday we're up in San Francisco you know with

those Hills and I think it was shot on a Sunday so that he could come down that that road in

San Francisco that is like a snake back and forth straight down you know I was in the car with him

and uh I think it was the soundman was laying down behind us and they had two cameras on the

hood Clint got in the car and did the driving I thought well you know he won't go too fast he's

not a Stunt Driver you know well man alive I was scared out of my wits because when we started down

that thing back and forth he was roaring down that thing and I thought good grief if anybody

steps out in front of us through a goner you know and uh he really handled the car well he

knew he was scaring the living lights out of me you know I think he got a big kick out of [Music]

that man's got to know his limitations Eastwood's lack of pretention extends to his own work in

front of the camera as well somebody told me a story once that he was working with a director

and the director was saying Clinton could you do it again could you put it a little more this or

a little and he was giving him some directions and and he got him aside and he said hey uh I

got about two ways of doing things and you seen them both move on uh-huh and how old are you Frank

old enough to know your ass is in a sling for the tale of four over the hill astronauts called into

action for one final Mission Space Cowboys gave Eastwood the chance to combine action comedy and

Adventure you know need those do you well no just to read go to movies Drive walk you know not to

mention the pleasure of sharing the screen with some of his favorite performers just going to do

the bottom three lines F PT P PF uh you have 2010 Vision caps these are just for looking at you kid

may be blind prank but my memory is perfect PF at it's terrific cast and there are people that

I I've always admired in their work along the way I worked with Jimmy years ago when we were

both starting out 45 years ago uh in in one of his Maverick episodes and I've known them for

years sometimes you go a whole career and you never work with a lot of people that you admire

I'm receiving a word from on high and what is that word the word is why the hell not there

you go though he arrives on set fully prepared for the day's shoot Eastwood nevertheless allows

himself a measure of spontaneity particularly when sharing the screen with a bunch of Pros a lot of

those Montage sequences that we did in this film were all improvised I just said come on in we'll

walk in this room we'll talk about this and it's like the first time and I just go like this the

cameraman he's rolling you're just having a little bit of an acid thing no no no no no

flash a couple times Jim Garner said why we are we rehearsing that what what are we doing

I said no no that's it okay we're not going to rehearse it helps that camaraderie aspect

that works I think in the film Clint's the easiest director I ever worked for I mean he

pretty well let you do what you want if there's something you're not doing he might just mention

it but uh that's all it is you might want to do this Jim okay want somebody other than Mr help

he doesn't trust me think you get stuck in there you get stuck in no man's land I

remember there was the second day of shooting or something and Clint had said you why don't

you sit here and so me Little Miss theater says great great Clint how about would would

would it be worth anything if the guy comes in and I'm sitting here doing this and then I

do X Y or Z and Clint says how about you just do what I said I said okay [Music]

known for his naturalistic slice of Lifestyle Eastwood had to expand his comfort zone for

Space Cowboys there's effects and there's visual effects and then special effects and I'm used to

shooting just more or less stories with characters and just kind of forging right on ahead this stuff

can bog you down sometimes look down as best you can down to the shuttle below you I guess when you

hear the horror stories of what goes on in some companies you they take two or 3 days to make

a shot that that would really be depressing but we've we've been down to where we've done one or

two shots a day or two or three shots a day at the minimum and uh you think God that's that's

slow you better pull up Sir you're going to lose it again fire an F A2 you're going to lose your

avionic I don't need them anyway this thing's a flying brick on approach anyway isn't it it was um

highly educational experience did everything that I hoped it would be but it was more fun than I

thought it would be the worst feeling in the world is leaving this film The only gratifying thing is

that maybe I'll lose some weight Clinton one of the first things he does is hire an excellent

caterer the best you can't resist tonight it was Shadow and lobster you know I mean and you so

you eat I put on seven pounds in this picture I'm supposed to be a thin guy my bellies hanging out

in space I looked like a half moon up there the crew the way the sets run the way he directs is

as good as you're ever going to find anywhere he expects everyone else to have fun too it's really

part of the system and it's nice to wake up in the morning knowing that your first responsibility is

to have a good time it was worth the wait yeah it was thank you Frank I owe you one I don't

think Clint takes himself so seriously I think he takes the business seriously but not himself

seriously he's not the standup comic delivering the fast and funny lines but uh every now and

then you know he's got some zingers he absolutely likes to laugh that was one

of the first things I surprisingly learned about him that you didn't have to act like

you're in a western all the time like you just imagine what you know about him he

loves silly like nobody's buses I'm Pro oh you're going to pay for this you're going

to my name is gunary Sergeant Highway and I've drunk more beer and pissed more blood and banged

more quiff busted more balls all you numbnuts put together for s i I didn't read the script

