On Sept. 17, Clint Eastwood‘s latest movie as director and star, Cry Macho, will be released in theaters and on HBO Max. With the legendary actor/filmmaker being 91 years old, some may assume that this might be his last film, but he’s made no such decision. In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, the star revealed he has no plans to retire—especially from directing, but he’s not throwing in the towel on acting yet, either. Clint Eastwood also shared the one thing that could make him quit acting, or even consider it.
Eastwood first started acting in the ’50s and made his directorial debut with 1971’s Play Misty for Me. But even with a nearly 70-year career under his belt, he’s not interested in stopping. Read on to find out what he has to say about working into his later years.
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Eastwood doesn’t have any other films lined up after Cry Macho, but that’s not because he doesn’t want to continue directing. “I don’t have anything percolating at the moment,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I didn’t have anything percolating before this one. If something comes along where the story itself, the telling of it, is fun, I’m open to it.”
He went on to explain that, at first, “The whole point of directing was something you can do as an older guy.” (He was 41 when he directed his first movie.) But now, “I just like it,” he said. “I have nothing against other directors, but I might have a whole different take on things and I don’t want to be thinking, ‘Why did I give it to him?'”
In recent years, Eastwood has acted a lot less than he’s directed, though he has appeared in a number of his own films, including The Mule in 2018, Gran Torino in 2008, and now, Cry Macho. In the LA Times interview, he said of acting, “What the hell am I still working for in my 90s? Are people going to start throwing tomatoes at you?” He explained that he’ll know when it’s time to stop based on the audience’s response. “I’ve gotten to the point where I wondered if that was enough, but not to the point where I decided it was,” he said. “If you roll out a few turkeys, they’ll tell you soon enough.”
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Eastwood has spoken about his plans—or lack thereof—for both his acting and directing career before and made similar comments about not retiring. “I love what I do,” he told USA Today in 2018. “I’ll probably keep on going. I feel good, but it depends on material. I probably wouldn’t do something just because it was marginal—I have to kind of think it has some validity and has some relationship to today.” He added of other filmmakers who have retired, “With a lot of other people, was it that their health went bad or did they just get bored with it? I often wonder, because I haven’t gotten bored with it.”
Regarding acting versus directing, he said on the British series This Morning in 2020 (via Closer), “I like being in films, I like making films and I started directing films because I thought, One day I’m going to look up on screen and say, ‘That’s enough Eastwood, you’d better do something else.’ So I thought, If I direct, I can let other people be on screen.”
Cry Macho is about an ex-rodeo star (Eastwood), who helps a former boss (Dwight Yoakam) bring his son (Eduardo Minett) home from Mexico. In the movie, Eastwood has to ride a horse and throw a punch at someone—both stunts he has a lot of experience with. He said of the punch, “It might not be as good as I’ve thrown in the past but it was fun to do it.” As for riding the horse, he told the Los Angeles Times, “The wrangler was worried. She was saying, ‘Be careful, be careful now.’ She was scared I’d end up on my rear end. But if you treat the horse like a buddy, he’ll take care of you.”
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