Clint Eastwood had to be convinced to star in this crime thriller

Few movie stars have a more precise sense of what their fans want than Clint Eastwood. The biggest risk he ever took was no risk at all. Yes, he spent one of his final hiatus from CBS’ hit western show “Rawhide” making a very different kind of western with an Italian auteur Sergio Leone in the movie “A Fistful of Dollars” But if that film had flopped, he would still have been a sought-after TV star. Instead, the low-budget, unusually violent film for its time was an international hit (three years before its 1967 US release), and made Eastwood look like a counterculture pioneer for how it spit in people’s faces. John Wayne still makes traditional westerns.

Eastwood’s status as Hollywood’s biggest star was cemented in 1971 when he brandished a .44 Magnum and pursued a thrill-seeking killer in “Dirty Harry.” Eastwood would make an unpleasant movie every now and then (e.g. “The Gauntlet,” “Sudden Impact,” and “City Heat”), but… It wasn’t until 1990 with “The Rookie” He seems to have briefly lost his talent for connecting with his audience. Then he went and directed his best film to date, Unforgiven.

Since then, Eastwood has made films that are undeniably Eastwoodian in their anger and surprising tenderness. That’s not to say they always feel good (thankfully they feel anything but devastation at the end of “Million Dollar Baby”), but they do leave you wrestling with their difficult themes. Along the way, there was only one film that seemed to be out of character for Eastwood, so you might not be surprised that he needed a little prodding to get the hang of it.

A constantly surprising tale of an elderly man, teetering on the brink of financial ruin, who agrees to smuggle cocaine for a Mexican cartel. The 2018 film “The Mule” was not a successful project for Eastwood – At least not when it comes to playing the lead. On the surface, Earl Stone is not far from the star’s comfort zone; He’s grumpy in a way that’s too old-fashioned for this, which, as some critics noted at the time, made this film feel like Eastwood’s farewell if not to directing, then certainly to acting.

In an interview with Metrograph newspaperEastwood was once skeptical about playing the Earl at first before an assistant eventually convinced him to take the plunge. As he told the audience:

“When I did (…) The Mule, I liked the script, but I had no idea I was starring in it. I thought, ‘This is just something I’m going to direct.’ My friend in the office said to me: ‘You should play it.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding. I thought it was a good script and an interesting project, sometimes you have to listen to what’s going on around you, why not?

“The Mule,” like many of Eastwood’s films late in his career, is a modest work, but still incredibly vital. Although it did not generate any significant Academy Award buzz upon its theatrical release, the film has gained a bit of cult following in the years since. Eastwood is now 94 years old, and people are preparing for Eastwood’s reputation after the completely failed release of his film Very good courtroom drama “Juror No. 2”. This is when we need that guy in his office to step up and convince him to give it another try, because he still has something valuable to say.