Clint asked me to be a part of something and I said yes and then I read the script he's the

most wonderful elegant honest genuine man it's a pleasure and and honor to work for I don't know

many people who have turned down Eastwood movie really bet it's a very short list

we're not just going to let you walk out of here who's we sucker Smith and Wesson and me bang

what's your name Callahan what are you police officer all right police

officer this is how we play the first time I saw Clint Eastwood police

movies Dirty Harry you know I saw it as a teenager I thought it was

great Clint showed us clearly that when you want to do an action movie and really portray

a guy in in an interesting way you should make him

multi-dimensional you shouldn't make the guy just be a straight

cop that man had rights well I'm all broken up about that man's rights

I don't think you ever come out of a a Clint Eastwood film being disappointed

that it didn't have the kind of ending that you wanted to feel in a movie there's always

that that sense of justice in this film that I think we like as viewers tell him

I'm coming for him I'm going to nail his ass to the wall

whether he's portraying a renegade city cop

a washed up journalist with one last shot at redemption or a New Orleans

detective more than willing to venture into the city's shadowy underworld clenny Wood's

characters bring order to a world of chaos Clint used the ancient and convincing and

dependable ethic the good man against evil moral immoral he was simple direct it was a

man one person you could identify with he's a hero boy do we need Heroes drop the gun

tree few heroes in cinema history have cast a longer Shadow than San Francisco Police

Inspector Harry Callahan the character would become an archetype for countless

films to follow cint Eastwood there created something that was unlike any else it became

like new standard of action movies it wasn't just action but it was also certain kind of a comedy

with it very very funny scenes hijackers want an overseas pilot before they take off may I make a

[Music] suggestion in his very first action sequence Dirty Harry let audiences know this

was an entirely new kind of police story of course the scene that sticks out of my

mind is him with the hot dog and in the beginning of the movie and he's got the

guy on the ground you go to a man eating a hot dog and he gets sees a robbery in

progress and then he has to he has to foil it on his [Music] own there

was a little bit of James Kagney shooting somebody in the trunk of

a car eating a chicken leg at the same time copy huh I'll give it a

[Music] rare like James Kagney before him Eastwood brought to the screen something genuinely new a

character no one had ever seen before his whole attitude as dirty ha very soft spoken he never

screamed like you normally see uh when when people play cars you know it's doing all the

screaming and then all the fuss and he didn't do that he was eating his sandwich or his hamburger

he was pulling out the gun and he was doing his job I know what you're thinking did he

fire six shots or only five well I tell you the truth in all this excitement I've kind of lost

track myself but Ian this is a 44 magnum the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your

head clean off you've got to ask yourself one question do I feel lucky well do you punk I saw

is a very interesting scene it to me it was something I'd never played before but that's the

one that sort of kicks it off where people go okay there this this is going to be a different kind of

ride there's no doubt that Dirty Harry has had a huge impact on the it's almost a genre in unto

itself which is two cops and one of them is on the edge you know what happens to the guys that I've

worked with dik's still in the hospital with a bullet in his gut and fandi's dead so so if I need

partner I'll get me someone who knows what the hell he's doing you rotten bastard it's not

enough just to have a cop do his job anymore the cop has to be a little bit crazy now you

know why they call me dirty hairy every dirty job that comes along and then he had movies

all over Hollywood where it was you know two cops one of them's a vampire two cops and one

of them's already dead two cops one of them's a dog but it was always dirty hairy was always

that the guy was on the edge he was going over the edge finally you get to Lethal Weapon where the

first scene in the movie you don't even have to say this is two cops and one of them's one guy's

already trying to to shoot himself his films were very popular with my friends and I as teenagers

and there's very quotable lines from all those films go ahead make my day go ahead make my day

perhaps more than any film series in movie history Dirty Harry's Unforgettable dialogue

was an integral part of its success I don't want any more trouble like you had last year

in the Filmore District understand that's my policy yeah well when an adult male is

chasing a female with intent to commit rape I shoot the bastard that's my policy this movie

was quoted I think more often than any movie that was ever quoted I love love Dirty Harry

because he was better than anyone at delivering those py lines RS was right you guys don't have

enough experience they didn't sound like he was trying to be tough they sounded like he

was tough it'll be my word against yours and who's going to believe you you're a killer

