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Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood Copied A Secret Service Trick To Keep His Crew Calm On Set

Clint Eastwood’s first film as a director was “Play Misty for Me” in 1971, in which he also starred. Eastwood would direct 12 additional features in which he also played the lead prior to “Bird” in 1988, his first film as a director in which he did not appear. “Bird,” as this writer recalls, represented a shift in Eastwood’s career. He was no longer the star and director of “tough guy” thrillers and Westerns, but a more thoughtful, soulful director. At age 58, Eastwood seemed to have entered a “mellowing out” phase, more interested in deconstructing his prior career as a tough guy. When he wasn’t tearing down his image in films like “White Hunter, Black Heart” and “Unforgiven,” he was leaning into calmer, sometimes downright gentle films like “The Bridges of Madison County” or “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”
 
Now in his early 90s, Eastwood has directed 40 feature films, an output so prolific he would be a notable presence in Hollywood even if he had never acted.
As a director, Eastwood is on record with how quiet and relaxed he likes to keep his sets. He does not advocate shouting, and as he explained in a 2006 interview with DGA Quarterly, he loathes background chatter. 2006, incidentally, was the year Eastwood released two interconnected films called “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima.” Both films tell the story of the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima, with the first from the perspective of the American soldiers, and the second from the perspective of the Japanese.
To keep things quiet on the set, as Eastwood learned many years prior, conversations needed to be kept quiet. Luckily, a contact in the U.S. Secret Service provided him with a solution: Secret Service headsets.
‘I like to have fun’

Warner Bros.Although Eastwood often plays stern or stoic figures — or even sad, tragic ones — he likes to keep the mood on his sets light and relaxed. Tension, he seems to feel, is antithetical to directing; you will hear no William Friedkin-like stories of Eastwood playing loud music and firing guns on set just to keep people on edge. More than anything, Eastwood has a pet peeve of crew members having to shush one another just as cameras are rolling. In the DGA interview, Eastwood explained it like he was an elementary schoolteacher:
“I like to have fun. I like everyone to be in good humor. And I try to keep it quiet. I like an atmosphere that isn’t loaded with tension. I don’t like sets where people are yelling at each other. The thing I dislike the most is people going ‘Sssh sssh sssh,’ because they end up making more noise than the people they’re trying to shush. I remember after I started directing I was on a picture over at MGM, I walked out on the soundstage and all of a sudden I hear this huge bell ringing, which meant they were going to start the scene, and I thought, ‘What is this s***?’”Buzzers and bells are common on certain film sets, but for actors and crew people who require a certain amount of concentration, they can be antithetical to filmmaking. Eastwood, it seems, likes to keep his film sets feeling akin to live theater. A quiet set, actors on a stage, the crew keeping quiet so a live audience doesn’t hear. He’s a very natural, instinctual director who simply puts the camera down, gets everyone quiet, and shoots. He is not one to rely on technical fineries.
Party in the CIA
Warner Bros.Eastwood explained that his quiet sets are good for actors. He claimed that a quiet set meant his actors had the ability to start and stop a scene without making a big production of it, saying that Tim Robbins and Sean Penn — the stars of his 2003 film “Mystic River” — appreciated it. Robbins and Penn are veterans of their craft and liked that they could approach a scene from a laidback standpoint. But Eastwood believes that this approach takes the edge off for neophyte actors as well, as the spotlight is now (metaphorically) off them.
Eastwood struck upon a solution many years prior when he was visiting Gerald Ford at the White House(!). When he saw Secret Service agents having quiet conversations off in shadowy corners, all to ensure that the President and his retinue could more cleanly converse, Eastwood made the connection to filmmaking. He said:
“I went to the White House for a dinner … and I noticed that there were these Secret Service guys all around and they were all talking very quietly into these tiny headsets, carrying on entire conversations without disturbing anyone. So I came back here and I said, ‘Why the hell do you go on a movie set and people have open radios squawking and people yelling, ‘Hey, Al, put the light over here!’ We’ve got all this technology; certainly we can be as technologically sound as the Secret Service.’”Headsets seem like such a simple solution, it’s astonishing they weren’t already a Hollywood common practice. Eastwood began using the headsets, and found concurrent work could be done, everything was smooth, and, most importantly, everything was quiet.
Silence!
Warner Bros.
Eastwood didn’t want just any old headsets. He wanted the exact kind that was being used in the Ford White House. He brought them to his next movie — by the timeline of events, it was most likely “The Outlaw Josey Wales” from 1975 — and everything began to work the way he wanted. He knew immediately this was the way going forward, for veterans and for the times he had to work with kids.
Eastwood has worked with child actors in “A Perfect World” and “Cry Macho” and several other pictures in between. He spoke about how he hired someone to, perhaps poetically, gather intel on the Secret Service.
“So a guy who was working for me researched it, got the same headsets and then all of those conversations could take place without disturbing the whole set. You can be rehearsing the actors and the crew can be talking, but nobody’s hearing it. Sometimes you’re working with kids or people you don’t want to be conscious of the camera. This way you can roll the camera without them even knowing it, and you can get natural moments you wouldn’t get when someone’s screaming, ‘Silence! Rolling! Action!’”Eastwood is more prolific at 92 than filmmakers half his age, and his films tend to be moody and thoughtful. Fans can take note that a simple thing like a headset can go a long way to improving a director’s job and the films they make.

