Director and producer Clint EastwoodVictoria Will/The Associated Press
Clint Eastwood pulls up a chair and slides his lean, 6-foot-4 frame alongside that of his friend Matt Damon, whom he slaps good-naturedly on the back. He's here to chat about his latest film, Hereafter, a cinematic exploration of the eternal question: Is there life after death?
It's a weighty subject for a balmy September afternoon. But before delving into the existentialist meat of it all, Eastwood cracks a joke about the real reason Damon initially turned down the lead role in this film.
"Sure, he's been busy - busy siring children," says Eastwood, who is referring to the fact that Damon and his wife, Luciana Barroso, are expecting their third child (she also has a daughter from an earlier marriage).
"But finally he acquiesced and came back [to us]after Christmas," adds the 80-year-old. "So we shot his segment in San Francisco and then headed back to England to do the conclusion."
Damon, who previously collaborated with Eastwood on the South African rugby film Invictus, simply grins at the older man seated to his left. Then he offers his explanation.
"I turned it down only because I didn't think I could pull it off with this other movie [ The Adjustment Bureau]on the go. Somehow all my stuff got crammed together," he says. "But it all worked out. I love working with Clint. He's decisive, he doesn't dwell on things, and he keeps the train headed somewhere. Too often, directors fall into the trap of second-guessing and fiddling with something forever. Clint pulls the trigger and moves on."
Dressed in a golf shirt and pressed pants, Eastwood comes across as a calm but still imposing guy. Unlike many celebrities who surround themselves with "their people," Clint - as he introduces himself, with a firm handshake - prefers to saunter around the room, playing a jazzy ditty on a nearby piano, and later, grabbing a snack off a communal table of grub.
Despite his age, Eastwood remains one of this generation's most prolific directors. Since his 1992 Oscar-winning film Unforgiven, he's churned out 15 feature films. Hereafter is his 32nd as a director.
Damon, now 40, refers to Hereafter as "Clint Eastwood's French film." And there is no question the script is a cerebral departure for a man who normally focuses his camera on taut action and real-life grit.
Eastwood agrees it's not his norm. But that, he adds, is precisely the point. Over the course of eight decades, he's learned to like "trying on new things.
"I used to do sequels, but I'm past that. In my younger years I did more violent stuff, but now I'm concerned there's too much violence in film," says the man who played Dirty Harry. "But I liked the idea of telling three separate stories in one film. And I liked Peter Morgan's script. This film explores the notion of an afterlife, but it doesn't give any definitive answers."
Hereafter follows three geographically disparate people who have been traumatized by close encounters with death. Damon is a Bay Area psychic, newcomer Frankie McLaren is a London youngster mourning the death of his twin, and Belgium-born actress Cécile de France is a Paris-based journalist whose life changes after she is almost killed in the 2004 tsunami.
Eastwood says the core of the story - filmed in London, Paris, Hawaii and San Francisco - is the simplest of questions: What's next? "We don't know what's on the other side, but on this side, it's final," he says. "People have their beliefs about what's there or what's not there, but those are all hypotheticals. Nobody knows until you get there."
"I've talked to people," he adds, "who claim to have had near-death experiences, and they paint a similar picture. But I don't know. I haven't been there. And I don't intend to go there before my time."
Damon says Eastwood's directorial style is as to-the-point as the man himself. "He gives the kind of direction that he would want as an actor. And he's been acting longer than -"
"Don't say God!" Eastwood interrupts, causing Damon to burst out laughing.
"I was going to say," Damon continues, "he's been acting longer than most of the actors he's working with, so he's got an immense amount of knowledge about how to do it, what's helpful, what's not helpful. As a director for 30 years, Clint also knows how to create an environment that works for his crew. He knows everybody's jobs, and how to make it easier. As a result, everybody feels like they get to do their best work."
"And he gets you home at a reasonable hour, too. I just wish he wouldn't yell so much," Damon adds.
Hereafter's international cast also includes Jay Mohr, Bryce Dallas Howard, Marthe Keller, Thierry Neuvic and Derek Jacobi. Eastwood, an accomplished jazz pianist, composed much of the soundtrack for Hereafter. As he approaches his 81st birthday this May, Eastwood muses that now was likely "the right time" for him to finally take on a film about mortality. But he figures he'll be around for a while yet.
" Hereafter explores life after death, but it also measures time. And in this MTV generation that we live in - where everything has to be immediate and over with - measuring time is something I still like to embrace," he says, his weathered face crinkling into a grin.