Harry man's got to know his limit ations that became one of my mantras between me and my

buddies we used to say that on the golf course all the time you know we used to go play golf on

Saturdays and uh you know can't get over that water with a three-wood you know or something

like that I would put in the water go man's got to know his limitations the long shadow

of Dirty Harry also extends to the actors whose subsequent work followed in Clint Eastwood's

formidable footsteps without question uh the dirty hairy series of movies influenced every

action adventure enture hero after that including Schwarzenegger and and Wesley Snipes and and Bruce

Willis his work as an action star did influence me as an actor and I I kind of like that genre

I like to watch those kinds of films there was a lot of physicality to what he did and saying

as little as possible cuz I was told very early on my acting careers you're very interesting to

watch but when you open your mouth you get into trouble so um I thought uh that's a good note

I'll keep my mouth shut until I have something to

say all of those actors I mean they want to be cint they want you know that mix of

grit and strength and ryness and a touch of vulnerability the girl where is she you tried

to kill me if I tried that your head would be splattered all over this field now where's the

girl my friends and I used to sneak into a movie theater in Illinois instead of going to school

and watch movies and we climbed in there one day and we watch Dirty [Music]

Harry it was kind of an indelible memory to be put in a young man's mind Clint Eastwood was my

inspiration I was a struggling actor and all of a sudden I saw this movie dirty hairy and

I remember I went to see it not only once but I saw it five times in a row because it had such a

tremendous impact on me you joining the act too he was the motivating force for me to to come to

America and to get into acting in the first place so obviously when you then see your Idol coming up

with a movie like dirty hay and creating a whole new standard in action movies and also to do it

with a certain style I said myself that's what I have to do but beneath its tantalizing style and

memorable dialogue the dirty hairy character was first and foremost a man in pursuit of Justice

the obsession of the of the hero I like the fact that he was he was obsessed with getting

this guy and they had a background story of course that he had a very solitary existence

Dirty Harry is God's lonely man he's he's the the true loner individual he lives in a little

apartment a dirty little apartment with a couple of plaques on the wall and some you know beer in

the ice box and a half eaten cheeseburger he really doesn't have any girlfriends he didn't

have a private life that he really cared much about all he cared about was this particular

victim somebody he'd never met and I thought that Obsession about somebody you've never met was very

interesting at its core the dirty hairy series gave audiences a sense of empowerment in a world

beyond their control people in general in the America and worldwide feel powerless so they see

a guy that all a sudden takes the law into his own hands and takes care of the job in a very cool way

everyone in the audience felt like wouldn't I love to be in this situation and solve a crime there's

a man at San Quinton who's going to be executed tonight I think he's innocent they're going

to kill him at midnight now I can't help out and this I have the facts in this case not every Clint

Ewood hero solves crimes from behind a police badge as journalist Steve Everett Eastwood brought

to the screen a vivid portrayal of a man reaching for Redemption Allan they're going to kill the guy

tonight you're trying to tell me that you want to turn a routine execution piece into some big

fight for justice story Alan I need this it was very intriguing to play a journalist I uh haven't

done that he's got the Obstacle of his family life his drinking past his personal habits and

credibility Factor because he's had this other case a few years earlier which he went to the

rescue and he got shot down it turned out the guy was guilty True Crime takes its place alongside

Eastwood films as diverse as Space Cowboys and Unforgiven in its portrait of a character whose

time has passed in almost every Newsroom there's a guy kind of like him a guy who who should have

retired years earlier but has still been around still he's married to the job the job job is his

whole life they're going to kill that man in less than half an hour we can't get to

the prison in that time you're right lady fasten your seat Bel and the thing that makes this story

interesting is that Our Hero's tenacity is what sort of carries him [Music] through tenacity is

the Hallmark of many Eastwood Heroes not least of which is FBI profiler Terry MCB whose own

physical frailties prove the key to tracking down a serial killer it was an opportunity to

do a little bit different slant on detective work of which I've been associated with over

the years your heart Mr michen it was my sisters don't you understand she wants me to find out who

did it she wants me to solve her sister's murder blood work gave Eastwood the opportunity to play

opposite Angelica Houston who has the unenviable task of being mb's cardiologist you are 60 days

post transplant Terry as your doctor I'm ordering you not to do this she takes care of him through

his operation and posttop and since he's a rather impetuous character she has her work cut out for

her um so I get to tell Clint what to do oh come on man you're mine forever Terry what do you want

