Original subtitles

I've always said that I have learned

something new on every picture.

Not only about picture making, about personalities

with crew and cast, uh, but also about yourself.

He's a good guy.

And you see that in his films.

The camera kinda doesn't lie about that kind of thing.

There's no doubt that he's the link

from the cinema that I grew up with

and loved to the modern day.

What else is he gonna do?

Cause he surprised us so many times.

Life is exciting to him.

He always wants to try something new.

I think Clint Eastwood has a style of directing

and dealing with people but he's a style in progress.

He'd be the first person to say he doesn't know everything.

He'd be the first person to say he makes mistakes.

He's proved something about the difficulty of achievement.

Dedication to a principle.

The willingness to always learn more.

Not just sit and collect your check.

He's quietly competitive beneath the creativity

and, uh, gentle nature that he has.

Uh, he's very driven.

He continues to astonish all of us who thought

we got the idea of what a Clint Eastwood was all about.

The second we try to pigeonhole him

he does something else to make us eat our words.

Time and time again you'll see him know

the kind of influence that he has on people.

And he will in the subtlest ways make them comfortable.

There's a lot I'm curious about him. I'm not sure he's tellin'.

I think he's inspirational.

I've waited 75 years for this.

I think Clint has changed the paradigm of his own image

several times in his lifetime inside this business.

I think he understands that stagnant equals death.

His mind is always open to the intake of creativity.

Alright, ready? Go ahead.

He's interested in the stories.

Some people take jobs, he didn't have to.

He just takes it 'cause he's interested.

And one of the things that makes him

most wonderful to me is, I like to see somebody

come out of the shadows, as it were, and fool everybody..

...with how good they are.

Get off my lawn.

Thought you might be interested in training me.

I don't train girls.

You wanna leave your husband?

No.

Well, I guess I had it coming.

We all have it coming.

When I was a young, uh, contract player

back in early 50's, I used to go down

to the sound stages mainly to watch the actors.

I was trying to learn all

about the acting profession but I was always curious

about the directors and curious about

how they were, uh, putting it together.

He didn't wear jodhpurs and a cowboy hat

and smoke and have a lorgnette.

He didn't go for the trappings of it, he just did it.

I think he was maybe just born with that kind of creativity.

The few things that he told me..

...being a pool boy, his dad running the filling station.

Money was tight and he grew up understanding

the economy of scale.

He has a really good understanding of people

and of how complex we are as human beings.

There's, um, a seemingly simplicity to the style.

Let's just, uh fire one off and see where we are.

His personality as a filmmaker is not forced on you.

The things that he'd, he is directing

he cares a great deal about.

He just trusts his gut and it probably started early

on in "Rawhide" and Hollywood and start with nothing

and, uh, you know he earned his way into a great situation.

In the late 50's, when I started on "Rawhide"

you had different directors

every week coming and doing a show.

You start finding out what you like and what you don't

about various characteristics that directors have.

Finally one day, I started thinking

I oughta try this myself.

And he began to realize, you know I could do this.

I'm not putting words in his mouth but he..

...realized I have the heart for it.

The first time I worked for Clint, the history

that I knew of Clint was "Rawhide."

Because as a little girl, my sisters and I would watch

"Rawhide" and we would get to be the different characters.

My sister got to be "Rawhide", the other

got to be the girl, I was the cook.

Um, but, we loved him.

The directors that influenced him most

were, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel.

They're such different directors

but you see Clint's movies and you can see

the impact about those talented gentlemen had on him.

How was Sergio Leone able to influence?

I'm not exactly sure how he did it.

But if you look at the mechanics of those movies

they didn't rely on a lot of dialogue.

But he was great. He had a very vivid imagination.

When we did the first one, he didn't shoot many close-ups

being from television I said, well you know..

I'm playing kind of a crazy character, you got to..

So instead of doing the close ups like this

he'd do close-ups like, you know he'd go.

He'd do everything in very broad strokes.

The way he approached things was so unusual

he almost had a child-like glee, uh, about things.

One time we were shooting in Spain

and he wanted the tree with a hangman's noose

hanging from it as sort of a threat

to anybody who's riding by.

And there were no trees in Southern Spain

and the Almeria was just desolate.

But there was this one yard that had an old big dead tree.

He goes to the house and all of a sudden

goes in their yard and has the crew there

sawing down this tree.

And the guy comes out

who owned the house and he was incensed.

So Sergio told him he was from the highway department

and that the tree was a safety hazard

'cause it would fall on the road and we had to take it out.

And here he is, an Italian speaking with an Italian accent

to this Spaniard and he convinces him

that he's from the highway department.

I came back to the States and started doing American films.

In 1970, I found this, uh, script, "Play Misty For Me."

I actually found it in 1969 and I was just fascinated by it.

I know when he did, "Play Misty For Me"

that he had gone to Universal and made a deal

so he could direct his first movie.

And he said, "Yeah, that's fine."

And I was completely surprised

and my agent Lenny Hirshan was there with me

and he came to me and says, "Yeah, there's just one

"additional thing that they forgot to mention.

"They don't want to pay you anything."

To me, I said, they shouldn't.

They shouldn't pay me anything, I'll pay them.

I said if they should make, I should have to prove myself.

What do you want, Evelyn?

One coke.

I tell you tonight, I'm really ripped.

I think the first time I knew Clint Eastwood

beyond his iconic status as an international matinee idol.

