As the venerated actor-director points out, advanced experience can make someone a better artist. But even he is not exempt from the classic old guy trap of waxing poetic about the “good old days.” However, because it’s Clint Eastwood and because he kind of has a point this time, we’ll give him this one: “I long for the good old days when screenwriters wrote movies like Casablanca in small bungalows on the studio lot. When everyone had a new idea,” he told Kurier (via Reuters). “We live in an era of remakes and franchises. I’ve shot sequels three times, but I haven’t been interested in that for a long while. My philosophy is: do something new or stay at home.”
You have to admit there’s some merit to this philosophy, and perhaps the guiding principle is precisely why Eastwood is still directing at age 96—keeping things fresh keeps the mind sharp. “As an actor, I was still under contract with a studio, was in the old system, and thus forced to learn something new every year,” he said. “And that’s why I’ll work as long as I can still learn something, or until I’m truly senile.”
Eastwood’s remarks are notable if only because some of the reporting around his most recent film, Juror #2, suggested that the drama would be his final film. Clearly that’s not the case, as Kurier reports that he’s in pre-production on a new project. Of course when you’re 96, tomorrow is never promised, but technically that’s true at any age. For now, Eastwood claims that he’s in good physical shape and doesn’t think anyone we’ll have to worry about his condition “for a long time yet,” so why not keep making movies ’til the wheels fall off?