I want you to live as his neighbor and Nemesis Jeff Daniels learned a few lessons about what

it means to share the screen with Clint Eastwood you know they say less is more

but when you're opposite Clint if you're going big if you're going more man you

feel it cuz Clint's just like a rock he's just there doing that thing that that we all know

and love but if you're up here you're going whoa come back come back come back come back

you need me remember how you said I was your friend and I could tell you the

truth well I don't need you at

all I saved

you it's a story how lost redefines a person MB loses a previous life a career and he is in

a transitional period as to what to do next with his life as he has throughout his career Eastwood

embraced the opportunity to play a character defined by his weakness as much as his strength

at this particular stage in my maturity um I I felt that it was time to take on some roles that

maybe had different obstacles than they would say if I was a a young man in my 30s or 40s

doing these kind of jobs never one to shy away from the darkness Eastwood ventured down to New

Orleans to play a vice squad detective whose own obsessions mirror those of the killer he's chasing

it's about a guy who's dealing in a almost an occult World down in Louisiana and the police

work and everything is has affected his marriage but yet he has C of his kids so there's a little

bit of a dichotomy there which unusual he has to on one hand be a good father on the other hand

he delves in a little bit of the opportunities that he is able to procure as a police officer

Eastwood's counterpart on his journey into the Shadows is a rape counselor played by Jean aiv

Bol she's more of coming from a more conventional line and all of a sudden she finds he's got sort

of a bizarre side to him and uh it sort of shocks her at first but then it she's also intrigued

by it I'd like to find out what's underneath the front you put on maybe you wouldn't like

what you'd find it was a fascinating script but Richard Tule wrote it and the provocativeness of

of it I liked because it uh anytime you can you know take yourself into other dimensions it's

much more fun as an actor than playing just being conventional and doing your routine or your genre

or whatever you're well known for so you keep pushing the envelope and then I think it's a

secret to longevity I'd have been satisfied with just hanging with the genra it might have been

The Westerns or it might have been detectives but it I would have probably burned out long ago

nothing wrong with shooting long as the right people get shot

you get it I don't know I wish I could have seen their faces this is an amazing story that so few

people know about that was swept under the carpet for 60 years there are plenty other photos taken

that day but none anybody wanted to see the right picture can win or lose a war it's far

greater than any sort of fiction that you could ever read okay let's do it again Clint is able

in his movies to do this thing where he both makes a great war movie and he kind of deconstructs the

idea of a war movie this is primarily a British operation I'm an American I don't even know why

the hell I'm here Li tenant you're here because you're an American when he gets into a project

he gets into a project and he's just completely involved with all the details of the research

and so you know it's pretty good we have Clen with being a researcher and then you look back

and say oh there they go yeah that's the great thing about Clintwood he wants to

make sure it looks 100% authentic and real and it feels like it's World War II and it

did Clint Eastwood's diverse career includes dramas action films westerns and even a

musical but no stories are closer to his heart than those that portray the plight

of a soldier in Wartime his dedication to authenticity inspires his collaborators

it was an incredible experience to be able to do this with him I mean if you ask me who the

ideal director is you want Clint Eastwood cuz Clint just had a great way of casting

people that understood the responsibility how you doing you okay oh [ __ ] it's good to see

you you're my hero bro yeah you always have been let's go KL Colonel's waiting the legend

huh what happen you all right I'm just tired man I'm going home I'm proud of you everybody

felt so honored to be there to do service to Seal Team 3 they took it very seriously very seriously

and they just wanted to get it right lieutenant in the next 15 minutes we have to create enough

confusion to get out of here alive major right now you got me about as confused as I ever hope to be

Eastwood's history with war movies dates back to the earliest days of his film career when he was

cast opposite a cinema Legend I had never done a picture with wellknown people in it and Richard

Burton was going to be in the thing and my agent thought oh God it'll be you and Richard Burton

it'll be a thing so I went to Austria and so I met Richard Burton who was uh with Elizabeth Taylor at

that time and they all invited me up to cocktails of which they were more accustomed to than I was