Was when I saw, "Play Misty For Me."

For the first time and along with the rest of Hollywood.

Clint was overnight, we all recognized Clint.

You know to be a fantastic filmmaker

and someone who is really a storyteller

and not just an actor who's job was to tell

someone else's stories.

When he started working with Don Siegel

he started to get hinged to the other side..

...the other side of the camera.

He really did kind of watch Don Siegel a lot

and learn the kind of basic craft of making movies.

He was just a terrific guy.

He didn't waver from his confidence.

He liked what he liked and he moved on.

If something wasn't working, if you could offer something

to improve the scene, he was the first guy to grab it.

He used to joke, he said, "Yeah, anybody, the janitor

"can give me an idea. If it's a good, I'll steal it."

They had a great relationship together

and they worked on, you know, quite a few films together.

And then Siegel was in "Play Misty For Me."

Uh, I think as a bartender.

I gave Don a part 'cause I thought it would be fun.

I said, "you wanna play this bartender? He says, I would.

"He said he'd like to but he said you should have

"a really good character to do it.

"I said, no, no, I was kidding, half kidding but maybe

"I was half serious too, You'll be better for it

and more understanding of actors for playing it

and I'll have you there in case anything goes wrong.

I copied from Don Siegel a technique that he used.

I would write down all my notes

on the opposite page and then I get it all planned out.

I said I think I got this.

I turned out the light, sitting there

and I'm almost going to sleep

and I wake up and say, "wait

"I've got to speak and command. I've got to be ready to go."

So I turned on the light, sit back up, go through it

from a whole other perspective.

Then I realize this ain't an easy job

doing both things.

But then after a while you get used to it.

The whole thing will be converging

and start moving.

I really don't understand how people direct

and act at the same time.

And then to produce, direct and act

all at the same time

is a pretty daunting task.

If you're an actor and you start to direct

it must give you a great appreciation

for how hard the director's job is.

I feel if you're an actor

only an idiot wouldn't know how hard a director's job is.

It was interesting having your co-star be your director.

It's nerve-wracking just because he is Clint.

He's an anomaly, he's a legend.

It's hard because you're looking at Clint Eastwood.

And then you get into your groove

and I started seeing him as his character

and yet then he was also directing me.

You don't even know you're being directed.

Boss.

That little house we talked about.

- 'I bought it.' - Well, smart girl.

'For my mama.'

Okay.

His ability to see and watch while he's acting with me

is nothing short of astonishing.

I never felt him directing me

while acting a scene together.

Except once, a scene in the kitchen

talking about his exploits in Africa.

For an actor, there's no more disconcerting

feeling than knowing that the person you're in the scene

with has absented himself.

He was watching... the movie.

Ha ha ha.

He was watching me but wasn't in the scene.

I said something because I've never felt that before.

And he said you're right.

You're right.

It'll never happen again, it never did.

When he's directing a movie that he's in

he really understands the pitches

that he hits really well.

And he sets himself up to succeed.

Girlie, tough ain't enough.

When people think of him they think of

the guy that's like, "Go ahead make my day."

You know like comin' out with guns

and, uh, Dirty Harry and, um...

yet Clint has one of the biggest hearts

of anyone I know.

We were friends.

And I one day was with Clint and I said

I've got this NBC series called "Amazing Stories"

and you know Scorsese is going to direct one.

I gave him a list directors, feature directors

to make these half an hour television

anthological stories and I offered him something

that I had written myself called "Vanessa In The Garden."

And he liked it.

And he, uh, and he mounted it

and he directed it and he cast my mother in it.

As a glorified extra.

It's among the greatest thing he ever did for my family.

Getting my mother on television for the first time.

Only Clint Eastwood could do that.

I don't think Clint takes himself so seriously.

He takes the business seriously but not himself seriously.

Sometimes it was hard to, uh, get a take on the first

because everybody's laughing.

That's very important, it infuses a film with spirit.

Even if it's a sad scene, everybody's havin' fun..

...then, then the audience is all the closer.

I don't like contention and bells ringing, people yelling.

I like everything to be smooth.

It should be, if it isn't fun we shouldn't even be there.

We were doing a scene with a guy.

I guess the guy was a little nervous.

He was a little unsure of himself.

Clint took aside and said, "sometimes it helps

"if you could screw up a little bit."

'Cause it'll make the guy feel like, if Kevin's screwing up

"then anybody can screw up and I can do better."

And I was like, what, it's a really interesting idea.

So the next take, you know, I went in and I flubbed my line.

And sure enough, the guy got better.

He got stronger.

I went in and did another take and flubbed my line.

Clint said, "okay that's enough screwing up."

On "Unforgiven" it occurred to me

that there was a time when a bunch of studio heads

came up to the film and Clint had his helicopter

up there in Canada.

He had his pilot fly them down to the set.

It was no big deal.

They weren't pressuring me or anything.

When they called lunch, Clint looked and he says

"Want to go for another ride?"

And I said, "Yeah, sure."

So we go out and Clint was qualified in the helicopter.

We both get on then..

...in the helicopter.

And through the front Plexiglas window

you could see that the four to five studio types

standing there on a hill.

You know, what in the world are these two guys

goin' up in this, uh, helicopter.

Ha ha ha, I loved it.

Okay, get ready and go.

