The scene inDirty Harrywhere I’m eating a hot dog in that shootout, that’s a steal."
Same thing with an actor.
You’ve got to act every day.
Krause, Johansen/Everett Collection
OnGran Torino, I hadn’t acted in a while, so I told everybody to bear with me.
An old horse has to warm up coming out of the gate."
Yojimbo
Eastwood considers 1964’s spaghetti WesternA Fistful of Dollarsthe most important film of his career.
Krause, Johansen/Everett Collection
Alfred Hitchcock
Eastwood has met most of Hollywood’s biggest legends.
But a certain person stands out as the strangest.
I wasn’t nuts about the script.
Everett Collection
I had lunch with him in his office.
When I walked in, he was sitting there very erect and he didn’t even move.
Only his eyes did.
Everett Collection
They followed you across the room.
He had the same thing for lunch every day a steak and some sliced tomatoes."
“Of course my first question was, ‘Why didn’t he want to do it?’
Terry O’Neill/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
I didn’t see it that way…
I’ll miss him.
He was just one of those guys you liked.”
Courtesy Tehama Golf Club
Tehama
Eastwood is a man of many passions.
His handicap is a 16.
Charlie Parker
Another passion is jazz, which led Eastwood to direct the 1988 Charlie Parker biopicBird.
Eliot Elisofon/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
“I went to see Parker play in 1945 or ‘46.
When you heard him live, it was something special.
But he considers Ennio Morricone to be the maestro.
“The first time I heard him was onA Fistful of Dollars.
I thought, ‘Who the hell did this score?!’
It just came on like gangbusters.”
“I’m always at home looking up stuff in thePhysicians’ Desk Reference.
I was reading about free radicals 35 years ago before it was fashionable.
It was real radical s— back then.”
Stephen Mally/Reuters/Corbis
Flying
Eastwood’s other obsession is his helicopter.
He first started taking lessons while shootingPaint Your Wagonin Oregon.
“There’s something about the solitude of it.
Merie Weismiller Wallace
No one knows who you are.
You’re just a number in the sky.
And the fun part is you could land anywhere.
John McCain
In 1986, Eastwood became the mayor of his hometown, Carmel.
But lately he’s become less enamored of politics.
“When they get in power, they all spend like drunken sailors,” he says.
Eastwood voted for John McCain in 2008 because “I met him when he first came back from Vietnam.
Governor Reagan had a big thing for the return of those guys.
They had a haunted look.
They’d been through a lot.
I just think McCain’s been somewhere and done something.”
Tropic Thunder
Perhaps the biggest surprise is Eastwood’s moviegoing habits.
He doesn’t go often, and when he does he likes to laugh.
“The last picture I saw wasTropic Thunder.
It’s a great send-up of Hollywood.
It looked like they had a good time making it and Robert Downey Jr. was great.
When they blow that guy’s head off… you couldn’t help laughing.”