Austria was very cold we shot it in the winter time but Austria was great great food not a good

Austrian beer and with Richard you had to stop quite a few times in the picture we try this one

behind us we'd be driving along to go somewhere and he'd say there's a nice little hostel down

here that has great brandy or something like that so he had to stop and it was interesting

conac make that too certainly unusual wearing war uniforms as opposed to pontios and Stetsons

and so forth we've been up in the mountains uh shooting from cable cars and hanging from cables

and sliding off the roofs and shooting Germans thought I shot a lot of people with a SI shooter

you should see how we can do with a machine gun the film like this I think it's very apt casting

to cast Clint Eastwood and myself because we such enormous contract in type he's tall and slow and

drawly sort of all Gary Cooper and as good as Gary Cooper perhaps even better and I'm short

and thick and fast talking is that it major yes that's it do me a favor will you next time you

have one of these things keep it an all British operation Eastwood's Early Education in war films

continued when he was cast in Kelly's Heroes along onside another group of Veteran performers we had

Don Rickles on the picture who was constantly entertaining I uh I got a little favor to ask

of you well you stop crying I haven't even asked you yet the hell's the matter with you we had a

crew of austrians we had a crew of English we had a crew that had Americans and he would do

skits every morning he'd do thing and he'd insult every one of those groups I just mentioned and uh

everybody was lying on the floor laughing so it was a kind of an interesting picture this

is of course ladies and gentlemen Clint a with a wonderful star Clint we've been on the picture now

for with you about two days and I want to say I'm be here for the whole cast Clint fed up you don't

know this Clint started out in raw high he was the one that kept saying yaha yaha and a producer

one day said get the dumbbell that's yelling yah then he met Brian Hutton our 9-year-old director

who was not here today unfortunately then at the end after he insulted all these people he

insult some Austrian people who you know didn't quite know what they were hearing and they they

going of laugh like what are we do now pick up our equipment and get out of here before

a German Patrol comes along oh that's great as his career progressed Eastwood moved behind the

camera where his War films became a canvas for powerful personal stories of Honor commitment and

patriotism look look at

[Music] that no wartime image in American history passes the photograph captured by

AP photographer Joe Rosenthal of the raising of the flag on iima the film inspired by that image

came to Eastwood through another director with a long history of War films we were

both talking with our tux John backstage after an award ceremony and Clint said I

hear you've got this book called Flags of Our Fathers really an interesting book I read it

and I believe I said yeah I haven't quite been able to crack it I haven't quite gotten an ADD

ation to a screenplay that I'm happy with yet do you want to take a crack at it he said yes

send it over the flag raising of course and the and the famous photograph became the the most

important photograph of World War II the power of the image was not lost on a teenage paper boy

living in Sacramento I was 11 years old when World War II broke out and uh it was in every

newspaper that I saw I delivered newspapers and it just sort of symbolized the war effort

it was the biggest battle in Marine Corps history more casualties and more Medals of Honor given out

in that battle than any other Battle in History to bring the gritty reality of War to the screen

Eastwood avoided over rehearsing his actors prior to battle scenes it was Clint's idea from

the beginning to have us not prepared to have it be very much like it would be on the battlefield

all of these young men just sort of thrown into uniform and be ambushed as they were what a hell

of an experience i' had never seen anything like that um where things were exploding all around

you I'd look to my left and see a line of 500 Marines firing guns I mean it was so immersive

your adrenaline and your emotion is kicked in you can't help but be affected by that

environment Go Go you were caught off guard constantly and your reactions were very real

action once action was called and and you were running through the field it was it

was electric you really didn't have to act you just had to be there and live it stop

when the time came to recreate an indelible moment of American History the actors needed

no prompting to feel the gravity of the moment shooting the flag racing scene was

really incredible the night before we all sat in our hotel rooms and we just watched it over

and over uh watching exactly what our guys did like I noticed that Franklin for some reason he

puts it up and he looks down in his hand twice and I and nobody has any idea why he does it

and I don't think anybody really would have noticed if you hadn't seen it like 75 or 80

times it was a really emotionally charged day you could sense this sort of palpable energy

in the crew and and the rest of the cast of something very special was happening and then

we just did it and for some reason when we did it it happened like it happened it's just kind

of what happened Mike's hand fell right over mine uh Irish hands went up in in the way that

they went up it was really an incredible moment I think for everybody it's a Monumental moment

we raise the flag and then literally the whole island just explodes in in cheers and forz and

and the the ships off the island all you know hug their horns and stuff and you know the the

