Clint Eastwood’s risqué nickname for Nicholas Hoult: “I’d like you all to refer to me as that”
Nicholas Hoult has worked with some truly visionary directors. He appeared as the leading male character in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite, played a War Boy with a heart of gold for George Miller in Mad Max: Fury Road, and got cucked by a vampire in Robert Eggers’ interpretation of Nosferatu. In 2024, he added another huge name to his contacts list when he appeared in Juror #2, possibly the final movie from Clint Eastwood.
Hoult plays Justin Kemp, a recovering alcoholic on the jury for a high-profile murder case. Kemp comes across a piece of information that might sway the case, but he isn’t sure whether he should share it or not. What appears to be a slam dunk quickly becomes something far more morally complex. While far from an Eastwood classic, the movie is tense, well-paced, and well-scripted. It should have received much more praise than it did, but it was curiously poorly promoted by Warner Bros, an odd choice given that it could be the great man’s final roll of the dice.
Following his initial shock at getting the call from Eastwood, Hoult formed a strong relationship with the director on the set of the film. According to a conversation he had with Seth Meyers on his talk show, the ‘Man with No Name’ came up with a cute little nickname for his star. OK, it wasn’t that cute. Hoult said that Eastwood called him ‘Captain Lingus’, a derivative of ‘cunnilingus’, which… well, if you don’t know what that means, then this isn’t the place isn’t to learn it.
“He had seen a show I did called The Great, and my character in that is meant to be very good – he calls it his ‘tongue trick’,” Hoult explained. “And Clint really liked the show, so when I would walk on to set, he would salute me in the mornings and say, ‘Cap’n Lingus’. And that memory will forever live with me, and I’d like you all to refer to me as that from now on.” When production began on the movie, Eastwood was 93 years old. Nice to see that he’s really matured with age.
The Great is a Hulu show set during the reign of Russian tsarina Catherine the Great. Elle Fanning plays the notorious leader, while Hoult appears as both Peter III, Catherine’s husband whom she later deposes, and the recurring part of Yemelyan Pugachev, a revolutionary leader famous for impersonating the former emperor following his death.
This isn’t the only time Eastwood has unleashed his ‘wicked sense of humour’ (Hoult’s words) on one of his actors. While filming Changeling, he instructed Jason Butler Harner to actually kiss Angelina Jolie to generate a genuine reaction. That reaction ended up being Jolie slapping him in the face. That was 15 years before Juror #2, so you’d have thought Eastwood would have learned his lesson. Evidently not.
This sort of energy makes you wonder if Eastwood does have another movie in him, even as he approaches his 95th birthday. He clearly still loves working on movies and interacting with actors, to the point where he doesn’t mind offering up the odd blue nickname every now and then. Hoult seems to have found this whole thing hilarious, so if Eastwood does ever want to make another film, he can probably count on his old friend, the Captain, to back him.
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