Bridging Genres Clint Eastwood Leaves Dirty Harry Persona Behind For ‘Bridges’ Role

As he does with so many things, Clint Eastwood has a deceptively simple explanation for the most confounding move of his long and surprising career.

“People think it’s an unusual project, based on some of the other things I’ve done,” Eastwood, the icon of screen violence - who’s blasted his way through countless incarnations of western and urban gunslingers - said of his latest film, the acclaimed adaptation of the decidedly mushy romance novel “The Bridges of Madison County.”

“Those people aren’t taking into account that I haven’t been a detective with a .44 Magnum on the streets of San Francisco,” Eastwood noted, referring to his most famous character, Dirty Harry Callahan. “But I have driven across country in a pickup truck, scouting locations in a solitary fashion. And, you see, every man falls in love at least once in their life, sometimes more.

“It isn’t very hard to identify with this thing.”

Eastwood, who both directed and plays globe-trotting National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid in “Bridges,” is one of the few men who will admit he liked Robert James Waller’s ultra-bestselling novel. Generally considered a “women’s book,” “Bridges’ ” tale of the brief but life-altering love affair between Kincaid and frustrated Iowa farm wife Francesca Johnson didn’t even impress the actress, Meryl Streep, whom Eastwood eventually coaxed into co-starring.

But the director saw something in the sometimes florid, middle-age romantic fantasy that he knew he had to explore.

“A lot of it was just from the gut,” Eastwood said in a call from his home in Carmel, where, in another surprising move, he once served as mayor. “The skeleton of the book is very good. It’s a very bold story idea to come up with: just a romance between these two. There’s no terminal illness, none of the stuff that guides normal soap operas, no afflictions to overcome.

“It’s just normal psychological feelings - love, guilt, family relationships and loyalty. Yeah, the book has some flowery writing. Some of that was good, some of it wasn’t. But this was just a matter of eliminating things that got in the way of the purity of it.”

Eastwood worked with screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (“The Fisher King,” the current “A Little Princess”) and Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin Entertainment company owned “Bridges’ ” movie rights, on pruning the story of sentimental excess and adding depth and believability. “We all boiled it down to what we thought was reasonable, then I fine-tuned it,” Eastwood said.

Regardless of the final, lovingly wrought result, it must have been a shock when Eastwood first let Amblin know about his passionate interest in the project.

Then again, maybe not.

“Clint came to us and said, ‘I love this book, I know what it is.’ He had absolutely connected to it and wanted to commit,” recalled producer Kathleen Kennedy, who bought the rights to “Bridges” for her then-employer Amblin three years ago, before the novel became the publishing sensation it is today. “Needless to say, everybody was very intrigued with this. Obviously, when somebody of Clint’s stature comes to you with that degree of passion, you pay attention.”

Even though several other directors - notably “Driving Miss Daisy’s” Bruce Beresford and “Out of Africa’s” Sydney Pollack - were discussed, Eastwood prevailed. According to Kennedy, he possessed just the perspective the project needed - even though the only serious romance he’d ever made was his third directing effort, the 1973 “Breezy.”

“Clint didn’t want to make this a slick Hollywood movie, and he didn’t,” Kennedy observed. “He had an exceptionally strong point of view as to how to approach the movie, from the music through the acting and the setting and the feel of the picture. It’s very sparse and restrained and, I think, absolutely right.”

About that acting, though: Eastwood didn’t even appear in “Breezy.” And when he made “Bridges” last summer - in chronological sequence, under schedule and budget and on location in Madison County, Iowa - he was a good decade older than the Robert Kincaid described in the book.

“I think Clint’s one of the bestlooking 63-year-old men I’ve ever seen,” Kennedy gushed (reference books list the actor’s current age at 65).

No argument there, but could a guy best-known for tersely whispering threats such as “Make my day” handle the emotional trials Kincaid goes through?

“The interesting thing is that this movie captures who Clint is in person, rather than the persona most people have from knowing him at a distance,” Kennedy noted.

“I’ve probably expanded my performance capabilities in this,” Eastwood said simply. “I’m not objective about it, but I did what I intended to do.”

And he did it opposite the most respected actress of her generation. Eastwood denied ever feeling intimidated by Yale-educated, everyaward-winning Streep. In fact, working with such a great artist had just the opposite effect.

“Meryl was my first choice (to play Francesca) and the only one I approached,” he said. “She was the proper age for the character, and she had all the tools and skills I felt were necessary for this. Some people feel acting isn’t important, that it’s just a matter of presence in the role. But when two people are going to be on screen for a long time, you need someone of her caliber.

“I always feel that the stronger all the elements (in a movie) are, the better it is for everyone concerned,” Eastwood continued. “The stronger a woman is in a picture, the better the catalyst she provides for the male part that I’m portraying. I knew Meryl would bring that, as her performance shows.”