“Just a badass,” he marveled.
Clint Eastwood has been a respected figure in filmmaking for over half a century. While Eastwood rose to prominence as an actor, he branched into directing in the 1970s and has helmed dozens of movies in the decades since then.
The Mindy Project actor Chris Messina appears in the new Eastwood-directed thriller Juror No. 2. Getting to work under the guidance of a Hollywood veteran like Eastwood was a dream come true for him. He got to see just how Eastwood runs his sets for himself. It was also a surprising experience, as he expected Eastwood to be very different from how he was in person.
“You think you’re going to get some tough guy and he is completely gentle and calm and fun and cracking jokes,” he told People magazine of filming the movie. “A lot of the crew members—[for example], the craft services woman—has been with him for 22 years.”
“He was awesome. I really loved him,” he added. “Ninety-three years old and completely with it, great notes, up on his feet behind the camera—just a badass.” Messina admitted that seeing Eastwood so active on set and not slowing down in his old age was “super inspiring” to him.
Messina appears with stars like Toni Collette and Nicholas Hoult in Juror No. 2. He recently starred alongside industry-heavy hitters like Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, and Marlon Wayans in the Ben Affleck-directed movie Air.
Wisdom coming with age doesn’t necessarily mean we have to become boring as we get older.