“You don’t hire them because they’re dummies”: the star Clint Eastwood called acting’s “ultimate example”
With 40 features under his belt in a directing career that stretches over 50 years, even actors who’ve never worked with Clint Eastwood before are fully aware of his process.
In essence, it boils down to two words: no bullshit. The filmmaker has a budget and a schedule, and he won’t go a penny or a day over either. On many occasions, he was well under on both, and even suggesting that any more than two takes is an acceptable request leaves him baffled.
Judi Dench is one of the stage and screen’s all-time greats, and she wasn’t entirely thrilled by having a pair of chances to capture her performance in J Edgar and no more. She got over it, mostly because she’d always dreamed of working with the four-time Academy Award-winning icon, and he won’t change his approach for anyone, no matter who they are or what they’ve accomplished.
He’s directed Gene Hackman, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and Hilary Swank to Oscar wins, he’s directed himself to two nominations, and he’s also steered Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Marcia Gay Harden, Matt Damon, Bradley Cooper, and Kathy Bates onto the shortlist, so it goes without saying that he knows how to bring the best out of a cast.
Not everyone can immediately get to grips with Eastwood’s signature style, with Kevin Costner being the most prominent example when he started getting a touch too big for his boots on A Perfect World, but once a performer grasps what he wants and needs from them, then it’s usually plain sailing from there.
That isn’t always the case, but there’s one star who’s mastered it better than most. “Well, you hire people because you think they’re either really close to the part, or you admire their talent, and you figure they’re going to bring to, they’re obviously, you don’t hire them because they’re dummies,” the Dirty Harry frontman informed Fresh Air.
The one thing Eastwood is adamant he’ll never do is find himself “giving acting lessons” to his ensemble. If someone forgets a line, he’ll remind them about it, and if he wants them to be more dynamic or faster, then he’ll do that, too, but he draws the line at offering explicit instructions on how the people he’s hired to play a certain part should play it.
“There’s no director on the planet, never has been, that’s going to be able to stop a production and start from scratch,” he explained. “That’s why you hire professional people. And if you’re a good casting person, which I believe I am, I like to think I am, you get people who you know can deliver. Morgan Freeman would probably be the ultimate example.”
The mutual appreciation society between the Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and Invictus collaborators has been going strong for over 30 years, and as far as Eastwood is concerned, there’s no thespian who better understands or is more adept at working under his direction than Freeman, which is a ringing endorsement from one legend to another if ever there was one.
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