How Clint Eastwood’s first scene as a director defined his career: “It just worked out that way”
A first step is often one of your most important movements. How your foot touches down is a signal to the rest of your body of how you want to conduct the journey ahead. The same can certainly be said for a career in the arts, too. How those first moments under the spotlight play out can have a huge effect on your career, and that can most definitely be considered the case for Clint Eastwood.
Of course, Eastwood’s career is a long and storied one. He found fame on the television hit Rawhide before making his way into the world of Hollywood westerns, becoming an icon of the genre before branching out into different roles. Eastwood was rarely recognised as a generational talent when acting. He was an icon, a landmark figure, and a face to remember, but he didn’t receive the critical acclaim that would follow during the second part of his life.
As a director, Eastwood would truly flourish. Since his directorial debut with Play Misty for Me in 1971, a movie which operated as a smart little thriller that showed he could handle suspense as deftly as a six-shooter, he’s been building a catalogue of films that are unhurried, unfussy, and undeniably American. The debut movie wouldn’t be his crowning glory, but it did show him the ropes.
With his first moments on set, Eastwood would set out the stall for how he would deliver his movies. Tom Hanks once notably said he treated his actors like horses, and while that might seem tough, the truth is he allowed them to gallop when they needed to, but ultimately kept them on a tight rein, rarely allowing takes to drift beyond the first couple of iterations, and, by-proxy, keeping shooting time down to a minimum.
As he once explained, this unbothered approach started on Eastwood’s very first day: “Actually, it just worked out that way. I tell everybody I did it that way because it was my first day on the set, and I wanted somebody to be more nervous than I was, but actually I just started with that sequence because I wanted to start with something moderate, not too rough.”
Smart and ahead of the curve when it came to efficieny, and what this might mean for the success of his movies, Eastwood ploughed on: “We had three days scheduled for it, since it was Don’s first acting job, but we did it in a little over a day. He was very nervous during the first few takes, but by the second morning, he was an old pro.”
It would be more than 20 years until Eastwood would gain the recognition he deserved. 1992’s Unforgiven would yiled him hist first Oscar, picking up the gong for ‘Best Director’ a claim he would reproduce in 2004 with Million Dollar Baby. And while those achievements likely stand taller for Eastwood than most of his other movies, there can be no denying that it was with Play Misty for Me that he began his journey forward.
The first step is an important one, and Eastwood made it with as sure-footed a stance as he ever had. Steady, well-balanced and most certainly breaking into a light jog, Eastwood’s first scene would define his entire career.
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