“If Laurence Olivier tried that, it wouldn’t work”: the one thing does Clint Eastwood better than anyone
History will always remember Clint Eastwood as one of Hollywood’s most iconic figures on both sides of the camera, even if he’s received significantly more recognition for his efforts from behind it than in front.
Even though he’s played several iconic characters who seized the zeitgeist, entered the collective consciousness, and are firmly embedded in the fabric of pop culture, Eastwood’s accolades as a filmmaker drastically outweigh his honours as a performer.
He’s won four Academy Awards from 11 nominations, but Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby were the only times he was shortlisted for his performances. He’s also won a quartet of Golden Globes from 14 nods without ever securing as much as a single acting nomination.
In fact, being named ‘Best Actor’ by the National Board of Review for Gran Torino is the closest thing he’s ever received to a major acting prize, which boggles the mind when Eastwood has been delivering memorable turns in a wide array of movies across multiple genres for over 60 years.
Maybe he was too understated for his own good. Eastwood has never been one for eloquent monologues or showy scenes designed to make the Academy’s heart flutter, and he’s happy to whittle down his own dialogue to as little as possible so that he can let his physicality and mannerisms do the talking for him.
However, he thinks he’s got everyone beat in one highly specific area. In this case, ‘everyone’ even includes Laurence Olivier, widely regarded and heavily lauded as among the finest thespians to ever grace stage and screen. Sure, he can do Shakespeare in his sleep, but can he say the world “asshole” anywhere near as well as Eastwood?
“That’s my South Oakland background,” he explained to Robert Ward in 1978 about the majesty with which he dispenses the insult, something that quickly became an integral part of his onscreen arsenal. “I have college kids come up to me on the street and say, ‘Hey, man, say asshole the way you say it in the movies.’ Kind of a working-class talisman.”
Method actors can keep their immersion to themselves, action heroes can keep their kill-related quips, and classically-trained thespians can keep their iambic pentameter; as far as Eastwood is concerned, nobody in the history of the craft has ever called anyone an asshole better than he does.
“No matter how high you go, it’s something you never lose,” he mused. “I use it, because it was from my background, a certain way I got pissed. If Laurence Olivier tried that, it wouldn’t work at all.” Those two names don’t come up very often in the same conversation when it’s tied directly to acting prowess, but Eastwood is confident he’s got Larry licked when it comes to verbal assholery.
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