Clint's Last Ride?

Eastwood on his Letters From Iwo Jima

Comments (0) By Scott Foundas Wednesday, Dec 20 2006

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Eastwood tells Watanabe to make his day on the Letters set

Patience is a virtue: Japanese grunts dig in their heels

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If moviegoers feel the same way, Letterscould face an even chillier box-office reception than Flags, which has performed well below Eastwood’s usually robust business since its release in mid-October. Eastwood admits he’s disappointed, but says he doesn’t have anything left to prove to anyone, save for himself. “At some point, you’re through with a picture, and it has to have a fate on its own,” he tells me. “Whatever the fate is, there’s nothing you can do about it. All you can say in the end is, ‘Do I like it?’ Yes. It’s what I intended to do, and because of that, I’m happy.”

Indeed, Eastwood seems content, and with no new projects in development, he says he’s only interested in making films that ignite his passions as fully as the Iwo Jima saga. “When you’re younger and things first start happening to you — for me, it was the 1960s — you say yes to a lot of things. Your agent says, ‘Do this, play in this picture because you’re in it with Richard Burton.’ Then someone asks Richard, ‘Why are you in the picture?’ And he says, ‘Well, because I’m in it with Clint.’ But why are we here? I did a lot of pictures like that — you could go through a whole list of them. People lean on you, and like all actors, you think every job’s going to be your last job. At that age, you don’t wait for the perfect thing that may or may not come along in 10 years. But now, if this is the last picture I do, that’s fine.”?