Marines all over the rest of the island thr the rifles and they felt like that they'd won the

battle for iima to see that flag fluttering in the wind and everything being cograph down to

the exact Nuance of how it happened Clint told us that we'd done a great job and that was uh rare

for him to express that kind of emotion with us and so it was it was a good day jeez look

at [Music] that for his young cast Flags of Our Fathers would become an unforgettable experience

I will never look at the flag the same way again uh I will never think of war the same way again

and and if anyone kind of romanticizes the idea of War boy this project in particular will change

that Viewpoint I think yeah I'm very proud to be part of something like this the movie completely

honors these young marines and the people who sacrific so much for war but it also says in a

very Unapologetic way that you know war is Hell first and foremost move on Mike m can you hear

us to be able to explore what these guys did and what they went through I will walk away

with having had one of the most incredible experiences of my life something that always

stuck with me throughout filming the movie as well was the wars are always fought by the boys

you know the boys and it's he makes a point of that at the end of the film and we're all running

around and we're all just splashing around in the surf you know just being what we are [Music]

as he was shooting Flags of Our Fathers Eastwood found himself wondering about

the plight of the men on the other side of the battlefield in the middle of Flags

of Our Fathers he came to me one day and he said I'd like to talk to you about an idea

I just had I'd like to also tell the story of iojima from the Japanese point of view I want

to tell the story of kobashi the general who was defending EO while I was was still

putting Flags of Our Fathers together I would went off and shot letters from

uima I became curious about General kurabayashi especially when American generals were saying he

was one of the smartest generals on the island so I figured what was so smart about him so I

went back and started reading a book and the only book available was a book on some letters that

he had written home to his family while he was an Envoy here in the United States in 1928 and

[Music] 30 you [Music] are he was so interesting man and uh he had studied in United States and

Canada and he totally understood about the American and the feelings and the culture

and the Customs he sent 41 letters from this island and so it's a very family man in his

letters home he was concerned about his his kids and I just found a very sensitive man

with the exact same concerns that I have or any father has you break it down to the coming from

the different walks of life and how it's a life Interrupted uh just as it was for the Americans

[Music]

Eastwood's decision to make two films rather than one enabled him to illuminate Common Ground shared

by soldiers on both sides knowing he was with you that day and seeing him in that photograph

I don't know why it makes me feel better but it does it's so silly isn't it no it's not when you

boil it down to the emotions of the people they're dealing with the same thing you're

dealing with a young man who is conscripted to be sent over to iima knowing that the odds of him

getting back are going to be really remote and then finally believing he's never going to get

[Music] back I think what Clint is doing in telling the Japanese side of this story is

revolutionary I think it's been something that is long overdue I must say I had a great time

doing it because to visit another culture and do it in another language it was great

to to look at the same battle the same war from two different perspectives it all boils down to

young men being sent off to end their lives prematurely no matter what side you're on

no hero I'm I can't take them calling me a hero

all I did was try not to get shot Mike was a hero

it's always like that like what whenever I get to liken someone they atat around law I notice

when you get to disliking someone they ain't wrong for law NE I'm fascinated by a lot of actors who

have become directors Eastwood could do both I think all his years as an actor really helped

create that confidence just cuz we're going on this killing that don't mean I'm going to go

back to being the way I was I think actors make good directors I mean you know Robert

Redford and cner did it too before I did I think it's a natural progression what are you going to

do Walt I'll think of something whatever it is they won't have a chance I don't think there's

any directors now that have directed that many movies and certainly not that they've been in

you don't learn nothing from having that kind of a body of work I made a lot of mistakes in

my life I'm just trying to keep you from doing the same I know boss it's amazing that he's there you

know 12 hours a day on camera if if he's not on camera he's Direct Ing and he doesn't miss a beat

