The director Clint Eastwood always wanted to work with: “He’s never had the right material for me”
As a general rule of thumb, Clint Eastwood doesn’t tend to work with directors who aren’t Clint Eastwood. In fact, it’s only happened once in the last 30 years, making the icon the Holy Grail for any filmmaker who’d grown up dreaming of collaborating with one of Hollywood’s most formidable legends.
After headlining Wolfgang Petersen’s In the Line of Fire in 1993, a movie that he was asked to direct but turned down to focus on his performance, Eastwood basically stopped starring for other people. Outside of his uncredited cameo appearance in Brad Siberling’s family-friendly comedy Casper, Trouble with the Curve‘s Robert Lorenz is the only person other than Eastwood to have overseen one of his on-camera efforts since then.
Even at that, Lorenz did a lengthy internship as a member of the four-time Academy Award winner’s inner circle, serving as a producer, executive producer, and assistant director on 15 of Eastwood’s pictures before making his debut on the 2012 sports drama, so it was the least the veteran could do to repay his loyalty.
Going back even further, he’s only acted in three films he didn’t direct in the last four decades, and the last time he made two consecutive onscreen outings with filmmakers other than himself was when Richard Tuggle’s Tightrope and Richard Benjamin’s City Heat were released four months apart in 1984.
With that in mind, and the fact he’s in his tenth decade, it seems unlikely he’ll ever act again, never mind for anyone other than himself, which is a crying shame when Eastwood expressed his enthusiasm for collaborating with not only one of modern cinema’s defining auteurs but a lifelong fan of his work who worshipped the grizzled star from afar before becoming one of his industry peers.
“Sure, if the right material comes along,” he told the Toronto Star of taking the plunge and signing on for a Quentin Tarantino movie. “I like him very much. I’ve talked with him over the years. I’ve run across him now and then, but I’ve never really had the opportunity. He’s never had the right material for me, and I’ve never had the right material for him.”
Tarantino has spoken plainly and openly of Eastwood as his ultimate movie hero, and the latter was the jury president when Pulp Fiction won the Palme d’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. They’ve expressed admiration and appreciation for each other from afar, and it stands to reason that the Reservoir Dogs and Django Unchained mastermind would bend over backwards to get his idol into one of his films.
And yet, it hasn’t come to fruition. They’ve clearly talked about it, but with Tarantino only planning to make one more picture before retiring and Eastwood’s future as a filmmaker remaining unclear after Juror No 2, it’ll remain one of Hollywood’s most agonising ‘what if?’ scenarios.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.