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Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood’s Daughter Reveals Her Favorite Advice He Gave Her

Alison Eastwood is an actress as well one of the daughters of the famed actor and director Clint Eastwood. Getting any type of advice from dear old Dad is a good thing. When it comes to her favorite piece that he gave her, you might think it was acting. She did get the acting bug, too, and did star in the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. This advice must be about her career, right? Nope. It had to do with the always tough task of living life.

“I guess just not to take [life] too seriously,” Alison Eastwood tells Closer Weekly in an interview from 2019. “He never seemed to take anything too seriously. Maybe that’s not a good thing … I don’t know.” Yet she also would offer up a little more insight which she’s picked up from being around him. “He makes me laugh, I make him laugh,” Alison said. “That’s my favorite part about it. I think just having a lot of laughter, especially in our family, amongst ourselves. We’re all getting older.”

Clint Eastwood Isn’t A Big Fan Of His Birthday, Daughter Alison Says

She also says that Dad isn’t a big fan of his birthday. He would rather be doing something else, like working or playing golf, than celebrating his big day. Still, Clint Eastwood keeps on providing fans with film work as an actor and director. He’s achieved great success and to think he also has a classic TV connection. Of course, Clint does from his days playing Rowdy Yates on Rawhide.

Yet it is in the movies of Eastwood that has really made him a household name. Working in Europe would provide some foundational success thanks to the “Spaghetti Westerns” directed by Sergio Leone. He would play the “Man with No Name” in films like A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. They all would lead Eastwood to then become an iconic police officer as Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry. One time, he talked about A Fistful of Dollars possibly becoming an “absolute disaster.” What in the world does he mean by this? Eastwood told Roger Ebert years ago that the movie’s producers were arguing among themselves. The issue at hand was who would pay the bills to get the movie done. This leads him to say, “It could have been an absolute disaster. But, we got lucky with it. And it turned out Sergio Leone was for real.”

While his record of success and achievement is solid, sometimes Eastwood has to pick and choose between projects. When it came to playing Bruce Willis’ role John McClane in Die Hard, Eastwood did turn it down. Screenwriter Jeb Stuart would say that Eastwood said that he didn’t get the humor in the movie.

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Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood’s Daughter Posts Rare Selfie, And Her Fans Are Absolutely Loving It

Earlier this week, Clint Eastwood’s daughter, Francesca Eastwood, took to her Instagram account to share a rare selfie.

The actress, who didn’t write a caption for the post, is seen with a pair of pink lens sunglasses while sitting near a plant. Follows of Clint Eastwood’s daughter gushed over the simple snapshot. “Extraordinarily Beautiful,” one follower declared. “You look gorgeous, so much like your mom,” another added.

