Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood graces the cover of Esquire Magazine Eighth Annual Meaning of Life Issue January 2009, and is featured in a photo shoot and interview.  See the cover, photos and recent video here.

The special issue has 50 interviews with both public figures and unknown citizens from a diversity of fields from politics to entertainment, one from each state of the U.S.A., sharing thoughts on the topic, “What I’ve Learned.”   Eastwood represents the state of California.  Other famous interviewees include Wesley Clark, Eminem, Evander Holyfield, Paris Hilton, Bob Newhart, Brent Scowcroft, Gus Van Sant, Charles Koch and Toby Keith.

Cover and Photos can be seen here:Clint Eastwood Esquire Magazine

Here are some excerpts from the Clint Eastwood interview.

I kind of had a feeling “Make my day” would resonate, based upon “Do you feel lucky, punk?” in the first movie. I thought that Smith & Wesson line might hang in there, too. But “Make my day” was just so simple.

I still get it a lot.

As you get older, you’re not afraid of doubt. Doubt isn’t running the show. You take out all the self-agonizing.

What can they do to you after you get into your seventies? [...]

You wonder sometimes. What will we do if something really big happens? Look how fast–seven years–people have been able to forget 9/11. Maybe you remember if you lost a relative or a loved one. But the public can get pretty blasé about stuff like that. Nobody got blasé about Pearl Harbor.

I remember buying a very old hotel in Carmel. I went into an upper attic room and saw that all the windows were painted black. “What was going on here?” I asked the prior owners. They said they thought the Japanese were off the coast during the war.

Barack Obama was unimaginable back when I was a kid. Count Basie and a lot of big bands would come through Seattle when I was young. They could play at a club, but they couldn’t frequent the place. [...]

Million Dollar Baby won the Academy Award. That was nice, that was great. But you don’t dwell on it. An awful lot of good pictures haven’t won Academy Awards, so it doesn’t have much bearing. Letters from Iwo Jima was nominated for an Academy Award. We didn’t win it, but that picture was still as good as I could do it. Did it deserve it less than some other picture? No, not really. But there are other aspects that come into it. In the end, you’ve just got to be happy with what you’ve done. There you are.

Source: Clint Eastwood: What I’ve Learned

Clint Eastwood has won five Academy Awards; two for Best Director, two for Best Picture, and, in 1995, he won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award  His most recent movie, Gran Torino, the 29th movie he has directed, opened in limited release on December 17, 2008. 

There is strong Oscar buzz for the movie which marks his first onscreen appearance since the Oscar nominated Million Dollar Baby.  He portrays Walt Kowalski, a widowed Korean War veteran deeply prejudiced against Asians whose prize possession, a 1972 Ford Gran Torino is  coveted by local gang members in his Detroit neighborhood.  Despite prejudice, he befriends the son of his Hmong immigrant neighbors in hopes of steering him away from joining the gang.

Eastwood discusses the movie and his portrayal of the character in this interview video.

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Clint Eastwood Esquire Magazine Meaning of Life Issue January 2009 Cover, Photos pics pictures