Could you see Dirty Harry as the Man of Steel or the quintessential English spy? Me neither, but in a recent interview with Hero Complex Eastwood talks about the fact he was offered the chance to play both of them. We also find out he really liked Namor the Sub-Mariner.
“I can remember – and this was many years ago – when [Warner Bros. President] Frank Wells came to me about doing Superman. So it could have happened. This was when they first started to think about making it. I was like, ‘Superman? Nah, nah, that’s not for me.’ Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s for somebody, but not me.
“I was also offered pretty good money to do James Bond if I would take on the role. This was after Sean Connery left. My lawyer represented the Broccolis,” who produce the Bond franchise, “and he came and said, ‘They would love to have you.’ But to me, well, that was somebody else’s gig. That’s Sean’s deal. It didn’t feel right for me to be doing it.”
“I always liked characters that were more grounded in reality. Maybe they do super things or more-than-human things — like Dirty Harry, he has a knack for doing crazy things, or the western guys — but, still, they’re not caped crusaders.”
He also wanted to avoid being typecast as a comic book hero.
“That was part of the consideration, a big part,” Eastwood said. “Look at Reeve, he was excellent. That was a big factor. You get a role like that, and it locks you in a bit. True, I had the western genre and the ‘Dirty Harry’ role, but everybody made westerns and did cop movies; they didn’t seem as bad.”
When asked what his favourite comic book character as a child was he gave the surprising answer of Namor.
“Hey buddy,” Eastwood said with a thumbs-up gesture, “the Sub-Mariner, that’s the one I always liked. I had all of those comics when I was a kid.”
Imagine the world of cinema if Eastwood had been Superman. I could see him as a 70s Punisher and the comic book Dredd was based on his look.
What other comic book characters could he have played?
Source: MTV, Superman Homepage