Francesca is preparing to film her upcoming action-packed movie, “Live Fast, Die Laughing.” The film follows a broke taxi driver in Vietnam who thinks it is his lucky day when a mysterious offers him a fortune to drive her 1,000 miles from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi. While on the road, the duo is pursued by mobsters and an assassin. Written by Timothy Linh Bui and Tim Tori and directed by Bui, Eastwood will star in the film alongside Harvey Keitel. 

Clint Eastwood’s Daughter Francesca Talks Starring in a Western Genre Film 

While promoting her 2016 film “Outlaws and Angels,” Francesca revealed to the Observer that she didn’t speak to her father, Clint Eastwood, about starring in the western genre film.

“I didn’t ask my parents for advice on this one,” Francesca stated about the role. But she did admit that she usually asks her parents but she wanted to do her own thing this time. “So I just ran and did it and talked with them about it later. I wanted to do one on my own, and it felt great.”

Frances Fisher, Francesca’s mother, was also part of the film. However, the duo did not appear in any scenes together. “This is the first time that I was on a film and then she came on after, rather than her being in a film and I join as her baby. I was probably the least experienced actor, and everyone was just so welcoming and really nurturing to that.”

While speaking about working in a desert, Francesca recalled, “It was pretty intense with the heat and the costumes, and we couldn’t wash them because they were supposed to look aged, so after about 3 weeks of being in the same layers it was just gross. It was fun and part of the experience though. Normally if you’re uncomfortable or too hot you go get a water and sit in a trailer, but that was so not the case with this one.”

Francesa went on to note that she and the rest of the cast just dealt with the production’s conditions. “No one really went to the trailers. We just hung out – no texting, Tweeting, Instagramming. I think it made it really special. There were no distractions.”

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Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood: The Wild Story of How He Survived a Plane Crash Into Shark-Infested Waters

Although he is known for his successful Hollywood career, Clint Eastwood’s acting talents were almost never discovered.

According to War History Online, Clint Eastwood actually survived a plane crash in shark-infected waters. This was all during his time in the U.S. Army. The now actor was drafted into the military branch for the Korean War in 1951. He was then sent to Ford Ord, California to complete basic training and where he worked as a swim instructor as well as a bouncer at the NCO club.

While returning to California after a visit with his parents in Seattle, Clint Eastwood flew on a U.S. Navy AD-1Q Skyraider. The airliner was heading to Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento, California. However, during the flight, Eastwood and pilot Lt. Francis Coleman Anderson’s aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Point Reyes. The duo notably survived because they had access to a life raft and managed to swim in the cold water. 

Clint Eastwood spoke about the incident by stating, “In those days, you could wear your uniform and get a free flight. One the way back, they had one plane, a Douglas AD. Sort of a torpedo bomber of the World War II vintage, and I thought I’d hitch on that. Everything went wrong. Radios went out. Oxygen ran out. And finally, we ran out of fuel up around Point Reyes, California, and went into the ocean. So we went swimming.”

Clint Eastwood further recalled that the event took place in late October or early November and the water was very cold. “Found out many years later that it was a white shark breeding ground, but I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time or I’d have just died,” he noted. 

Clint Eastwood Responds to Whether or Not His Film ‘American Sniper’ Glorified War 

While speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Clint Eastwood discussed his 2014 film “American Sniper” and if the film actually glorifies war. 

“I think it’s nice for veterans,” Clint Eastwood explained. “Because it shows what they go through, and that life — and the wives and families of veterans. It has a great indication of the stresses they are under. And I think that all adds up to kind of an anti-war [message].”

When asked if he considers himself anti-war, Clint Eastwood answered, “Yes. I’ve done war movies because they’re always loaded with drama and conflict. But as far as actual participation … it’s one of those things that should be done with a lot of thought, if it needs to be done. Self-protection is a very important thing for nations, but I just don’t like to see it.”

Clint Eastwood went on to add that he wasn’t a big fan of going to war in Iraq or Afghanistan.

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