“The most handsome man on this earth”: Edgar Wright’s lifelong obsession with Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood is one of those people you can’t quite believe is real. Not only has he starred in some of the most important and enduring movies of all time – he’s still the face of westerns for some people – but he’s also one of the most accomplished directors to have ever lived. The sheer diversity of his work is incredible. Who else could have made Million Dollar Baby, Invictus, and Jersey Boys within the space of ten years?
On top of all that, Eastwood is a musician, having scored several of his own films, a successful real estate developer, and he served as Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, for two years. If that weren’t enough to make you feel like a complete and utter failure, he’s also really good-looking. Well, according to one famous director, he is.
In conversation with Empire, British director Edgar Wright was asked who his favourite action star was and replied with The Man with No Name. “I think he’s the most handsome man on this earth,” Wright admitted. “Clint’s face looks like Mount Rushmore,” he said before then clarifying, “In a good way.” Simon Pegg, who was also there to talk about Hot Fuzz, chimed in with, “The older he gets, the more he looks like he should play Judge Dredd.” He failed to confirm whether or not this was meant “in a good way.”
The man who made Shaun of the Dead isn’t the only one who’s been taken by Eastwood’s looks over the years. The actor has eight confirmed children, but his history of casual relationships and extramarital affairs means that there could be even more.
The interview with Wright and Pegg was conducted in 2007 when Eastwood was a mere spring chicken at age 77. At the time of writing, the Dirty Harry star is 94 years old, but he hasn’t let that stop him. In 2021, aged 91, he starred in Cry Macho, a neo-western that he also directed and produced. In 2024, he put out Juror No. 2, his so-called “final” film. However, if there’s one thing you should never do to Clint Eastwood, it’s write him off.
Wright’s admiration for Eastwood can be seen as far back as his very first film. A Fistful of Fingers, released in 1995, is an obvious nod to A Fistful of Dollars, the first entry in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy of spaghetti westerns. Graham Low, the lead actor in Wright’s film, plays a character called No-Name, which was also inspired by Eastwood’s character in the Dollars films. Low is doing a very obvious (and often terrible) Eastwood impression throughout the film, which was designed as a send-up of the genre.
The handsome cowboy would recur throughout Wright’s career. In the aforementioned Hot Fuzz, when Nick Frost’s Danny Butterman is telling Pegg’s Nicholas Angel (or Angle) about the action films he should watch, Dirty Harry is top of the list. The movie is one of the many films Wright consulted when making Hot Fuzz, which takes action cliches and turns them on their heads.
The movie website Trailers From Hell features a video on its YouTube channel in which a baby-faced Wright talks about his love for High Plains Drifter, a 1973 western directed by Eastwood. The Brit explains that, in contrast to Eastwood’s earlier work, this film has more of a revenge plot to it, likening it to Tarantino’s Kill Bill.
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