NEED TO KNOW
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Margo Martindale is looking back on making Million Dollar Baby with Clint Eastwood, who directed and costarred in the sports drama
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Eastwood lets actors decide when scenes begin instead of calling “action,” the actress said
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Million Dollar Baby won four Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director
Margo Martindale is revealing one of Clint Eastwood’s unique habits.
The actress, 75, spoke about the making of the 2004 boxing drama Million Dollar Baby in a new interview on Dropping Names with Brent and Jonny.
As Martindale explained, Eastwood, 96, has a unique directorial style in which he doesn’t call out “action.” Instead, he allows the actors to determine when scenes will start.
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Margo Martindale in ‘Million Dollar Baby’
Credit: KinoCheck Archive/Youtube
Speaking about Eastwood’s crew, Martindale said, “they they had worked together so long that group of of cameramen and all that.”
“He would just say, ‘Start when you want to.’ And he’d do this [mimicking turning finger like a camera rolling],” she said. “So you just started when you wanted to.”
She continued: “And then he said, ‘It’s good for me.’ I said, ‘Is it?’ He said, ‘Yeah, it’s good for me.’ I said, ‘If it’s good for you, it’s good for me.’ “
Martindale added that Eastwood would typically only film one or two takes of a scene, “and that’s it, because he had to get to the golf course.”
The film, which also also starred Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank, follows a 31-year-old waitress from a poor background in Missouri who trains at a Los Angeles boxing gym called the Hit Pit.
Eastwood played the trainer in the film, which went on to win the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress for Swank and Best Supporting Actor for Freeman.
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