There’s a familiar cowboy aesthetic to the man I’m interviewing today. The square jaw and hairline, the measured speech: Yes, this is a man who indisputably shares DNA with Clint Eastwood.
“Sorry I’m a little late,” Scott Eastwood says as he picks me up in his car. (OK, he picks up my Zoom call in his car.) And away we go. “I’m sweaty,” he adds apologetically — thankfully less of a problem for a remote passenger. Eastwood’s an active guy, to put it mildly; he surfs in locales around the world, and does a lot of his own stunts on film. For daily workouts, he tells Alexa, he likes to keep himself guessing. “Keep your body confused a little bit, you know?” he says.
Here’s what he’s not into: the typical celeb habit of practicing with a trainer. “I have a lot of buddies who like to work out,” he says. “So, I’ll just ping them: ‘Hey, what are we doing today? Lifting, Muay Thai, swimming?’”
We’re driving around Austin, Texas, where the 39-year-old Eastwood has been partially based since 2016 (he splits his time between the Lone Star State, California and Mexico). Of course, when you’re a professional actor, work trips to Los Angeles and New York abound; I ask if he ever feels pressure from people in the industry to relocate permanently to Hollywood. “No,” he says emphatically. “And if I did … I don’t know why I’d be hanging out with those people.”
Despite Eastwood’s reticence to keep a place in LA, it’s definitely got a place for him, work-wise. His latest role is in “Regretting You,” a romantic drama based on a Colleen Hoover novel. The insanely popular author’s last book-to-film adaptation was the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni vehicle “It Ends With Us,” now mostly known for the legal wrangling between its stars. The new Hoover film boasts a stellar cast and director — Josh Boone helmed 2014’s “The Fault in Our Stars” — and, fingers crossed, less off-screen drama.
The film revolves around a mother and daughter (Allison Williams and Mckenna Grace, respectively) negotiating their relationship in the wake of a tragic accident. Eastwood plays the pair’s late husband and father, who’s at the center of a spiraling discovery of family secrets, in a cast rounded out by Dave Franco. Per the Hoover formula, you know there will be tears.
“For me, it’s about the gray areas in life,” Eastwood says. “Everyone’s got secrets, these things that happen in their lives. So, it’s a foray into that.”
He wasn’t a Hoover reader beforehand — “I don’t think I’m the target demo” — but says he’s definitely aware of the volume of her fandom. “It kind of reminds me of Nicholas Sparks,” he says, and he should know: Eastwood starred in the 2015 adaptation of Sparks’ novel “The Longest Ride.”
But Eastwood is better known for his roles in action movies and thrillers; last month, he starred alongside Robert De Niro and Jamie Foxx in “Tin Soldier,” which centered on a cult leader (Foxx) and the feds and a former member (that’d be Eastwood’s character) aligning to take him down.
Eastwood has also appeared in several movies directed by or starring his dad: His first feature film role was in 2006’s “Flags of Our Fathers,” followed by work in 2008’s “Gran Torino,” 2009’s “Invictus” and 2012’s “Trouble With the Curve.” I ask what he’s learned from working with and watching his legendary father — beloved by actors for his laid-back yet controlled directing style — on set. “I mean, he’s the best teacher on the planet,” Eastwood says. “Not overthinking it, just getting out there — that comes with a level of preparedness. If you’re prepped and your team is prepped and you hire solid actors, then you can keep it calm.” At 95, Clint’s still working, having released his latest movie, “Juror #2,” just last year — quite the role model of industry longevity.
The younger Eastwood is tight with his seven siblings, despite their sprawling careers and different mothers. (His flight attendant mom, Jacelyn Reeves, reportedly met Clint in his Carmel, Calif., restaurant; the couple had two children during their relationship: Scott and his younger sister Kathryn). “I’m close with most of all my siblings. We have gatherings, we do see each other. Everyone’s busy and doing their own thing. So, we’re all a little spread out. My brother [Kyle] is in Europe a lot because he’s a jazz musician, and my sisters are all doing their own things in different fields. So, yeah, it’s definitely hard to get our schedules to align sometimes!”