The only time I ever saw him rouse himself was when I heard

there was a slight noise outside

the kitchen where we were shooting.

Someone moving a truck, you know, just trying

to anticipate his every need.

Uh, down the lane and he heard, "Rrrr"..

...and he just yelled.

I'd be terrified to see his temper.

Technical difficulty.

Honing up things.

Something they couldn't get right.

And it was holding them up.

And his anger's suddenness like an explosion.

"Fix it."

That's the only time I've ever seen him..

...get anywhere beyond placid.

I've seen his disappointment in people

and he, and when that happens..

...I've seen this sort of, the icy side of him.

And, uh, I've seen him do that to somebody

and I just never wanted to be in that vision myself.

When he yells, it so shocked everyone.

We all had to go lie down. It was really..

He doesn't question the choices he makes.

He just had that sly confidence

that this is gonna happen.

I think it comes from the roles that he did over the years

before he decided to direct.

You're thinking, did he fire six shots or only five.

To tell you the truth I forgot myself in all this excitement.

Clint came along with the right product

and the right story and character.

I think the audience just really..

...like a magnet attached itself to it.

It's a fantastic character he created and it's iconic

and it's part of American lore.

Cinematic lore.

He was crossing over a line, they caught a wave

at the time that kind of idea of lawman as judge and jury.

You have this extraordinary persona

that is also, um... in these films

going from, uh, the Leone pictures to "Dirty Harry."

Also has a range, he's got a range.

You'd wanna see a Clint Eastwood picture.

Didn't matter who directed.

You'd go see that persona you want to be in that presence.

I remember Don Siegel was sick and it was this day

they were shooting the scene where there's a jumper.

Clint ended up directing that sequence.

The guy goes up on a, one of those telescopic cranes

to get the guy off and he talks him down

in rather an unorthodox way.

'I'd like your name and address. That's all.'

Why?

Like I said, it's such a mess down there afterwards.

Makes identification impossible.

Even if they find your license

all that blood and everything.

I think..

I think I'm gonna... puke.

Oh, now don't do that, son.

I mean all those people down there lookin' up.

Fire chief lookin' up, his face. Ha ha.

You rotten bastard.

He's still the guy that when you're with him

having lunch or whatever

people will... in equal measures say there's Clint Eastwood...

...as, there's Dirty Harry.

Clint was so popular after that movie

he probably could've been elected president.

To break through the molds of Rowdy Yates from "Rawhide."

And then all the Sergio Leone pictures.

And then his own, you know, triumph

as a western actor and director

with "Outlaw Josey Wales" which is one of the most

brilliant westerns ever made in my opinion.

With Josey Wales, Clint had completely escaped

the shadow of Leone in some ways.

It's a story about a man who lost his family.

To me it was sort of ultimate man wronged kinda thing.

Help, Josey!

The effects of war on this particular

on everyone but this particular individual and betrayal

to the point where he wants to become a total recluse.

In Josey Wales he tends to attract a group of

ne'er-do-wells and misfits.

That's a recurring theme in some of Clint's movies.

I was just wondering, I suppose that mangy redbone hound's

got no place else to go either.

Well, you might as well ride along with us.

Hell, everybody else is.

You listen to, uh, a lot of Clint's movies

there are things that he's saying in there

that are very pithy deep.

It's quintessential Clint

in terms of the character, in terms of the story.

Are going to pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?

I liked, uh, the saga with the movement

of it, the traveling of it.

It was one of my favorite films that I've done.

It kind of breaks the trend "and he rode off into the sunset."

And I'm not sure, you know, if there was some

inherent message that the loner ultimately has to join

for the world to succeed.

It's for other people to judge the work.

And it's other people to judge where I come from.

It's more fun that way.

Despite the things that everybody knows about him

I think he's a pretty, um, complicated guy.

I like the way he operates and I want to..

...I want to be like Clint.

Imagine that dude at a poker table

and you know it's the, uh, it's the guy you know is gonna..

...that guy's gonna wind up with all the money in my pocket

I know it somehow and he's not sayin' a word.

I think Clint is incapable of boredom.

I don't think he's bored about anything.

Look what he's got. He's got Dina, he's got his kids.

He's got his lifestyle, he's got his art.

And he's got his music.

And he loves musicians.

And he loves singers.

And he and I for years

we've always sat around talked about Billie Holiday

and Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan

I mean, that's his thing.

He was a piano player for singers.

He loves that.

His love for jazz and the way he expressed it

in burden and the way jazz

has become a kind of leitmotif of a lot of his work.

That is the greatest relaxer I can imagine anybody having

in their lives and music is such a wonderful way of

just I guess..

...chilling.

He'll collaborate with an orchestrator

and other composer but the main themes

Clint Eastwood writes himself.

He wrote the theme for "Unforgiven."

In "Mystic River" he wrote the whole score.

He wrote the whole score for, uh, "Million Dollar Baby."

He wrote the whole score for, uh, "Flags of Our Fathers."

Writing music for the movie is another way for him to say

well, look, this is a personal movie.

Not only did I, I didn't write the story

but I interpreted the story as a director

and now I'm gonna interpret the story musically.

As you read his script, as you start to see it realized

the better directors find the music in it.

They don't know the specific piece

that they're gonna use but I think they get

a pretty good idea of the, um, the mood or the, uh, the tone.

If you are a musician, certainly

and even if you have a great appreciation for music

it's sort of there as you walk, as you talk

as you think in your moments of silence.

