A mess of gnawed-open peanut shells litters the stoop of one of the Spanish-style bungalows on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California. Since 1975, this bungalow, in the shadow of the massive Soundstage 3, has been the home of Clint Eastwood's production company, and when Eastwood and I walk up to the front door, we both notice the shells, bleaching in the hard-white late-afternoon sun.
"Those yours?" I ask him.
"Kind of," Eastwood tells me. "There's a squirrel around here. I like to put peanuts out for him. He's a nice guy. He comes right into the office sometimes. The other day, I opened the door and he was clinging on to it."
Eastwood is eighty-six now. But if you think he's devolved into that old man on your block who walks around talking to squirrels, you're dead wrong. Eastwood does not stop. Never has. Twenty years after most guys would be in full-on coast mode, Eastwood is still vital and vibrant, still pushing himself creatively. The guy is an inspiration, a reminder that we should always be evolving.
Most days you'll find Eastwood here, at his office, doing what he likes to do, what gives his life meaning: work. Or, more accurately, creating. Over the past few weeks, he has been holed up in one of the editing bays here, his six-foot-three frame splayed out in an old brown Barcalounger, working with his editor to finish Sully, the thirty-fifth film he's directed in a career that stretches back to 1955. Sully, which stars Tom Hanks as Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger, the pilot who landed his disabled plane in the Hudson River in 2009, is like many of Eastwood's films of late—the story of a man who takes action and does what is right but suffers consequences at the hands of second-guessers.
Sully shares a September release date with another film about a man who stands up for what he believes is right: Snowden. Directed by Oliver Stone, it tells the story of Edward Snowden and features Eastwood's son Scott as Snowden's superior at the NSA. It is the biggest role to date for the thirty-year-old. And let's be clear: It's not easy being Clint's son, let alone taking up the family business. And then there's their fifty-six-year age difference. For much of his childhood, Scott lived with his mother, Jacelyn Reeves, in Hawaii (Clint fathered him out of wedlock), and the two men didn't spend any real time together until Scott moved to California to live with his father during high school. In the past few years, however, they have grown closer, especially after Clint cast Scott in a small part in Invictus. A few minutes after Clint and I sit down in the study of his wood-paneled office, underneath an old French-language movie poster for All Quiet on the Western Front, Scott arrives.
ESQ: Your movies have similar themes. Sully stands up for his principles against people who want to take him down. And Snowden stands up for an entirely different set of principles. Both films arrive at a time when we are looking for individuals with integrity.
Clint Eastwood: Well, we have a great lack of it now. It's a madhouse out there. You wonder, what the hell? I mean, Sully should be running for president, not these people. Scott's movie sounds fascinating. I want to see it because it's about deserting your country … for whatever reasons you have. Snowden became famous for the wrong reasons, as Sully became famous for doing something spectacular.
Scott Eastwood: It's an interesting time. My father's definitely old-school. And he raised me with integrity—to be places on time, show up, and work hard.
ESQ: Scott, when you were growing up, you didn't see a lot of your father, right?
SE: Yeah, I lived with my mom in Hawaii until I pissed her off. And then I came to live with my dad and pissed him off. [Laughs.]
ESQ: When you were a teenager and Clint was laying down the law, did you think, This guy scares the crap out of me?
SE: Oh, yeah, sure.
CE: He was a pretty good kid. Not much of a problem. His mother gave him a lot of values, because she's a good person.
SE: She was definitely a little more understanding. You get the law laid down, you know, the ax. I look at it like weapons in my war chest now. He made me hustle, and claw, and fight. That's all stuff you want. You want that drive.
ESQ: Scott, if you were going to play your father in a movie, what would be the key to nailing his character?
SE: Well, I wouldn't have to speak that much.
[Scott and Clint laugh.]
CE: See how much you can do with so little.
SE: Yeah, right—go through the script and cut all your lines.
CE: Keep your eyes open and your big mouth shut.
