“She’s very easy to work with”: the actor Clint Eastwood would happily welcome into his family
2012’s Trouble with the Curve was the first time Clint Eastwood had been directed by somebody other than himself since 1995 when he had a brief cameo in a Poltergeist-style mirror gag in the live-action version of Casper. Moving back into strictly actor status for a picture could be a tough fit, but according to Eastwood himself, his costars made for an easy reentry – particularly the now A-list actor who played his daughter.
Eastwood told film writer Pauline Adamek that Amy Adams, who played the lawyer daughter to his ageing baseball talent scout in the film, was a joy to work with. “Yes, well she’s very simpatico of a person. I’ve seen her in other movies; I liked her performance. She’s very easy to work with because she likes coming to work, she’s always there and she’s very nice.”
It’s an important relationship in a film hinged on the reconnection between a father and a daughter, and it appeared the drama was real enough to theoretically cross over into Eastwood’s real life. He called Adams a “regular gal. She’s not the big hyper-model type. She looks like she could be my daughter, I think, and she’d be the type of gal that I would love to have for a daughter.”
Although Adams was no stranger to critical acclaim with roles in films like Catch Me If You Can and Doubt already under her belt, new director and veteran Eastwood collaborator Robert Lorenz said the studio initially wanted a bigger name in the part. “I really wanted Amy because I thought she had the right balance of being able to come across as soft and feminine and beautiful and at the same time really tough and someone that could stand up to Clint Eastwood on screen and also be believable as someone that is his offspring. I was so excited about casting her and her agreeing to doing the movie, I was thrilled.”
So what was the trouble with The Trouble with the Curve? Ultimately, the critical reception of the film itself was mixed, with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus calling it predictable and underwhelming. However, an easy chemistry between Adams and Eastwood was frequently touted as one of the The Trouble with the Curve’s high points.
Speaking to The Guardian, Adams was equally effusive in her praise of her costar, and his ease of manner with his long-time crew: “He’s very warm and generous, and there’s a great humility about him. I’ve worked with people who project a lot more sort of masculine intimidation naturally – and that’s not him at all. I think also, having worked with all these people on his crew together for so long, he’s not at all guarded with them on set, so it makes the day go quickly and efficiently, and gets you through a lot of set-ups.”
A then 82-year-old Eastwood was in retrospect just revving up for another act in his career, with the last decade seeing the prolific director churn out a series of sometimes controversially received films like American Sniper, Sully, Richard Jewell, The Mule and Cry Macho – the latter two of which saw him finally back out in front of the camera. However, the world has yet to see another collaboration between Eastwood and Adams.
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