There's some kind of interlude or some kind of score

for your life that's kinda like, you know, um, floating there

in your subconscious and I think that

that is certainly the case with him.

So it should go real fast.

Shew-shew-shew!

We read this often that

he's gotten better as a director

uh, as he's gotten older.

As his filmmaking has evolved and matured

his characters have matured and become more complicated.

"Mystic River" comes to mind immediately.

"Unforgiven" comes to mind

in the same sort of mental breath as-as "Mystic River."

'Ready, 548 take one.'

It was a interesting project

I was looking for somebody to rewrite a script.

A girl I knew on the lot here was a reader

for Warner Brothers.

She said if you want a really good writer..

...you ought to read this story by, uh, David Peoples.

The option was running out.

I guess it was the day it ran out

that we got this call from Clint Eastwood.

I said, well, uh, I'll take that.

But this was 1985..

...and, uh, he bought the film outright.

But I didn't wanna do a western at that time I had done a few.

And I felt that I'd like to, uh, maybe sit on it for a while.

Maybe it'd be better to play this character when I was older.

All of a sudden I see he's making this western

called "Pale Rider" and I was very disappointed

that he was making something different.

I put it in a drawer and went through the whole 80's

without even thinking about it.

I think I had talked to him once or somethin' about

a rewrite on the telephone

and he said he was gonna get to it.

1991, I took it out of the drawer

and said and I reread it and fell in love with it

all over again. And said "This is the time to do this."

He did want a couple of scenes rewritten.

And, uh, I wasn't crazy about the ideas

but I was a little intimidated about the idea of..

I could get pretty feisty but I wasn't gonna be feisty with him.

I started rewriting things and I found out

the more I screwed with it..

...the worse it was getting.

I said, I'm doing what Siegel used to call

killing it with improvements.

And, uh, this is just really good, I don't know why

I'm fiddling around with this.

When he showed me this cut of the movie

I said, uh, "Rewrites aren't there."

And he said, "Nah, it was better the first time."

And that... I tremendously appreciated

because one of the things in this business is..

...things just get worse and worse as you keep rewriting 'em

and nobody can ever stop, right?

And he has that wonderful restraint.

I think "Unforgiven" is one of my favorites.

"Unforgiven" that's the first Clint Eastwood movie

I'd ever seen.

"Unforgiven" is a really classic movie.

And I think that, um, it's interesting

but I think great westerns depend on their literacy.

Not on their gunfight.

A compassionate heart and a sensibility that was not

what you would imagine as knee-jerk masculinity.

An eye for an eye.

Make my day.

He saw a different way of doing films

and wanted to do more serious films.

Because he'd done all the other films.

As you get older, he says, there comes a time

in a man's life when he can't just beat up every person.

Age-wise where it's believable...

...to, uh, the public.

As you mature in life and other areas

you mature in your work.

You should be learning and getting better.

If you start getting worse then you should maybe join AARP.

"Unforgiven" was a changing film for Clint's career

for a lot of our careers that worked for him

because the film got seven nominations.

Got four Academy Awards and really the critics

and the world looked at him doing films differently.

No, that's not "Dirty Harry" wait, okay, it's alright.

Good, people grow.

They continue to evolve.

But the other films were more genre films

and we just went out in the days, in 42 days and shot them.

He took more time with us because I think he..

...he felt this might be the, the western

that might be his career.

I got the job because he asked me to do it.

He owns me from that moment on.

I got to Alberta and we met and we shook hands.

It was like I was meeting an old friend.

And when we started working together well it's..

...was like putting on an old pair of shoes.

I didn't like the idea of having to play a, a tough cop again

you know, and, um, kind of a badass kind of a guy.

You've been talking about the queen again.

On independance day.

Clint talked to him about it and said his idea was

what he was gonna do with that script was be more

character driven and Gene Hackman, uh..

...agreed to do it.

I believed in him enough finally that I thought maybe

he would find, and help me find something to make it

make the role interesting.

And, uh, for Gene Hackman it was a great move

because he ended up getting an academy award for it.

You'd be weaning money out of Missouri..

...killed women and children.

That's right.

I've killed women and children.

Killed just about everything that walks and crawls

at one time or another.

And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill.

For what you did to Ned.

He's not afraid there to

take on a really hard character.

And, say, "Yes, that's me. That's who I am."

You killed those women and children. "That's right."

"Now I'm gonna have to take you down."

To take the, you know, the western in a different direction

making the hero a bad person.

But he knows he's gotta..

He doesn't want to do it because his wife

used to really get upset..

...about that, and he really feels bad about it

but he's gotta do it.

Misfire. Kill the son of a bitch.

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..

...in "Unforgiven."

There's a ruthlessness..

...you know?

There's a ruthlessness involved.

The individuality in order to, um, survive.

I came on the set one day and he said I got a problem.

Yeah, if you hit this thing..

For whatever reason the scene that was scheduled

uh, we couldn't do it.

The actor didn't show up or something. I can't remember

quite what it was.

So he says, can you go to scene 35, you know blah blah.

And I said, I don't know I haven't looked at it.

So it was a couple of pages of dialogue.

And I said, well, I'll try it, you know..

...and he was so good about that

because he had to do that scene that day.

And he was so thoughtful and so understanding

of what an actor goes through when you're searching for lines

and you do something unexpected like that.

