Hollywood’s most decorated living legend, Clint Eastwood, broke out in the 1960s, offering a worthy alternative to John Wayne as one of Hollywood’s biggest western stars. Having established a tough outlaw image in the formative TV series Rawhide and transforming it into a global phenomenon throughout Sergio Leone’s legendary Dollars Trilogy, the squinting gunslinger consolidated his status by portraying the iconic anti-hero cop Harry Callahan in the iconic Dirty Harry franchise.
Over his six decades bathing in the Hollywood limelight, Eastwood expanded his skillset to become a leading producer and director, earning four Academy Awards and four Golden Globes for his duties behind the camera. Remarkably, Eastwood is still active today at 92 years of age and released his most recent film, Cry Macho, to rapturous applause in 2021.
In March 2023, Eastwood revealed that he was set to write and direct the very last movie of his career, Juror #2. According to early reports, the movie follows the story of a juror on a murder trial who realises he may be responsible for the victim’s death and faces a moral battle over how to conduct himself during the trial.
There is no doubt that Eastwood is an admirable Hollywood legend. Still, some of the personality traits that buoyed him to the top of his game – tenacity, obstinacy and apathy – have occasionally left a poor impression. Further to his determination, Eastwood is a man of traditional and broadly conservative values. On several occasions, he has been called out for discriminatory content and commentary, as well as his habitual glorification of the US military.
Today, we remember five famous faces from Hollywood who have taken issue with the iconic nonagenarian.
Five actors/directors who hate Clint Eastwood:
John Wayne
When Eastwood emerged as Hollywood’s new gunslinger in the late 1950s and early-60s, he had nothing but admiration for John Wayne. With Wayne as his role model of sorts, Eastwood revolutionised the immensely popular western genre. However, Wayne wasn’t a fan of Eastwood and his nuanced approach to cowboy acting.
The tension began during Eastwood’s rise to prominence in spaghetti westerns like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Wayne became increasingly irritated as critics compared the two stars with each other. While Wayne always played the hero who saves the day and sweeps the leading lady into his arms, Eastwood challenged this style with his own more rugged lonesome cowboy demeanour.
The feud between the two actors erupted following the release of Eastwood’s 1973 movie High Plains Drifter. The movie was by far his darkest Western to date, much to Wayne’s dissatisfaction. Shortly after the movie’s arrival, Eastwood sent Wayne a letter asking his idol if he’d like to collaborate on a new project. Wayne allegedly replied with an angry letter denouncing High Plains Drifter for its gratuitous violence and revisionist portrayal of the wild west.
Spike Lee
Spike Lee, the highly revered director of Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X and BlacKkKlansman, among several other blockbusters, has taken issue with Eastwood’s discriminatory material. The dispute between the pair can be traced back to 2006 when Eastwood released his double bill of WW-II movies, Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers.
On the surface, these movies would seem touchingly unbiased, given that one tells the story of the Pacific conflicts from the US perspective and the other from that of the Japanese. However, Lee noticed a severe lack of diversity in Eastwood’s casting for US Army soldiers. He claimed that Eastwood didn’t accurately represent the proportion of Black soldiers who fought during the war.
“If you blinked, you’ve missed the one Black person that was in it,” Lee complained in an interview on Sirius XM at the time. “There were Black marines!” Eastwood allegedly replied to Lee’s complaints by telling him he could “shut his face”. To which Lee publically retorted, “He’s a great director. He makes his films, I make my films, but come on, he sounds like an angry old man right there.”
Michael Moore
Following the release of the Bradley Cooper-starring biographical war drama American Sniper, Eastwood encountered significant backlash. Much of this vitriol came courtesy of Eastwood’s fellow filmmaker, Michael Moore, who has famously condemned the USA’s military activity and gun laws in his filmography, which includes Bowling for Columbine and Where to Invade Next.
At around the time American Sniper hit the big screen, Moore tweeted: “My uncle killed a sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren’t heroes. And invaders r worse.”
Moore felt that Eastwood’s movie inappropriately glorified snipers and the US’s overseas military activity. During a lunchtime event at the CinemaCon expo in Las Vegas, Eastwood allegedly said: “Everyone kept saying I was going to kill Michael Moore, but that’s not true.”While the audience laughed, he coldly added, “It isn’t a bad idea.”
“I think once years ago somebody asked me what would I do if a guy like him came to my house with a whole film crew and started filming away like he did with Charlton Heston,” Eastwood continued. “Unfortunately, Charlton Heston was ill at the time with Alzheimer’s. But I thought if somebody was on your property, you could shoot him.”
Moore, who had been present at the event, later took to Facebook to verify the rumours. “[Eastwood said] he would ‘kill’ me if I ever came to his house with my camera for an interview,” Moore wrote. Adding: “I was a bit stunned to hear Eastwood, out of the blue, make such a violent statement. But I instantly decided he was just trying to be funny.”
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio is among several actors to have announced that they would never work with Eastwood again. The pair worked together on Eastwood’s 2011 direction, J. Edgar. The movie wasn’t a glowing success with the critics and perhaps reflected the dissonant atmosphere within the crew. One thing we can be sure of is that DiCaprio and Eastwood didn’t see eye to eye.
Allegedly, the project was fraught with hiccups, but the frost truly descended when DiCaprio requested a retake for one of the scenes. In blunt response, Eastwood instead announced the day as a wrap and walked off set, much to DiCaprio’s frustration.
DiCaprio’s co-star Armie Hammer also claimed that Eastwood’s “one take” style was particularly difficult to get on board with. During one scene, Hammer thought he was rehearsing since his script was still in hand. However, Eastwood apparently had the camera rolling and deemed it a first take, assuring Hammer that he would edit the script out of the shot.
Tom Hanks
The beloved actor Tom Hanks worked alongside Clint Eastwood for the first time on his 2016 direction, Sully: Miracle on the Hudson. The movie was a glowing success both critically and commercially, but off-screen, Hanks became rather frustrated with the director’s brazen obstinacy.
While on the interview trail promoting the Oscar Nominated movie, Hanks comically revealed the downside of working with Eastwood. Hanks told Graham Norton, “You certainly don’t want one of those Eastwood looks.” Adding: “He treats his actors like horses because when he did the 60s series Rawhide, the director would shout ‘Action!’ and all the horses bolted. So when he’s in charge, he says in a really quiet soft voice, ‘All right, go ahead,’ and instead of shouting, ‘Cut!’ he says, ‘That’s enough of that.’ It’s intimidating as hell!”