Tag: scott eastwood

Published on

Jul 29, 2020

Scott Eastwood: Made In America

He drives a pick-up truck. He shoots movies with a broken ankle. He prefers a Texan ranch to an LA mansion. Scott Eastwood is the least Hollywood of film stars – and a damn nice guy to boot.
After our interview is concluded, Scott Eastwood is off to buy a pick-up truck.

“I need a pickup truck,” he tells me with the assurance of a man for whom life will not be complete until a pick-up truck is parked in his front drive. “The amount of work and activities I do where I’m sweaty or salty and shit. Stuff. Gear. I’ve gotta have a pickup truck.”

A pick-up truck isn’t very Hollywood…

“Well, I don’t think I’m very Hollywood.”

And you know what? He isn’t. An unlikely revelation for a number of reasons but undeniably true. Scott Eastwood is many things: smart, charming, loyal, frequently sweaty and salty – but Hollywood is not one of them.

For starters, he lives in Texas. Naturally, owing to the whole global pandemic thing, jetting over to the States is no longer an option (damn you, global pandemic! Never been to Texas…) so our interview takes place over Zoom, my afternoon, his morning. The time isn’t the only difference: naturally, being June, London is grey and wet, covered by one of those pallid drizzles that can’t be arsed to turn into actual rain but wants to hang around anyway, purely out of spite.

Eastwood chuckles when he hears this. “It’s not raining here – you wanna see what it looks like?” Grinning, he shows me an elegant backyard: a square of grass, rectangular decking, trees crowding over the wooden fence, and above the trees, a broad, blue Texan sky as big as the State. “It’s sunny and beautiful here.”

One nil to Uncle Sam.

Now, while it is possible to conduct an interview over Zoom, photoshoots are another matter – and much as it hurts this writer to admit, the pictures are a fairly substantial part of the feature. (Albeit worth a thousand words? Don’t be silly. Five hundred, tops.) For obvious reasons, a typical studio setup – stylist, groomer, assistants, mountain lions, etc – would be a little tricky to arrange. Fortunately, Eastwood has movie star looks but none of a movie star’s ego. Going a bit guerrilla is not a problem.

Eastwood and photographer Jesse Natale decamped to a mutual friend’s ranch in California and basically spent a few hours playing around. “He’s a normal dude,” Natale tells me over the phone. “He’s an adventurer, he surfs and hunts. He’s not unfamiliar with the big production, but if he has the option, he’d rather do it guerrilla style, and get a more natural and a more organic experience.”

Natale has known Eastwood for many years. The two men frequently collaborate for Eastwood’s clothing line Made Here – described on its website as ‘a company and brand rooted 100% in America’ – and the YouTube series In A Day, which Eastwood explains, “highlights things that America does, in a day, really well, across every sector. From energy to agriculture to our military – we cover a vast variety of categories.” The first episode was filmed on an aircraft carrier.

No, Scott Eastwood isn’t very Hollywood. A couple of years ago, I wrote of our two-time cover star Henry Cavill: “He might well represent the English gentleman as we’d like to envisage him: impeccably mannered, sharp of wit and suit, possessing a vigorous dash of derring-do. The type of chap who carves out an eloquent 50* on a pristine village green, then leaps into a Spitfire still wearing his cricket whites.”