The 2021 movie Clint Eastwood told his son not to make: “They didn’t want to pay me”
There are infinitely worse places to turn to for advice and career guidance when your old man is Clint Eastwood, even if he hasn’t always been willing to give his children a nepotistic leg-up.
He has, to a certain extent, because that’s how Hollywood tends to work. His daughter, Alison, started her on-camera career by making cameo appearances in several of her old man’s movies, and when she made her feature-length directorial debut on 2007’s Rails & Ties, it was a Malpaso production.
Francesca Eastwood made her acting bow in 1995’s The Stars Fell on Henrietta, which was the first movie Eastwood produced that he didn’t either star in or direct, and one of her most recent roles was in Juror No. 2. Kyle, meanwhile, while an established musician in his own right, nonetheless contributed to the soundtrack of nine of his dad’s pictures.
Even though his name was absent from the birth certificate, Scott Eastwood grew closer to his four-time Academy Award-winning patriarch as he grew older. Initially, he tried to avoid the nepo baby tag by attempting to break into acting under his given name, Scott Reeves, but it’s a lot easier to wedge a foot in the door when yer da’s an industry icon.
However, it wasn’t handed to him on a silver platter. Yes, his first feature was in Flags of Our Fathers, and he’s also appeared in Gran Torino, Invictus, and Trouble with the Curve, but Scott auditioned in front of his dad for American Sniper and wasn’t cast in the part, so he evidently wouldn’t hire him just for the sake of it.
Very few actors can hold a candle to Eastwood’s career, but even with his lineage and the pressure that comes with it, Scott hasn’t made many waves. More often than not, you’ll find him in a straight-to-video genre film or playing a bit part in a blockbuster, and when he was asked to return for several more of those blockbusters, Clint convinced him to turn them down.
The second-generation star was cast as Lieutenant GQ Edwards in David Ayer’s big-budget comic book adaptation, Suicide Squad, and when the high-earning but critically reviled superhero smash got a sequel/reboot hybrid with James Gunn at the helm, he was offered the chance to not only reprise his role, but become a recurring part of DC Comics’ shared cinematic universe, with a three-picture deal on the table.
“They didn’t want to pay me any money for those next movies,” he shared. “They didn’t have another script for the other movie, so I didn’t know what I was going to be signing myself up for.” What did he do when torn between whether to take the money and dive into the unknown or cut ties with spandex-clad crimefighters? “I called my dad.”
“I said, ‘They don’t want to pay me,'” he reflected. “He said, ‘If it feels like they really need you and if it’s a good part, then do it. If not, then don’t’. I didn’t have the answer to those questions at that time. I wasn’t going to have the answers, and they were pressuring me. So, ultimately, it didn’t happen.”
For the handful of viewers who were wondering why Scott Eastwood wasn’t in The Suicide Squad, the reason is simple: Clint told him to turn it down.
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