I thought it was more important to be somebody out there than the damn failure I was here at

my own home I'm sorry for everything I really don't understand how people direct and act at

the same time and then to produce direct and act is a pretty daunting task

ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while and you shouldn't have with that's

me in his 50 years as a filmmaker Clint Eastwood has truly become Cinema's Triple Threat having

served as producer director and actor in more films than anyone in recent Cinema history doing

both jobs is not a thing I recommend anybody doing with me I did it as necessity because

when Play Misty For Me if I was in it I could get the film made but um I always swore I'd after a

couple years I'd uh gravitate out of acting and here I am still doing it as a derel actually

starring in the film that you're directing has a lot of challenges and I was in my 30s when I

did it after I did Braveheart for example I never did it again so for him to do that when he's not

a kid anymore it's it's pretty amazing you know there's not a lot of guys like clinty SP around

he's quite seamless in terms of moving back and forth between decisions that he has to make as

a director and decisions that he has to make as an actor the danger of an actor directing

is that they can't be objective about themselves maybe but we didn't have that I'm not out of date

am I I'm picking flowers for a woman just sign of appreciation no not at all except those are

poisonous the problem of objectivity was a challenge Eastwood was warned about early

on by his mentor Don Seagull his advice was don't short yourself the trouble with being

an actor and a director in a picture is that sometimes you feel complexed about

uh doing too much coverage on yourself and so you're busy working with the other actors take

time with it and do it correctly working the bag boss not your boss that bag's working you

his ability to see and watch while he's acting with me is nothing short of astonishing I told

you I don't train girls thought you might change your mind there's dozens of trainers who train

girls you won't have any trouble finding one don't hardly need a dozen boss you'll do fine

as an actor eastwoods understated style free of theatricality has brought depth and power to a

wide range of performances Clint can show this emotion underneath without uttering a word he

is a great quiet actor that's what a truly man can do there are very few of them the hardest

thing to do as an actress to stay still he knows he doesn't have to move too much he's got it in

there he's got it in his face and in his eyes Eastwood's talent for expressing emotion with

few words was movingly Illustrated in his role as boxing trainer Frankie Dunn somebody tell

me what's going on look I was late s was just subbing for me you're telling me this is your

fighter yeah this is my fighter it came right after Den Mystic River and uh I was just about

in that time in life where I was saying you know I think I'll just stay behind the camera

this acting thing you know at some point you're going to have to look in the mirror and say that's

enough of that but the character seemed like I was pretty much the right casting for it what

Clint can bring that no one else can is the Frankie D character he's a hardened insulated

human being and what happens she breaks through his armor she cracks him wide open okay if I'm

going to take you on you won't never regret it look just listen to me if I take you on

I promise I'll work so hard God this is a mistake already mm- I'm listening boss it was interesting

having your co-star also be your director it's nerve-wracking just because he's Clint he's an

anomaly he's a legend and then you just get into your groove and I started seeing him as

his character and yet then he was also directing me and you don't even know you're being directed

got to any family boss well I've got a daughter Katie that's family we're not exactly close it

was just one of Clint's best works both as a filmmaker and as an actor I would have given

up my oscar I swear to God for him to get the Oscar for best performance of the Year

makush means my darling my

Eastwood's stature as a performer gives him a credibility with his actors that few other

directors enjoy I don't usually trust directors I usually hold them outside the magic circle but he

was already in it because he was the other actor so as a director I think I was much more open to

whatever he suggested with a filmography heavy on Western's police dramas and more

films Eastwood surprised many by producing directing and starring in the romantic drama The

Bridges of Madison County I guess it's something that he wanted to do at this point in his life

he was involved in a love story at the time and got married right afterwards maybe this was his

romantic uh period or something what's wrong it look stunning if you don't mind me saying

so so make him run around the block howling in agony studing I think he's amazing in Bridges of

Madison County It's A Beautiful film just the exchanges between the two of them between him

and Mer Street watching the real romance Blossom and watching two people really get to know each

other and then starting to love these two people ourselves and then hoping for them that they'll

stay together I'm not going to apologize for who I am nobody's asking and I'm not going to

be made to feel like I've done something WR you're not going to be made to feel anything

per the fight scene in the kitchen was um the moment where the limitations of this dream present

themselves it's the morning after it's when you realize it's over and the rest of us are supposed

to feel incredibly grateful for this brief moment that you touched her go to hell it's a great scene

and it's the one where as an actor Clint wasn't afraid to go all the way I only say this once I

I've never said it before but this kind of certainty comes but just once in the Life

