A Quote by Ben Mendelsohn

I grew up loving the John Wayne and Clint Eastwood westerns. — © Ben Mendelsohn
I grew up loving the John Wayne and Clint Eastwood westerns.
I loved cowboy movies when I was a kid. When I was five years old, I was already wearing a cowboy hat and suit. When I grew up, I knew John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Kirk Douglas and so on.
I was growing up with a single mom who'd be at work when I came home from school. So I'd just turn on the TV. I grew up watching old Clint Eastwood westerns. I adopted him as one of my male role models.
When you're a young boy, you're looking at older men for role modelling. Before I loved De Niro, I loved Clint Eastwood; I loved John Wayne. And James Bond.
Clint Eastwood, to me, is Clint Eastwood. He's great at being Clint Eastwood. But, I don't know how to be that guy. I just don't know how to be one person.
Every time I watch a Clint Eastwood film, I'm in touch with my feminine side, I've developed a searing man-crush on Clint Eastwood.
I watched a lot of old movies. Clint Eastwood movies, a lot of John Wayne films, a lot of movies that celebrated the region of where I lived.
If you were in Clint Eastwood movies, you were in the Clint Eastwood movie business. You weren't in the movie business. You weren't part of Hollywood. This became clear early on; people stopped calling. They automatically assumed I was working exclusively with Clint.
People think I'll kill you if you make a joke. I compare it to Clint Eastwood. I've only seen Clint Eastwood in movies. You think if you make a joke to Eastwood, he might shoot you.
To be brutally honest, I am a little bit of a Clint Eastwood nerd. Clint Eastwood who was the man who drew me into movies. When everybody else was watching Star Wars, I was watching Fistful of Dollars.
Herb Solo at that time was the head of MGM. I said, 'I want to live like Clint Eastwood.' Did I know at that time Clint Eastwood, to him, Heaven was a truck, a dog, and a picnic basket for food or something?
I don't want to quit. I've always said that Clint Eastwood is one of my best friends. I've known Clint for many years and we have almost a jokey relationship about retirement. I always say: "OK Clint, are you ready to retire this year?" And he always says: "No, are you?" So, I'm waiting for the phone call where Clint says he's hanging up his spurs. That's never going to happen. If it doesn't happen for Clint, it won't happen for me.
Where I grew up, acting wasn't really accessible. I was just playing sports. But, I did watch a lot of TV. I watched a lot of Clint Eastwood movies on TV and had this fantasy of being like him when I grew up.
The guys I grew up with, my cinematic heroes, have always been men of few words, but of action. Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach.
Westerns were all daddy liked to watch. Give me some Clint Eastwood, some Charles Bronson, and I was a happy girl. It was our father-daughter bonding.
Clint Eastwood said, the only things America has contributed to civilization are the western and jazz. And I don't think westerns are bad, but lots of people make great cinema. But jazz is right there.
You're not going to be able to look like anyone else, no matter how hard you try, unless you're a mimic, then you're not acting, you're just mimicking. You can't go on being John Wayne, that's John Wayne. So you're not going to steal from John Wayne. I'm not going to steal from John Wayne and you're not going to come back and say 'Didn't you get that from the circus?' You know. But he is one of those people who instructs me, whom I look up to - whom I think is one of the masters of his craft that I am so enamoured of.
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