The actor Clint Eastwood always wanted to work with: “That would be the person”
One of the many benefits of being among Hollywood’s most indelible icons on both sides of the camera is that the majority of actors would bend over backwards to work with Clint Eastwood if the opportunity arose.
Not content with enjoying a legendary on-camera career that saw him play countless iconic characters, reign supreme as one of his era’s biggest box office draws and inspire performances by everyone from Kurt Russell to Meryl Streep, Eastwood also mastered the directorial game.
The list of thespians who try their hand at helming a feature expands yearly, but it’ll take one hell of an effort for anyone to come close to Eastwood’s success on both fronts, with his incredible array of acting exploits and 40 features as a filmmaker establishing him as the industry’s greatest-ever double threat.
Judi Dench is a living legend with a sparkling career on stage and screen, but she still called the call from Eastwood to gauge her interest in starring in J Edgar as the one she’d been waiting her whole life for. If the four-time Academy Award winner comes knocking, then it’s a chance that anyone would seize with both hands.
However, he’s too much of a professional to hire people expressly because he wants to work with them. Instead, Eastwood casts his ensembles based on who he thinks makes the best fit for the character on the page, and with Juror No 2 being whispered about as his final stand, he’ll never get the chance to collaborate with the one actor who was named at the top of his wish list.
When California Conversations pressed Eastwood on the names he hadn’t worked with but always wanted to, he started off self-deprecating before getting back on track. “Well, most of them are all deceased,” he said. “I guess I think of everything in terms of the property. If I read a script and I saw Kate Winslet, I would think that would be the person I would love to have for it.”
“If you cast a movie well, and I’m not the first guy to ever say that, then you’re 90% there,” he explained. “If you have a good story but you miscast it, you put yourself in an uphill battle.” It’s hard to think of a role where Winslet has ever been miscast, which comes with the territory when the Oscar winner has spent the last three decades repeatedly proving her credentials as one of the very best.
If Eastwood ever gets around to making one more picture, then maybe he should go out of his way to get her involved. After all, the list of names in Hollywood who’d ever reject overtures from someone of his standing is one of the smallest in the business, even if there are no guarantees he’ll wield the megaphone again.
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