Son Of A Gun

For most men, joining the family business is the easier option. Not so for Scott Eastwood, a man whose father might just be the most iconic Hollywood hard man ever. But while he is, in many ways, a chip off the old block, the firebrand’s son has his own life well figured out

- Peter Flax

His Form is perfect but then it falters. Scott Eastwood is banging out pull-ups. At first his movements are controlled and fluid, but then his reps get a bit ugly. He is at a no-nonsense gym in West Hollywood. Drake is thumping and everyone at the gym is too busy grunting with barbells and heavy kettle bells to give a damn about Clint Eastwood’s youngest son working out. He keeps going until failure, barely twisting up to the bar one last time before collapsing. Two minutes later he does another set. Same thing. This is not the sort of gym session actors usually do for magazine shoots. It’s far more real and ragged than that.

When I ask him about that visibly lactic effort an hour or so later, as we speed away from the gym in the back seat of a blacked-out Escalade, the 31-year-old actor nods and begins to describe what he calls the Eastwood Code. “Yeah, it’s actually a thing,” he says, before itemising a few elements of the family guidelines. “Whatever you’re doing, you try to do your best at it every time. Just do it and then move on. You don’t ever backstab people or fuck someone over – you don’t have integrity if you do that. You show up on time for stuff. And you don’t bitch and complain about what you’re doing.”

As we roll westward on LA’s Sunset Boulevard, Eastwood starts outlining his six-year immersion in jiu jitsu, but stops midsentence as we roll past two young women walking on the sidewalk. He rolls down a tinted window and says hello. “It’s a beautiful life,” he says, with a mischievous grin.