“I’m a physical guy,” actor Scott Eastwood tells me from a bustling street in New York.

“[Humans are] like dogs. I think we need to be run.” And run Eastwood does. He runs through a burning cult compound in action film Tin Soldier, runs through the park to his girl in rom-com I Want You Back, and, at least proverbially, runs from the FBI in thriller Dangerous. Eastwood has carved out a place for himself as the de facto leading man—the guy that, as he puts it, carries the gun and gets the girl.

But once in a while, Eastwood drops the gun and focuses on the latter. His all-American aesthetic and perpetual smoulder prime him for romance, and it was romance that saw him on screens worldwide in Regretting You this fall. The film is based on the Colleen Hoover novel of the same title, and stars Eastwood alongside Dave Franco, Allison Williams, and Mckenna Grace. Eastwood plays Chris Grant, an apparently devoted husband and father who dies in a car accident with his sister-in-law, leaving the family grappling with the prospect that the pair may have been having an affair. “What I like about the story in general is that it’s about the grey areas of life,” Eastwood remarks.

You don’t need to be an insatiable reader to know that Hoover is a big name in the book world: her romance novels have sold over 32 million copies worldwide, and have become a staple on #booktok, TikTok’s literature corner. As such, Hoover has a dedicated fanbase: one that shows little mercy when it comes to comparing her books to their cinematic adaptations. When It Ends With Us hit cinemas in August 2024, fans lamented the changes made to the characters’ ages, wardrobe, and various story details. But Eastwood doesn’t feel the pressure: “I’ve starred in movies before based on books [he portrayed the leading man in The Longest Ride, based on a Nicholas Sparks novel]. I just don’t really think about that…I think it’s far more pressure when you’re doing a movie that’s based on a real person, like a war movie. And you’re playing somebody who’s passed...You’re always going to compare something to a book if it’s based on a book. I think that’s human nature. 

Books are always probably going to be a little better because when you read a book, your imagination does a lot of the work for you.” 

If Scott’s surname conjures up images of a cowboy hat-donning Hollywood legend, it’s not by coincidence. Scott is one of actor and director Clint Eastwood’s eight children. (Up until around 2008, Scott went by Scott Reeves, having been raised predominantly by his mother in Hawaii, but took on his father’s name when he starred in his film Gran Torino). Given his lineage, the fact that he has a spate of blockbuster titles to his name, and a not-so-modest 5 million Instagram followers, I ask Eastwood what he makes of the nepo baby discourse that’s been a pop culture fixture over the past few years. “I don’t really listen to that shit or know about that discourse too much. So, probably not the guy to ask,” he retorts. (Like his father, Scott can be to-the-point). “I mean, nepotism is prevalent throughout every society, I think, and at large. Look, if you grow up and your dad’s a plumber, you might be a plumber. You might end up in that family business. You might end up doing it if your parents are into real estate or construction. I mean, you know what you know. I think that people love to sit, talk, and just have something to talk about. Or the media just loves to have a talking thing.” 

Yet despite his foray into romance, having grown up on films like Die Hard, Dirty Harry, and Lethal Weapon, action is his raison d’etre. It’s a genre that makes sense for Eastwood, who comes off as the consummate guy’s guy, reaching for the odd sports metaphor. Otherwise, his draw to the genre is surprisingly practical: his athleticism and action’s commercial success. “Action travels really well internationally. So doing an action movie, it could be a bigger deal in places like China and Europe and Latin America and places that don’t necessarily need to connect to the humor or the subtlety of the language. So that’s a lot of times why I think I gravitate towards movies with an action turn,” he explains. 

It’s a matter-of-fact approach that stands by Eastwood when it comes to the audition merry-go-round. “It’s a numbers game. You just keep going out there and doing it and you’re going to make some wins and you’re going to make some losses. It’s like baseball or getting up to bat…It ain’t personal. It ain’t whatever. It is what it is,” he observes, matter-of-fact. To be fair, Clint Eastwood—a notorious hard-ass who was once quoted saying “some people feel that the world owes them a living,” isn’t the type to raise a son who takes losses personally. 

But despite having broken the back of the action scene, and reaching the point when much of his work comes via offer, not audition, Eastwood’s ambitions haven’t tempered. “The best stuff in the film industry you’re going to fight for,” he says. “You’re just competing on a different level. You’re competing against guys who have been doing it longer than you or have a bigger star than you or whatever. The big stuff you still audition for, and I’m always trying to audition for the five best directors in Hollywood—the Christopher Nolans, the Denis Villeneuves, the Martin Scorseses.”

Speaking of directors, Scott, at 39, is approaching the age his father was when he got behind the camera for Play Misty For Me at 41. So, is the pull towards the director’s chair a hereditary one? Scott reckons so. “Film is the director’s medium. Actors are replaceable. And I think being a director and doing it my own way—I’ve been doing it long enough now. I’m two decades in this film industry—so I think I’d like to give it a crack,” he answers. 

“Actors are replaceable”—it’s a conviction that once again betrays Eastwood’s matter-of-fact understanding of the most romanticized industry in the world. And it makes sense: for Eastwood, show business was never a glitzy, elusive pipe dream; it was the family business. As he himself poses, “We’re talking about a business, right?” 

Photographed by Gavin Bond

Styled by Tara Nichols

Written by Juno Kelly

Grooming: Nicole King at The Wall Group

Flaunt Film: Mynxii White

Location: The 1896 Studios & Stage