Like the rest of his family, Eastwood is constantly on the move. He’s got two new films in the works after “Regretting You.” First up is “Wind River: The Next Chapter,” a sequel to the 2017 Jeremy Renner-Taylor Sheridan drama set on a Native American reservation. And soon he’s headed to Cape Town, South Africa, to shoot “Red Card,” an action thriller based on real events co-starring Djimon Hounsou and Halle Berry.
When he’s not filming, Eastwood loves to surf; he’s hit the waves in Cape Town, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico and Hawaii (where he spent some of his childhood with his mom, on sprawling ranchland) and California (where he was born and spent the rest, often at his dad’s ranch, riding horses and fishing). Still, the man knows his limits.
“Being out in big surf is always scary,” he says. “But when you see guys surfing Nazaré [in Portugal, where a monster break can serve up waves that approach 100 feet] or Jaws [another storied big-wave break, in Maui, Hawaii], that’s a whole other level of scary, and a level of commitment that I’m not really interested in at this point in my life!”
He is, however, hooked on the adrenaline of doing his own stunts. Alas, there were no arduous physical feats asked of him on “Regretting You,” but he’s had his share of good (read: risky) times on other sets. What’s the one that really stands out? “Probably jumping from a car to a semitruck, going about 40 miles an hour,” he says, referring to the 2017 film “Overdrive.” “That was pretty dangerous.”
He’s also willing to jump into a car and be driven to parts unknown in New York City, as he recalls from his shoot with us. “I don’t really know where in Manhattan we were,” he says. “Sometimes, I just get in the car and I’m suddenly transported into a different part of the city.” Our cover shoot took place at the Commodore II bar in the East Village, and in line with its retro decor, Eastwood tells us he especially enjoyed the ’50s-reminiscent looks he sported.
In real life, he’s a dedicated jeans-and-tees guy who doesn’t spend a lot of time on luxe label loyalty. “If I was to boil it down to one brand, probably just Levi’s,” he says. As for his T-shirt brand of choice, he demurs: “I probably should have a brand at this point that I like the most, but I usually just wear ones I’ve come across over the years.” Today, for example, he’s wearing a navy-colored Honolulu Fire Department shirt with his gym shorts.
In contrast to his sartorial brand aversion, though, Eastwood lights up when I ask for restaurant recommendations in the Austin area. “I’ll just give you a couple of the top hits for Mexican,” he says. “If you’re going for food, I think it’s Polvos. If you’re going for a hang, it’s Matt’s El Rancho. For sushi, it’s Soto. For steak, it’s probably Jeffrey’s or J. Carver’s. And if you’re going for an Asian kind of place, RedFarm is really good.”
He also recently returned to one of his favorite vacation hangs, Mexico’s San Miguel de Allende. “It’s about three hours north of Mexico City, old silver mining town. It’s incredible,” he says. “Great shopping, artisanal vendors that are doing really cool stuff. There’s a lot to see.”
Just don’t expect to spot Eastwood at South by Southwest, Austin’s big spring film, media and music festival. Like his father, who’s long lived far north of LA in Carmel, he exudes a polite disdain for the more performative trappings of the industry.
“I usually leave town” during SXSW, he says with a laugh. “It’s a little corporate, in my opinion. Which is cool, you’ve got to do that stuff. But it’s the local stuff in Austin that is, in my opinion, really fun.” Like his dad, Eastwood’s clearly carving his own original path to stardom.
Photographer: Marc Hom; Editors: Alev Aktar, Serena French; Stylist: Anahita Moussavian; Photo Editor: Jessica Hober; Talent Booker: Patty Adams Martinez; Groomer: Nicole Elle King using Westman Atelier and Saie at The Wall Group; Manicure: Rita Remark at Bryan Bantry Agency; Fashion Assistants: Jena Beck, Dominic Turiczek; Location: Commodore II, 14 Loisaida Ave.; Lighting Director: Christian Larsen; First Assistant: Muhammet Gencoglu; Second Assistant: Ariana Rodriquez; Digital Tech: Andrea Fremiotti, Production Assistants: Yared Glicksman, Tessa Dillman