ESQ: Clint, when you were about to direct yourself in Play Misty for Me, director Don Siegel told you, "Don't short yourself." You said it was advice you live by. Talk to me about that.
CE: What he meant was when you are directing and starring in a film, there's a temptation to spend more time on the other actors' performances, and then when you get to your own work, you kind of go, "Oh, yeah, well, let's cut that." And he said, "Take your time and make sure you do your work right." It's especially good advice if you're going from one career to another.
ESQ: You went from being an actor to running your own business. You were essentially the guy who created that model in Hollywood—producing and directing your own material.
CE: Yeah, I was forty the first time I directed. I formed a company in 1967, looking to the future. My dad taught me that whatever you do, do it well. Be the best at what you can do for that particular job in life. That always resonated with me.
ESQ: What advice do you give Scott when you direct him?
CE: Well, I haven't done a major project with him yet. But I'll probably be begging him for one soon enough.
SE: [Laughs.] Yeah, right.
CE: But he always came in and did a good job. And he's now graduated to better roles, and the chicks are all calling and asking where Scott is. They used to ask where I was. Now they're going, "What about Scott?"
SE: I'll take you out to the bar with me. It'll be fun.
ESQ: You could be the wingman, Clint. That's a movie I would watch.
CE: I could be the driver—the Uber guy saying, "I used to be in films years ago… ."
ESQ: A remake of Sunset Boulevard. You could be the chauffeur.
CE: Yeah, right. Erich von Stroheim. My favorite film. Have you ever seen it, Scott?
SE: I have.
ESQ: What do you love about that film?
CE: Two different styles: the style of the silent-movie actress, and then with William Holden's character, someone more contemporary. The two styles working so well together. And I always liked Billy Wilder.
SE: What I've discovered from working with my father is that I'm still learning. I'm just a kid in this business. But film is much more of a director's medium. And I've seen from my father transitioning into being a director, that's where the power lies. And, like he says, it's feast or famine for an actor. If you're not creating your own material, then you're just fighting for whatever's out there. I definitely have the desire to go to the other side.
ESQ: Clint, if you were going to look at your life as material, how would you describe the narrative?
CE: I don't look at my life too much. I'm always looking forward, not backward. A lot of times people get to a certain age and they quit. I always felt sorry for the Frank Capras, the Billy Wilders, directors like that, because they quit in their sixties. Why would you quit? Think of the great work they could've done in their sixties, seventies, and on up. I've been lucky. There's a saying that we use in golf: "I'd rather be lucky than good." Of course, to be lucky and good is the ideal. If you study hard, you can get good. And if you get lucky and get the proper parts for people to be able to appreciate what you're doing … I'm sure there are many actors that are quite talented who have never been a success because they've never had the right opportunity and the right material. My mother used to think I had a guardian angel.
ESQ: How do you, Scott, stand next to your old man but become your own man, forge your own identity?
SE: I just do what he does: Keep moving forward. You can't look back or think about that kind of stuff too much. You just keep making movies; hopefully you make some good ones. Probably gonna make some bad ones along the way.
CE: Well, he's smart. He's doing a lot of things, and you learn on every picture. And that's one of the secrets: With everything you do, learn something new about yourself.
SE: I remember something he told me early on. I don't remember how old I was when you told me this, Dad. But you said, "As an actor, I never went back to my trailer. I always hung out on set and learned." That stuck with me. I'm on this Fast and the Furious movie right now, and everyone goes back to their trailer. I stick around and say, "Why you are setting up the shot like this?" I want to learn.
ESQ: Keep your eyes open and your big mouth shut.
SE: Exactly.
CE: When I used to be a contract player in 1954 at Universal, I wasn't getting good roles. I was getting one-liners, and then I'd be gone. But I'd hang around; I'd watch guys. And when I had days off, which was most days, I'd go down and watch other sets while they were shooting. Watch Joan Crawford or whomever. Just watch how they worked and how the director handled them. I didn't know anything about making movies, and there's a lot to learn.
