For multiple generations of film fans, the image of Clint Eastwood on the big screen has almost become a permanent part of their cultural consciousness. Ranging from his brilliantly iconic work in Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy to his endlessly quotable performance in Dirty Harry, Eastwood has built a filmography that is still regularly revisited by audiences all over the world.
In addition to his work as an actor, Eastwood also achieved the unique feat of finding success as a filmmaker as well. Including the critically acclaimed 1995 work The Bridges of Madison County and the Academy Award-winning Million Dollar Baby, the American filmmaker has explored multiple genres, narrative themes and historical subjects throughout his trailblazing career.
While Eastwood’s journey as an artist consists of making the right decisions at the right time, there was a particular role that everyone else requested he not accept. Titled Every Which Way But Loose, James Fargo’s 1978 action comedy stars the Dirty Harry actor as a macho trucker on a quest for love while being accompanied by an orangutan. Although critics agreed with the assessment his friends and family provided, audiences loved it, and that translated into box office success.
During a conversation with The Guardian, the Hollywood veteran revealed that the thought process that went behind accepting that role was a lot more complex than even people in his life gave him credit for.
Eastwood explained: “Yeah, I’ve made some strange choices along the way. That was a film my agent and everyone else begged me not to do. This is after Dirty Harry, and I’d done a lot of action and adventure films, and they said, ‘That’s not you’, and I said, ‘Well, what is me? I don’t know’. To me, it was about reaching out to a younger generation, making a movie that kids could see. With a little less mouth. And there was something hip in an odd way about the movie – this strange guy tells his troubles to an orangutan and loses the girl. Everything about it was a little bit off-centre. It seemed like something to do at the time.”
When asked about what it was like to star opposite an orangutan and the specific challenges such a task presented, the actor replied: “It was great – it was like working with a six-year-old. Supposedly, they reach about the level of a seven-year-old child, and they only have the attention span of a child, so you have to go on the first take.”
Every Which Way But Loose is definitely not among Eastwood’s best works, but it’s undoubtedly an enjoyable “popcorn classic”. Eastwood’s appearance in the 1980 sequel also paid off, resulting in big numbers at the box office once again.