I really, uh, I really loved him for that.

I know that when we finished "Unforgiven" we walked back

to our office and he sat on the couch across me

and he says "I hope we have an audience for this film."

Because I was so emotionally involved in it and everything

I thought it was fantastic.

But somehow I didn't think anybody else was gonna get it.

And I was stunned at what he'd done.

It was exactly what I'd written and I was overwhelmed.

But again I thought..

...poor Clint Eastwood, he made this movie.

Only the writer's gonna be the one who likes it.

I-I think "Unforgiven" will stand for a long time.

As... the last great western.

It was a long time before he made the movie.

But it was worth the wait.

It was just kind of one of those things

where it's destiny was to be in the 90's.

As a filmmaker..

...he's like "High Plains Drifter."

He's just drifting.

He just goes from experience to experience.

He's not intellectual about "I gotta make a story

in this genre, in this style."

He waits for something to wash over him.

He waits for a book, a script, an idea.

I guess that's the special thing, that's the good thing.

That's the thing that should be lauded, you know.

In a town that wants conformity, you know

a town that wants the same product we packaged

that Clint has chosen the path he's chosen.

- That's good. - Let me see that close-up.

I think that his films to me...

purely as a viewer, not as an actor

that's worked with him, but just as a movie consumer

have a unexpected level

of depth and complexity

that somehow he's able to tap into again and again and again.

Basically, you have to trust your own feelings

your own instincts and your own taste

in judging material.

Because, uh, that's all you have to go by.

If you try to start pre-thinking

what other people are thinking, you're not..

You're gonna get yourself in a real confused state.

He's been a Mayor for Pete's sakes.

He was an actor, he did the spaghetti westerns.

He did the "Rawhide." He does TV.

His family just did a reality show.

He directs all kinds of different film.

He doesn't seem to say, "No."

He seems to say "Why not?"

Take.

I'd bought the book

which was a very popular book at the time.

It was on the best-seller list for years I think.

We were looking for a director to tell the story.

And my first choice was Clint.

So, uh, yeah, just, just go ahead.

There was no real precedent

to make it an easy choice for me to say

"Oh, Clint made a movie like this

or perhaps he'd like to make this one."

Since there are so many connections or similarities.

I don't think this was similar to anything

he'd ever done before. That's the reason I went to him.

And I was also hoping he'd agree to play Kincaid

the main character.

Well, it was Clint's idea to cast Meryl.

When we sat around in our first couple of meetings

to decide who we were gonna get.

Clint only had one choice.

He said, "I'd like to see what Meryl thinks of this."

I didn't know anything about it except the books.

You know, "Romeo and Juliet" was taken from an earlier source.

That play nobody remembers.

But it's what Shakespeare did with the same plot, same story

but it's just how you tell the story.

I was just picking you some flowers.

Oh.

Men still do that, don't they?

Am not out of date, am I?

Picking flowers for a women, a sign of appreciation?

No, not at all.

Except, those are poisonous.

I think he saw an opportunity for himself to reveal something

that was another dimension to his fans that already bought

a certain character from him.

I think he has very highly evolved

both sides of his character.

He has a..

I don't know if anybody else would agree with me.

But he has a..

...female sensibility in many ways.

I don't want to need you.

What?

Because I can't have you.

I really didn't realize...

...how vulnerable he had let himself be in that role.

And that's not something you just unpack from your kit bag.

That has to reside somewhere in you.

And yet he has this image of this sort of uber man.

- Gotcha! - Oh!

I think he's a harsh judge of himself.

He-he sure was.

And a little bit of it was... bullshit, you know.

Little bit of it was just trying to make everybody feel at ease.

After each take..

...of his own, he'd say, "Well, that was adequate."

You know, ha ha ha.

There was a scene in the kitchen, a big fight scene.

He was at the counter and he turned away from me.

And I could see he was really upset.

The scene never made it into the film.

And I said..

"Why would you..

"Why would you turn away the envelope?

"We know they would come your way

if you put this obvious beautifully played scene."

And, uh, he assessed it as "Not right."

The director assessed it as "Not right" for the film.

Where the actor might've wanted all the... accolades.

And roll it!

'Call it in.'

For a man, especially a man who walks in our business

with the persona that he owns

to rip open his chest that way.

But he felt, for the film..

...it was best that it not be there.

That's, that's a really seer kind of intelligence

and a willingness to be..

...cold about your own work.

Well, ego..

Well, it kills all of us.

Certainly in terms of creativity.

Because you have to let things go.

Sometimes in letting something go

you find something really lovely, brilliant and creative.

And it may not be something really big

but... something will replace it.

And he doesn't wanna miss that fresh moment

of anguish, humor, mistake that turns out to be fantastic.

The stumble you might do

that says everything about your character.

He loves that stuff!

Once in a while you get a surge.

You get a little surge of two or three scripts in a row

and you think you'd like to do all of them.

In the early 2000's, I... as fast as I'd finish one picture

I'd, uh, somebody'd give me another script that I like.

So, sometimes I'd be preparing one I liked

and I was editing one I also liked.

I kinda went through that when I was doing "Mystic River"

we were working in the editorial room

at the same time I'm reading "Million Dollar Baby"

and I liked that, so..

Yeah, I'll do that, I'll do that next, so..

I'm preparing one as I'm starting another

and I went through a little period like that.

