“They followed you across the room”: Clint Eastwood Had the Strangest Experience After Meeting Hollywood Legend Alfred Hitchcock For a Film

Clint Eastwood is a Hollywood legend with a legacy of over 60 titles to his name as an actor in his career spanning more than six decades. The actor/director has seen and experienced different phases in Hollywood and met several icons and legends.

Some experience, however, is quite tricky, even to describe. As quirky as his films get, Alfred Hitchcock has a reputation for being unique both in his movie-making style and in living his life. When Eastwood met the legendary director, he had the strangest experience.

Clint Eastwood Had The Strangest Experience Meeting Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock is no less than a God for filmmakers and screenwriters, his legacy is evergreen with universal appeal. The master of suspense has produced a great number of masterpieces that transcendent ages and are still being worshiped globally. However, the director was as unique in his real life as his movies. At least, Clint Eastwood would vouch for that. When Eastwood met the Hollywood legend for lunch, he had one of the strangest experiences of his life he will never forget.

“Hitchcock wanted me to be in one of his films [which, it turned out, would never be made]. I wasn’t nuts about the script. I had lunch with him in his office. When I walked in, he was sitting there very erect and he didn’t even move. Only his eyes did. They followed you across the room. He had the same thing for lunch every day — a steak and some sliced tomatoes,” Eastwood revealed (via. EW).

It would have been a wonderful collaboration if the duo ever made a movie. However, according to IMDB, Eastwood starred in an uncredited role of a Newsman alongside Hitchcock in an episode of Human Interest Story, which aired on May 24, 1959.

Clint Eastwood Actually Rejected The Alfred Hitchcock Movie

Eastwood was a rising star and following the success of his character ‘Man with No Name’ in Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, he had earned the right to filter anything on his way, even a Hitchcock film. Also, in the 70s, Hitchcock was not producing movies as great as his sublime masterpieces like Psycho and Notorious in that period. But before the passing of the legendary director in 1980, there was this huge opportunity for Eastwood to collaborate with the director but he was not particularly “nuts about the script” (via. EW).

Although the 93-year-old never revealed any details of the movie or the pitch, it is widely speculated that the movie on focus was The Short Night, Hitchcock was attached to the project of Universal Pictures. Also, per earlier reports, the movie was scheduled to be filmed in Finland.

Eastwood was likely to play Gavin Brand, a government spy in the espionage romance. Of course, Eastwood was not the only consideration for the role, Walter Matthau, Sean Connery, and Steve McQueen were the strong contenders for the part in the film. However, Universal Pictures discontinued the project before production.