ESQ: Clint, your father retired when he was sixty and died at sixty-four. Does his death haunt you? Like, "If I stop working, I will drop"?
CE: Maybe. A lot of people when they retire, they just expire. It happens to men more than women. Women usually have great interest in the family, because the family's always growing and they're always coming to the rescue.
SE: [Laughs.] Are you talking about my mom?
CE: For a man, once you've sired your pups, you're done.
ESQ: You won your first Oscar, for Unforgiven, at sixty-two—the time most guys would be shifting down.
CE: I put it in third gear at that point. That project was a turning point, and I knew it when I read the story. I believe in my gut. Most people intellectualize their instincts away, but when you feel something, you have to go for it. A Fistful of Dollars was a great instinct for me, because here I was, a guy who's doing Rawhide. I'm in the saddle every day playing a screwball. And then somebody comes along and says, "How would you like to go to Italy and Spain and do an Italian/Spanish/German coproduction with an Italian director who's only directed one movie?" It wasn't like I was going there to be with Fellini. But something was there, and I thought, Well, I loved this story when it was told by Akira Kurosawa; maybe this is a good idea. That's an instinctive moment.
ESQ: Scott, do you think you've picked up any of Clint's instincts?
SE: I've tried to take every opportunity I can to learn from him. I flew to Georgia to see him work on Sully. Every chance I get, I'm trying to be on set with him.
CE: He's doing great. He's on the right track.
SE: I think he's got a knack for picking good material.
CE: You know it when you see it. But by the same token, you have to keep an open mind. It's so easy to get to a certain spot and say, "This is very comfortable." My agent begged me not to do Every Which Way but Loose.
SE: [Laughs.] That always cracks me up.
CE: And my lawyer begged me not to do it: "This is a piece of shit. It's not the kind of thing you do." And I said, "It's not the kind of thing that I've been doing—all these pictures where I'm shooting people. I want something you can take your kids to." I said, "I like this character. I think it's hip that the girl dumps the guy and it's not happy ever after." And the public loved it. If you make a couple decisions where your instincts worked well, why would you abandon them?
SE: He always told me that. "Nobody knows anything, so don't listen to anyone else."
CE: Nobody knows diddly. They just think they do. And the people that think they know the most know the least.
ESQ: Your characters have become touchstones in the culture, whether it's Reagan invoking "Make my day" or now Trump … I swear he's even practiced your scowl.
CE: Maybe. But he's onto something, because secretly everybody's getting tired of political correctness, kissing up. That's the kiss-ass generation we're in right now. We're really in a pussy generation. Everybody's walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren't called racist. And then when I did Gran Torino, even my associate said, "This is a really good script, but it's politically incorrect." And I said, "Good. Let me read it tonight." The next morning, I came in and I threw it on his desk and I said, "We're starting this immediately."
ESQ: What is the "pussy generation"?
CE: All these people that say, "Oh, you can't do that, and you can't do this, and you can't say that." I guess it's just the times.
ESQ: What do you think Trump is onto?
CE: What Trump is onto is he's just saying what's on his mind. And sometimes it's not so good. And sometimes it's … I mean, I can understand where he's coming from, but I don't always agree with it.
ESQ: So you're not endorsing him?
CE: I haven't endorsed anybody. I haven't talked to Trump. I haven't talked to anybody. You know, he's a racist now because he's talked about this judge. And yeah, it's a dumb thing to say. I mean, to predicate your opinion on the fact that the guy was born to Mexican parents or something. He's said a lot of dumb things. So have all of them. Both sides. But everybody—the press and everybody's going, "Oh, well, that's racist," and they're making a big hoodoo out of it. Just fucking get over it. It's a sad time in history.
ESQ: What troubles you the most?
CE: We're not really … what troubles me is … I guess when I did that silly thing at the Republican convention, talking to the chair …
ESQ: I didn't say it was silly.