The first reason to want to do "Mystic River" for me

was Clint. I love the idea of directors who have

a kind of continuity with their actors.

You know, one thing that was really, really different

was that he expected all of the performers

to have done our homework

and to come to work ready to go.

You're not gonna have rehearsal

and you're not gonna maybe go through

the same sort of process that you've now come to expect.

You know, "I'm gonna have endless conversations

"with the director or the writer

about my character and you know, with Clint..

...you know, I had one conversation.

He once came up to me and Lawrence

and said "That's good, you guys. Little faster."

And, I was like "Wow, I think that's the first piece

of direction I got." And that could've been the last.

Little faster.

If you look at "Mystic River" it's even more impressive

because almost everything you see in that is first take.

Well, let's call it creativity

because that's, I think, that's what it is.

That's his form of creativity

that he understands that many times

on a first take you'll get something fresh

that you wouldn't get on Take 8 or 9 or whatever.

There's real respect for imagination and the hard work.

But there's no "Let's just go again.

Twelve more times, just to see what happens."

For a certain kinds of actors

that's the best kind of vote of confidence.

And so all of us..

...me and Sean and Kevin

and Lawrence and Marcia Gay and Laura, we were scared.

We didn't wanna be out there

with that one take that sucked, you know.

So... we all practiced.

When he wants one more take

it's gonna cause tremendous panic in the room.

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? Why does he want one more take?

He always walks away after two."

If Clint wants one more take

that third take everybody's gonna be their best

they've ever been in their careers... to please him.

I'm not going anywhere!

'Is that my daughter in there?'

"Mystic River" is a very sad film.

A dark world in which vengeance has to be taken.

It's like the tragedy of the everyday.

People's lives, the ones that are on the periphery..

...the ones we don't hear about.

Get in.

'Get inside.'

I grew up in a tough neighborhood in New York City

and that kinda situation they went through..

...was omnipresent pretty much.

I had friends that had been molested as kids.

And you see the decay that happens from the start.

That ultimately is a most horrific crime

because it's a crime that visits itself upon the victim

over a course of his entire life.

In the case of "Mystic River"..

...that does, that's a transgression...

that's... incomprehensible.

He lets you find what you wanna do.

You think you're doing it on your own..

...but it's within a very clear structure that he already has.

One of the basic things that's great about him

is there's a lot of stuff we've gotten used to kind of doing.

Over the years, that are the ways that we think movies

have to be made

and he has sort of cut away a bunch of the crap.

One on the secrets of his being a really good director..

...is married to this..

...seeming..

...no pressure..

...casual, easy-going..

...is a deep prep.

He has imagined the scene.

He has scored it. He has lit it in his mind and...

..all he doesn't know is what's gonna happen in it.

Efficiency is really something we should all aim for.

Unfortunately we all have in our minds

that unless you suffer some kind of consequence

it's not ours, you know.

I think Clint has proven that wrong.

One thing I'll never forget is..

We were shooting a scene

and Tom Stern is just a great camera man.

He worked with Clint for a long time

and there was very little lighting in the scene.

It was a practical lamp sitting on a table.

And I think there was maybe one other light.

And we walked in.

Clint took a look at the scene we were about to play..

...and he just went over and said..

Just turned off one of Tom's lamps.

Just one of his, not practical lamp

like the big lamps and said "Okay, roll."

And I saw Tom, he's like, you know.

And it just, it killed me

because I thought, you know, for his eye...

he knows what he needs in terms of light in this scene.

I mostly thought to myself..

...to be a cameraman and work with him

you've got to say "Okay, that's what he wants."

At the end of the movie you got this kind of moment

where, Sean Penn's character looks at me

and he's kind of across the street

and there's a parade. I said, "What is this?

What's goin' on here? What this about?"

He wouldn't tell me, you know. He wouldn't tell me.

So... which is fine.

Because then I go, "Okay, if you're not gonna tell me

then I'll just have to make somethin' up."

When I asked him, he said that's gonna be..

...up to the audience to decide.

When people have asked me, I've sort of respected that wish.

And said, "I guess I'll keep that to myself."

It's not too, not too often that you are able to take

something like that, and you just kind of hold it.

You know, so I'm taking that to my grave.

When we got to the end of "Mystic River"

it was supposed to be a 9-week shoot

and it only took seven weeks, and I was really disappointed

that the movie was done.

I was like, I was really..

"Why can't we do those extra two weeks?"

Because it was so great, and such a great experience

and such a, you know, kinda reinvention...

for me about the way you could make a film.

The movie with Angelina Jolie.

That was the first time I worked with him.

First I was scared to call him.

Ron Howard and I were gonna call. We called him together.

And we're both on separate lines.

I've never called Clint Eastwood in my life.

And I thought, "I've got to know him a little bit."

"There's some kind of tiny bond that we have."

So we called him, got him on the phone and pitched him the movie.

And he said, "Let me take a look at it."

And then few weeks went by and he called me.

And I was actually at Steven Spielberg's house.

And he called through my office and I got him on the cell.

And he said "I think I'm interested."

And I just thought, got off the phone

and I said, "Oh my god! Ron, Steven, this is amazing!"

"Clint Eastwood's gonna direct it."

I think he's gonna direct a movie of mine.

And I was just really thrilled.

We out on the street and high-fived each other.

Every day you learn something from Clint.

You know, just the way a set is run.

