Eastwood is an audiophile and owns an extensive collection of LPs which he plays on a Rockport turntable. He has had a strong passion for music all his life, particularly jazz and country and western music. He dabbled in music early on by developing as a boogie-woogie pianist and had originally intended to pursue a career in music by studying for a music theory degree after graduating from high school. In late 1959 he produced the album Cowboy Favorites, released on the Cameo label, which included some classics such as Bob Wills's "San Antonio Rose" and Cole Porter's "Don't Fence Me In". Despite his attempts to plug the album by going on a tour, it never reached the Billboard Hot 100. In 1963, Cameo producer Kal Mann told him that "he would never make it big as a singer". Nevertheless, during the off season of filming Rawhide, Eastwood and Paul Brinegar – sometimes joined by Sheb Wooley – toured rodeos, state fairs, and festivals. In 1962, their act, entitled Amusement Business Cavalcade of Fairs, earned them as much as $15,000 a performance. Eastwood has his own Warner Bros. Records-distributed imprint, Malpaso Records, as part of his deal with Warner Brothers. This deal was unchanged when Warner Music Group was sold by Time Warner to private investors. Malpaso Records, which has released all of the scores of Eastwood's films from The Bridges of Madison County onward, has also released the album of a 1996 jazz concert he hosted, titled Eastwood after Hours – Live at Carnegie Hall.
Eastwood's 30th directorial outing came with Invictus (2009), a film based on the story of the South African team at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, Matt Damon as rugby team captain François Pienaar and Grant L. Roberts as Ruben Kruger. The film met with generally positive reviews; Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars and described it as a "very good film... with moments evoking great emotion," while Variety's Todd McCarthy wrote, "Inspirational on the face of it, Clint Eastwood's film has a predictable trajectory, but every scene brims with surprising details that accumulate into a rich fabric of history, cultural impressions and emotion." For the film Eastwood was nominated for Best Director at the 67th Golden Globe Awards.
More InfoEastwood directed and scored the crime drama Mystic River (2003), a film dealing with themes of murder, vigilantism and sexual abuse and starring Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins. The film was praised by critics and won two Academy Awards – Best Actor for Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Robbins – with Eastwood garnering nominations for Best Director and Best Picture. The film grossed $90 million domestically on a budget of $30 million. In 2003 Eastwood was named Best Director of the Year by the National Society of Film Critics.
More InfoFrom the very early days of his career Eastwood was frustrated by directors' insistence that scenes be re-shot multiple times and perfected, and when he began directing in 1970, he made a conscious attempt to avoid any aspects of directing he had been indifferent to as an actor. As a result, Eastwood is renowned for his efficient film directing and ability to reduce filming time and control budgets. He usually avoids actors' rehearsing and prefers to complete most scenes on the first take. Eastwood's rapid filmmaking practices have been compared to those of Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, and the Coen brothers. When acting in others' films he sometimes takes over directing, such as for The Outlaw Josey Wales, if he believes production is too slow. In preparation for filming Eastwood rarely uses storyboards for developing the layout of a shooting schedule. He also attempts to reduce script background details on characters to allow the audience to become more involved in the film, considering their imagination a requirement for a film that connects with viewers. Eastwood has indicated that he lays out a film's plot to provide the audience with necessary details, but not "so much that it insults their intelligence."
More InfoEastwood directed and starred in the political thriller Absolute Power (1997), alongside Gene Hackman (with whom he had appeared in Unforgiven). Eastwood played the role of a veteran thief who witnesses the Secret Service cover-up of a murder. The film received a mixed reception from critics.Later in 1997, Eastwood directed Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, based on the novel by John Berendt and starring John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, and Jude Law. The film met with a mixed critical response.
More InfoEastwood directed and starred in Space Cowboys (2000) alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner. Eastwood played one of a group of veteran ex-test pilots sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite. The original music score was composed by Eastwood and Lennie Niehaus. Space Cowboys was critically well-received and holds a 79 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes, although Roger Ebert wrote that the film was, "too secure within its traditional story structure to make much seem at risk." The film grossed more than $90 million in its United States release, more than Eastwood's two previous films combined. Eastwood played an ex-FBI agent chasing a sadistic killer (Jeff Daniels) in the thriller Blood Work (2002), loosely based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Michael Connelly. The film was a commercial failure, grossing just $26.2 million on an estimated budget of $50 million and received mixed reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes describing it as, "well-made but marred by lethargic pacing". Eastwood did, however, win the Future Film Festival Digital Award at the Venice Film Festival for the film.
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