CE: It was silly at the time, but I was standing backstage and I'm hearing everybody say the same thing: "Oh, this guy's a great guy." Great, he's a great guy. I've got to say something more. And so I'm listening to an old Neil Diamond thing and he's going, "And no one heard at all / Not even the chair." And I'm thinking, That's Obama. He doesn't go to work. He doesn't go down to Congress and make a deal. What the hell's he doing sitting in the White House? If I were in that job, I'd get down there and make a deal. Sure, Congress are lazy bastards, but so what? You're the top guy. You're the president of the company. It's your responsibility to make sure everybody does well. It's the same with every company in this country, whether it's a two-man company or a two-hundred-man company… . And that's the pussy generation—nobody wants to work.
ESQ: You've campaigned for office. If you were going to write a stump speech for this election, what would you say?
CE: "Knock it off. Knock everything off." All these people out there rattling around the streets and stuff, shit. They're boring everybody. Chesty Puller, a great Marine general, once said, "You can run me, and you can starve me, and you can beat me, and you can kill me, but don't bore me." And that's exactly what's happening now: Everybody is boring everybody. It's boring to listen to all this shit. It's boring to listen to these candidates.
ESQ: What would you like to see change?
CE: I'd say get to work and start being more understanding of everybody—instead of calling everybody names, start being more understanding. But get in there and get it done. Kick ass and take names. And this may be my dad talking, but don't spend what you don't have. That's why we're in the position we are in right now. That's why people are saying, "Why should I work? I'll get something for nothing, maybe." And going around and talking about going to college for free. I didn't go to college for free. I mean, it was cheap, because I went to L. A. City College—it wasn't like going to a major university. But it was okay. And then, you know, I didn't finish, because I decided to become an actor, ruin my whole life. [Everyone laughs.]
ESQ: What do you think of Hillary?
CE: What about her? I mean, it's a tough voice to listen to for four years. It could be a tough one. If she's just gonna follow what we've been doing, then I wouldn't be for her.
ESQ: But if the choice is between her and Trump, what do you do?
CE: That's a tough one, isn't it? I'd have to go for Trump … you know, 'cause she's declared that she's gonna follow in Obama's footsteps. There's been just too much funny business on both sides of the aisle. She's made a lot of dough out of being a politician. I gave up dough to be a politician. I'm sure that Ronald Reagan gave up dough to be a politician.
ESQ: Scott, you would never go into politics, would you?
SE: I'd leave that for the birds. [Laughs.]
CE: When I harken back to my dad, I remember we left Redding and drove down here so he could get a job as a gas jockey at a Standard Station on the corner of PCH and Sunset Boulevard. But you travel five hundred miles, bring your family, rip up everything, and do that because that's the only job that existed. So I think, What would happen if he'd have said, "Oh, I can't do that?" Well, we'd have been begging for sandwiches at somebody's backdoor. Which is, I remember, one of the most affecting things that ever happened in my life. I was a little kid, five years old, and a guy comes to the back of our house and says to my mother, "There's a bunch of wood in the back. Could I chop that up for you, ma'am?" And my mother says, "We don't have money." And he says, "I don't want any money. Just a sandwich."
[Clint goes silent; his eyes well up.]
ESQ: Does that memory haunt you?
CE: It haunts me when I think of all the assholes out there who are complaining. I saw people who really had it bad. There was no welfare to catch, to fill the bill there. The guy just wanted a sandwich. Hopefully later on he got a job somewhere. He was a guy trying to exist, and that's the way people were then.
ESQ: You got a little choked up just now.
CE: It's a strange vision, when you see desperation like that. It was for a kid—I guess I became a kid for a moment. You know, when somebody says, "I don't want anything. I just want the bare necessities to exist."
ESQ: Do you find yourself dreaming about your father?
CE: Occasionally I do. I always regretted not asking him to play golf more often or do something, you know, hang out somewhere.
ESQ: Was it hard being away from Scott when he was growing up?
CE: Yeah. I didn't get a chance to see him because I had a hot career going.