The way a director can talk to people.

The way he can get performances out of people.

The way you cannot get

bogged down in details that are not gonna make

the movie any better.

You watch him work and it seems

sort of simplistic.

It's a sort of a seductive diffidence.

He sits back..

...and doesn't seem that invested in

judging its freedom that you really wanna feel.

That's something that the actors feel.

And the crew does not feel that.

I'm just going to tell you

the crew is in a different kind of vice.

Because he's so

invested in making the thing have momentum

and move quickly and organically.

When he feels that he has the scene..

...credibly, authentically..

...made by the actors.

He'll move on and..

...it strikes terror into his crew.

And so they come.

And they're on their very..

...tiptoes to be ready for anything that might happen.

Clint has for years kept his crew

together and-and it's a familiarity.

It's also he knows what to expect.

He even says, "I hire the people I feel are right for the jobs."

He lets them do their job.

He gets out of the way is what he says.

He comes to the set

and usually they start around 9 o'clock.

Everyone's prepared.

You got a good night's rest. You do your work.

How are we going home by 2 o'clock in the afternoon?

How is that possible?

Clint cares about the people

with whom he's working. It's, it's a, it is a family.

He really respects and admires and loves his crews.

He gets that a crew spends

12 to 13 to 14 to 15, come on 16 to whatever hours.

And at the expense of their own families.

So on "Space Cowboys"

Friday, Clint would have steak and lobster for the crew

from the catering and after lunch you went home.

We had to finish by four so we could

get on the golf course because..

...had to get that one shot you can never get.

I was sitting in the trailer one day

and, uh, it was lunch and one of the PA's

came up and said lunch, I thought they were gonna say

"What would you guys like?" And instead Clint said, "Let's go."

And there's a long lunch line and

usually an actor or a director

will go to their trailer and their food is brought to them

or already waiting for them.

We walked over to where the catering trucks were

and he picked up a tray..

And Clint was

you know behind, I don't know, 20 people.

And he wouldn't even think of cutting in front of anybody.

I just thought, "Oh. That's why

he gets people to work with him time and time again."

He's like, "They gotta eat too. We're all eatin'."

There's no bodyguards. There's no coterie.

There's no pomp and circumstance.

It said so much in that one moment about who he is.

You're wasting your time. 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.

I remember reading it and

from page one to the end

I thought it was perfect.

Later into the process I heard that Clint was

not only wanting to star in it, but wanting to direct it.

And I was asked to take a meeting.

We sat and we talked for about an hour.

We talked about the movie, we talked about my background.

He asked if I was an athlete.

We chatted a bit about "Mystic River"

which had just gotten nominated.

I remember actually something he said at that time

which has always stayed with me.

I congratulated him and he said

"You always aim for the bull's eye but don't always hit it.

So it's a nice thing when it works out."

And at the end of the meeting

he said, "Well, you better start trainin'."

- ...boxing with me right? - Yeah. She'll come and she'll..

- Yeah, and move around.. - And move around..

If anyone had directed "Million Dollar Baby"

I don't think it would've gotten much notice at all.

Everybody has their own ideas about what

a, a movie should be.

And I suppose executives here or elsewhere

have ideas about what their studio should be making.

There were several pictures in a row there that

studio here had doubts about.

And one of them was "Million Dollar Baby".

It's a boxing movie.

It's a girl boxing movie.

It's a girl boxing movie about a woman who wants to kill herself

in the end. I mean, who would see that film? But..

...make it a Clint Eastwood movie

and people are really curious.

It could've easily been a terrible flop.

All movies can easily be a terrible flop.

And good movies don't always do well

and bad movies sometimes do great.

So there's no rule, there's no rule you can follow.

Everybody thinks there's a rule and everybody thinks

they've got the answer, but..

...nobody has the answer.

Got any family, boss?

Well, I've got a daughter, Katie.

That's family.

We're not exactly close.

I approached it like it was a father-daughter love story.

It was the daughter he never had.

And the father she never had.

Actually it makes me emotional talking about it

because it's exactly how our relationship evolved as

director-actor, actor

um, and then how it built into a friendship.

She was successful.

But also it caused the tragedy

the picture eventually takes on.

We didn't shoot in

right in order, but we did do the hospital stuff at the end

which was good because that was when my body was deteriorating

and I stopped training.

I'm gonna disconnect your air machine.

And you're gonna go to sleep.

And I'll give you a shot and you'll..

...stay asleep.

And just at that point we had gotten to this closeness

in our relationship that I think helped with all of that

and Clint has a very special place in my heart.

Mo chuisle.

Means "my darling."

My blood.

You know, in this world we need people who believe in us.

And Clint believed in me

just like Frankie believed in Maggie.

And he gave me that gift.

And it was an extraordinary feeling

to have that support and that confidence behind you.

If I had to be done tomorrow and I could never do it again

having the experience with him

would make it okay.

He'll read a script and he'll say, um

"Yeah, this could be an interesting little picture."

If you give him something, he'll read it right away.

Which is really not something you can easily say about most

gigantic filmmakers.

They don't really know if they want to do it.

You could wait months and years to find if they want to do it.

Clint Eastwood tells you early on, you're in, you're out.

Maybe I'm a little more decisive.

I think that happens as you get, as you get

more miles on the trail.

There isn't a gray area where you'll talk him into anything.

