Clint Eastwood denied ever sitting for an interview with an Austrian newspaper in which he allegedly decried the “era of remakes and franchises”.
Austrian newspaper Kurier published an interview on Friday in which the Oscar-winner apparently criticised the current state of Hollywood.
“I long for the good old days when screenwriters wrote movies like Casablanca in small bungalows on the studio lot. When everyone had a new idea,” he was quoted as having said in the interview, according to a translation by Reuters.
“We live in an era of remakes and franchises. I have shot sequels three times, but I haven’t been interested in that for a long while. My philosophy is: do something new or stay at home.”
The Million Dollar Baby director, however, said he never gave the interview.
“A couple of items about me have recently shown up in the news,” he said in a statement to Deadline. “I thought I would set the record straight. I can confirm I’ve turned 95. I can also confirm that I never gave an interview to an Austrian publication called Kurier, or any other writer in recent weeks, and that the interview is entirely phony.”
Kurier is a German-language daily headquartered in Vienna with a circulation of 100,000.
The Independent has reached out to Kurier for comment.
In the same supposed interview, Eastwood, who turned 95 over the weekend, was quoted as replying to a question about where he got his energy from: “There is no reason why a man can’t get better with age. And I have much more experience today. Sure, there are directors who lose their touch at a certain age, but I’m not one of them.”
Eastwood’s last directorial venture was Juror #2, starring Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, JK Simmons, Zoey Deutch, and Kiefer Sutherland. The film, released in November 2024, has Hoult play a recovering alcoholic summoned to serve on a murder case jury who slowly starts to realise he may be responsible for the victim’s death.
In an interview with the Associated Press on why he wanted to direct the movie, Eastwood said: “After the first read it had me. It made me think about what would you do if you were put in this situation? What is right? What is wrong? Who would you protect? A true moral dilemma. That’s something I’d want to watch.”