SE: He was gone; he was doing his thing. But he was there, too, you know.
ESQ: Clint, do you still describe yourself as a libertarian?
CE: I don't know what I am. I'm a little of everything.
ESQ: Politically, you're the Anti-Pussy party?
SE: That's right. No candy-asses.
CE: Yeah, I'm anti–the pussy generation. Not to be confused with pussy.
SE: All of us are pro-pussy.
ESQ: Does Clint Eastwood have a pickup line?
CE: You mean like "Come here often?" "Are you new in town?""Fool around on the first date?"
SE: I'll be sure to use that last one.
CE: I don't have any great pickup lines. I was never an extrovert, so I always had to have someone meet me halfway. If she was interested, we'd come together, and if not … When I became a movie actor and became well-known, it took care of itself. Maybe that's why I became an actor. I've always told Scott the same thing: Don't rush into anything, because there's gonna be a lot of fish in the sea. You can be one of the people that's lucky enough not to become a loser two and three and four times over like people do, just by being a little more patient.
ESQ: Collecting wives is an expensive hobby.
CE: Yeah, cut out the middleman. Just find somebody you hate and buy 'em a house.
SE: I gotta write that down.
CE: When you call your lawyer and you tell 'em, you know, "I'm gonna get married to this girl" and there's a long pause on the other end of the line, you know damn well they're thinking, "How are we gonna set this up, and then how are we gonna dissolve this?"
ESQ: Do you guys get competitive with each other?
CE: I don't think I'm competitive. I'm happy to see him do well. I'm happy that he's working. He's doing better than I was at his age, and that's the way it should be.
SE: I couldn't be more proud of him. I couldn't be more inspired by the films he makes. His movies are the kinds of movies that I want to be in. I'm just a pawn in getting to work with these great directors. I'm just trying to be in more of those types of movies.
CE: I never figured anything I made was ever gonna be a hit. By the time you're through with it, you're going, "Oh, nobody wants to see this." And that goes for even the ones that were pivotal in my life, like Unforgiven and The Outlaw Josey Wales and Million Dollar Baby. They seemed good, but by the time you're finished with them, you go, "Oh, nobody's ever gonna wanna see this." Because you've lived with it too long. I don't know if anybody is going to want to see Sully, but I don't care. I'm making it and that's it.
ESQ: Does anyone want you two to do a film together?
SE: I do!
CE: People call up and say, "There's a good role for your son in there, too." And I'll say, "Well, that's fine, but let's see what the main thing is first."
SE: Well, Dad, they used to say to me forever, "Hey, there's a great role for you in this film if you could just get your dad to say yes to the other role." Jeez, guys, come on.
ESQ: How do you deal with failure?
CE: Pay attention to the work you want to do and everything'll work out fine. If you're in it for the ego, you might be successful but at a limited level.
[At this point, Scott announces that he has to leave for a screening of the new Dwayne Johnson movie. He and Clint hug and say goodbye.]
CE: You always wonder if you could've done more. You could've spent a little more time with him, a little more attention. I had that regret when my dad died. Because it was sudden. I didn't know; it wasn't like he had an ailment or something. I used to live close enough to him that I could've dropped in a lot more. I never did and I was busy, always busy, doing all the films. My mom lived to be ninety-seven, so I compensated and I spent a lot of time with her after he went.
ESQ: How do you stay vital? You're eighty-six but still making great work.
CE: Yeah, you're as young as you feel. As young as you want to be. There's an old saying I heard from a friend of mine. People ask him, "Why do you look so good at your age?" He'll say, "Because I never let the old man in." And there's truth to that. It's in your mind, how far you let him come in.
ESQ: Have you ever let the old man in?
CE: No.
ESQ: Never?
CE: No. He ain't out there.
ESQ: You don't even hear him in the middle of the night, knocking on the door?
CE: Once in a while, you get up and you've got a crick in your back and you go, [moans]. But you shake it away and you walk it off.