And the older you get, I think there's something about

you know, get to a certain age and what can they do to you?

Not much.

I wish I had that low-stress approach

to finding material.

In the case of "Gran Torino" from the point he said

I like it to the point it was on movie screens was

less than a year which could be a record for a studio picture.

- Get off my lawn. - Listen, old man.

I said get off my lawn now.

I'm not gonna say it again, go in the freakin' house.

I go in that house after I've blown a hole in your head.

And I sleep like a baby.

He doesn't want anything to do with anybody

and specially people that are different than he is.

He's a guy who is very very disturbed

about the way culture has gone.

He's had a loss in the family, and, uh

he's estranged from his grown children.

And he's, uh, he doesn't like the way

the neighborhoods have changed.

This character seemed like the same age as I am.

I'm not the same curmudgeonly, I'm not quite as, uh

I'm not quite as, uh..

...as negative as, as the character.

It's always interesting to me

as people get older the work they do.

There's a different rhythm.

The writer, the actors

and him.

I think some movies

exceed your expectations

and others disappoint your expectations.

If you fail on your own terms

then at least you fail with your heads held high.

But if you fail on somebody else's terms

you're gonna hate yourself forever.

"Invictus", I thought more people would know

about Nelson Mandela

and be interested in Nelson Mandela

and how he governed when he took over the country

which is an interesting lesson in today's world.

Generations pass and..

...and they forget all about him.

At least Americans do, but Americans move on fast

to other things.

Now, push it towards him. Push it. There you go.

If the stories are becoming more complicated

the style doesn't. That's the difference.

If he's searching for more in a story

I mean he still has the ability to hold back

and not be intrusive to the image.

Other directors are intrusive to the image and it's wonderful.

This guy just doesn't wanna do that.

The style's in the same way.

Ultimately that leads to

the film that he made last year which is "J. Edgar."

Blow it down.

On "J. Edgar" what I did is.

I, I'd already had a relationship with him

because I had produced "The Changeling."

And I felt that we had a bond.

And that he trusted me, you know, just man to man.

I felt Clint might be interested 'cause it was an era

that he knows, it's about power dynamics.

It's about a complicated man.

Mr. Chairman, I urge passage of the Lindbergh law

making kidnapping a federal offense.

To immediately deliver all fingerprints in this country

to my office, so that we may create a central file.

To help arm our agents

so that they have a fighting chance

against the submachine guns of some of the most

dangerous characters in the history

of American criminality.

It's also sort of an American tragedy as well

because J. Edgar

created, formed the FBI

and he died a very lonely death.

You know for me it's like, uh

Pablo Casals playing

cello in a room by himself towards the end of his life.

That's how it sort of enveloped me.

It went into his very

essence, his being, in a way, and it was very

subversive because it sucked you in.

Before you realize, you didn't wanna leave the room

but you don't like the guy, but you're not leaving.

I've been with the bureau for seven years, Edgar.

- Almost as long as you. - No.

You were with the old bureau seven years

and that bureau is now gone, sir. And so are you.

Um, I was a little surprised that more people didn't see it.

So many pictures that people haven't gotten

and 10 years later they get them.

Biographical films, we've seen a lot of them over the years.

Some of 'em work and some don't.

There's no doubt, I think this one has a depth to it

and a staying power, that most people calm down

a little bit and try to see what the hell it was.

They'll come around to it.

Lot of times you find material that's interesting

and the public doesn't find it interesting at all.

But that's horseracing, you're still doing it

from what interests you.

And if you're out of sync with the public

that happens to everybody at some point.

But, uh, you just

you know, the old song, you know, pick yourself up

and right go back in the race.

Any criticism to Clint

you know, came under in the early part of his career.

You know, you mentioned Pauline Kael and others.

You know, he's had the last laugh.

So we're talking and he says "To tell you the truth

I still don't think I've done my best work."

I think the strength and the power come from

his gigantic desire

to, um, to be and stay relevant.

That is to me what differentiates him

from guys who really only want to sit around

talk how great that movie they did or this movie ba-ba-ba.

You know, Clint's still in the hunt.

You don't wanna be an old gummer

who's sittin' around talkin' about

how things were so much great in the old days.

They were great in the old days

but they're good on other days too.

It's what you make out of it.

I think maybe Clint is the last of the, uh

um, the last vestiges of the golden age of, uh

the Hollywood studio film.

He's one of the most successful filmmakers in history.

And he's a brilliant actor.

And he just continues to do his thing.

And, uh, you know, he's, he's laughing

all the way to the movies.

There's a body of work that will survive.

Some may be considered stronger or last longer than others.

But I think they'll always speak to

future generations because of the humanity of the films.

The ethics of the films.

Clint is a legend but he's not

carrying it around in a placard.

Maybe real legends don't

carry it around in a placard on their chest

saying "I'm a legend by God."

Wannabe legends do, but real ones don't.

Some days you can't remember somebody's name

or you can't remember something.

Is it because you're actually losing

memory and you're becoming somewhat senile?

Or is it because you just have

had so much information crammed into your brain

after 80 years

that you can't hold any more?

You'd like to think it's the latter.

But..

He loves making movies, likes to make as many as he can.

As many movies.

The possibility of retirement

once in a while it crosses my mind and then

I quickly get over it.

Of all the people I've ever met in the business

he is the closest to being both

a creative director

and a human being.

That's it.

Cut.