Time and then I was so amazed because after I saw the film cut together he took out sort of the more

shaken parts of his performance which you know and the envelope pleased it's like he would have every

actor kills for this scene and he kind of pulled back on it but I think he has a real real good

idea of how much is needed to tell the story even while giving an emotional performance Eastwood

proved yet again his ability to operate as both star and director with a parent ease he was able

to be in the scene and commit to the scene as an actor and then somehow at the end of the scene

sit back and decide whether that was enough or not I don't know how you do that I could never never

never do that whether playing a LEL photographer a grizzled boxing trainer or a washed up gunfighter

Clint Eastwood has subverted expectations throughout his career never more so than in his

performance as Earl Stone a 90-year-old drug mule for the caloa cartel it's been cool to see Clint

transform into Earl just because it's it's not a dirty hairy like character it's this you know cute

little older gentleman with his day lies and his little bow ties and his hats and this charming guy

he's a little different between the men and the women so if the women are in the room he's thre

to stare oh ladies you're on the wrong floor third floor is the beauty Fant when the guys are in the

room he's kind of a little more Gruff which I think is really real I thought you were dead

no sense like I guess what mov me about this script was envisioning Clint playing that role and

how to me it just seems like the perfect role for the perfect actor at this time of his life I think

it's really great that he's playing a role that's very age appropriate I thought that would be fun

I'm going to play my age say I went to a charity and I got this caramelized corn and it was really

terrific stuff guys can't accept this kind of stuff oh you'll be doing me a great favor if you

would I've got diabetes I can't have it love it down at the station and the gals upstairs they'll

love it too the mule also reunited Eastwood with one of his favorite collaborators Bradley Cooper

because of American Sniper and their Bromance it's fun to see the chemistry that they have and

they have so much respect for each other they can Bounce Around ideas and it feels natural because

they are friends and one of the best scenes in the movie is in the Waffle House when they both have

to reveal how they screwed up Jesus I'm an idiot a Miss birthday anniversary and the most important

thing I learned that the hard way my daughter won't even speak to me haven't talked to him

in 12 and A2 years like they were never there or something thank you for the advice it's good to

talk to one of you guys once in a while you guys there were two times on the set where um I just

couldn't stop crying watching him work even when I was in the scene with him where my character

is certainly should not be crying so I had to like walk away just watching him entrenched in

his role and bringing all of his life experience to the character of Earl it's pretty moving you

know as you become sort of a senior person in the acting profession you get to a certain stage and

then you have to look for material that taxes you a little bit and um this one did for me as did uh

Gran Torino which was interesting because it was also a guy who was older but he was much more of a

a bigot he was a bigot against his own family wish I could help Dad I'll call you in a few and see

how you're [Music] doing killed you to by American well it's very tough to have is your dad you know

when you want to get tender and close to him he's kind of tough and stoic and doesn't open up much

I knew a lot of vets it seemed a lot of those guys would come back pissed off and kind of mad at the

world look at the way the old man glared Ashley she can't even tone it down for mom's funeral

he was on the outs with all of his relatives and he hated his neighbors and he hated any

minorities get up get off my lawn did you hear me I said get off my lawn now Mar these gang members

you know try to recruit him in the game so what do I have to do his initiation was to steal Walt

his neighbor's grino at the beginning of the movie Walt is not like us at all he's like why are you

here why are you in my neighborhood you know you need to get out but we try to become friends with

him and eventually we build a connection thanks for the ride you know something kid you're all

right but what about that dimwood brother of yours he a little slow or something and the drama begins

when w he gets submerged in the problems of these other people he gets very attached to

the people he disliked at the beginning so he gave the character a lot of places to go Walt

begins to work with ta and mans him up and teaches him how to live properly and that's when you know

they start building their relationship grabbed me a couple days ago right after I got off work

cowards where's your cousin live

no wal I I'll be okay I don't want you to do anything all right with Clint there's

so few takes that you don't really have the time to sit there and go was that good was

that right in the moment you just have to kind of trust that well since this man has

been doing this for longer than I've been alive if he thinks it's good then I have to

think it's good are you going to retaliate for what happened go in peace oh I am at

peace as a producer director and actor Clint Eastwood has made a habit of

surprising audiences both with his choice of subject matter and the variety of his

performances yeah he's got to do something for a living these days Dian ain't much of

a living boy when people think of him they think of you know the guy that's

like go ahead make my day yet Clint has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know

you going to leave me again never I think he has very highly evolved both sides of his

character he has a female sensibility in many ways a compassionate sensibility Compassionate heart

it's a hell of a thing killing a man well

I guess they had it coming we all have it down my good