Clint Eastwood interview on Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy – Inside The Actors Studio
Clint Eastwood sat down for an interview with James Lipton from Inside The Actors Studio. In the video below, Clint Eastwood talked about his entire television and movie career. If you want some ideas for a great looking clint eastwood man with no name/blondie costume, then you should consider reading this article – authentic man with no name costume.
transcript for the video:
James Lipton: How long were you on rawhide?
Clint Eastwood: I started the pilot when I think it was 58. I got to out there 65.
James Lipton: 7 years
Clint Eastwood: yeah
James Lipton: and you’ve said you learned a lot on that
Clint Eastwood: Yeah, I did. everybody used to be nuts about doing this series. They always thought well it locks you down it inhibits you. I found nothing inhibiting. by that’s a great learning ground you can screw up every day and still have a chance to redeem yourself. as you you can experiment on film all the time
James Lipton: during this time when you were on rawhide something happened from 1964 to 1966. a lot of things changed with the three Sergio Leone westerns for you and for the traditional Western form which had previously been America’s exclusive province. how did a fistful of dollars come to you?
Clint Eastwood: I was going into a hiatus on on ride three months layout. they said well we’ve got this Western want to making Europe Italian company made in Spain German co-production about a $200,000 budget and I said I don’t think so. you know I really like to just take the time off I’ve got a job and I come back to a job in a few months and then guys well I promise the Rome office that you’d read it and I read it and I read it. I recognized it right away as your Jimbo so I thought well your Jimbo that’s great. I love that movie and what did it conscious. yeah it was a conscious of adaptation of via Jimbo though the Italians neglected to tell the Japanese that they were doing this.
James Lipton: how much input did you have in the look and sound of that character?
Clint Eastwood: Sergio Leone didn’t speak any English and I didn’t speak any Italian so I was kind of on my own
James Lipton: where did you get your wardrobe?
Clint Eastwood: well I brought it I bought it from this country he didn’t picked out a bunch of stuff
James Lipton: where’d you get the little cigars
Clint Eastwood: I got him in Beverly Hills is really Hill yeah yeah there’s Beverly Hills cigars they had a cigar called of Virginia cigars long and had a big stems from it I just bought him and cut him up in three pieces and here’s him like that so I made a whole box of lastest length of the picture
James Lipton: one of the most striking elements of your character in that film was his laconic speech was that simply part of the script or did you develop that that style?
Clint Eastwood: I kind of developed that I enjoyed the listening aspect more than I did the speaking aspect of the procedure anyway so it it for me it was I was a I was a person who observed everything what was it that was going on around him right so I figured in the more he talked the more he dissipated the strength of character so I I opted for very little dialogue and created an unforgettable character the film and it’s two sequels broke any number of rules one of them being that in Motion Pictures characters usually have names
James Lipton: what was your character’s name
Clint Eastwood: Joe but he was never called show no he just it was just Joe for the script it didn’t call him in it he was the man with no name there’s a man with no name that was a United Artists thing in Italy it was called for impunity dollar II we made it under the title of magnificos Gennaro magnificent stranger some guy at the United Artists had the brilliant concept of making it as a man with no name and and I had star billing on the and the credits and they came and asked me to waive that because they wanted to do just present the picture ma’am and I was just a television actor at that time so I did I said yeah okay I’ll I’ll go along with that man it was just the television actor became an instant massive international star and began radically new Western missiles with that film
James Lipton: when eli wallach was a guest on this series we talked about the good the bad and the ugly and we were together in Actors Studio board meeting couple of weeks ago. he sent you his very warmest wishes. Eli Wallach has spoken of his admiration for your calmness as an actor and you’ve said I played the character down while everyone else was operatic
Clint Eastwood: Eli was playing this sort of a frantic Latino yeah and so we worked well together and we are great it was great fun one of the fundamental principles of the question that was demolished by this trilogy was the pure black and white structure of the good guy and the bad guy
James Lipton: your character was I think the first movie character really who didn’t wait for the other guy to draw his gun
Clint Eastwood: yeah he’s shot first yeah what doesn’t make sense why would you wait it’s American westerns I never could understand that I remember Don Siegel gotten in trouble when he was doing a film called The Shootist some years later and he was working with John Wayne the villain gets sneaks around the room and John Wayne comes up behind him and he says then just shoot him and they said there’s a long pause and said John Wayne said you may not shoot him in the back yeah yeah you should have just shoot him get rid of it because you got four other guys and he says I don’t shoot anyone in the back and Don made a terrible error he said quite a shot him in the back and he said wait Wayne turned blue and so and he said I don’t care what that kid would have done I don’t one of the most famous scenes in the film deservedly is what I suspect is the longest faceoff in western movie history it’s going to close ups of the eyes your eyes yeah and Van Cleef’s eyes and he lies die yeah in the course of shooting the trilogy
James Lipton: did you realize that it might have considerably more importance than you or anyone else that anticipated the first one
Clint Eastwood: I wasn’t sure would do any business I thought it would either need to do okay or with distances hero and then all of a sudden I’ve read several some weeks later I read in the trades variety reporter one them that this picture for impunity dollar is doing sensational business well I didn’t think anything of it because I’ve made this film called Magnifico stern arrow and then all of a sudden some weeks later they started reporting more on it and finally said four for Fistful of Dollars starring Clint Eastwood 90 what he’s that all of a sudden all of a sudden that the call started coming in to my agency and saying well could he come over and do more and what he did this and do that so things started picking up a little after that and that was then it started becoming fun
James Lipton: the good the bad the ugly is generally considered the best film of the trilogy and a very important movie in zone right do you feel strongly about that film?
Clint Eastwood: I thought a about a month or so ago they asked you to come and we’re going to do one of these things would add in scenes yeah cut out yeah so they’re going to add in scene so I found myself in a looping room looping lines that I on a picture I had made 37 years earlier so I’m sitting there and of course I’m looking at my son up there or some guy some guy who looks vaguely familiar and I’m thinking how am I going to make it sound like that guy so I just kind of looped it and they put it out I haven’t seen the finished copy yet were these film shot with sound or without
James Lipton: did you post accord the dialogue
Clint Eastwood: they shot sound but yeah we want to call it that it wasn’t very went in funny when I want to do fistful of dollars friend of American actor I ran into said make notes of everything you say and in a script I said what for they’re going to record the sound and he says yeah they’ll recorded that they’ll lose it lose it sure enough when the picture came out in this country they lost the tracks so I had fortunate I had my note so I went in and I looped it according to what I had there otherwise I’d have to be just a good lip reader