After more than 70 years in Hollywood, Clint Eastwood has earned the right to slow down. But at 96, the actor and director has spent remarkably little of his later life doing so.
After all, Eastwood was 94 when he directed Juror #2, starring Nicholas Hoult. So how has he maintained that drive well into his 90s?
The late country singer Toby Keith once wondered exactly the same thing – and took the opportunity to ask Eastwood himself.
‘I was playing golf with him and I asked him how he was going to celebrate his 88th birthday,’ Keith recalled in a 2020 interview.
Eastwood's answer? ‘Well, actually I can't do much because I've got to go shoot a movie called The Mule.’
Clint Eastwood's Rule for Staying Young
Impressed that Eastwood was still working with such intensity, Keith wanted to know how he continued to do it.
What to read next
Eastwood's answer was simple.
‘My whole life I've tried to get up and do something, be productive and stay busy,’ he said. ‘Don't let the old man in.’
That final line has since become closely associated with Eastwood's approach to ageing.
For him, getting older hasn't meant automatically accepting a less active life. Instead, the principle is to keep doing things, remain productive and stay engaged for as long as you're able.
‘Don't let the old man in’ isn't literally about denying your age. Rather, it's a reminder not to allow the number itself to dictate what you think you're still capable of doing.
The Story Behind ‘Don't Let the Old Man In’
The conversation made such an impression on Keith that he went away and wrote a song inspired by Eastwood's words, appropriately titled Don't Let the Old Man In.
And the story eventually came full circle.
Eastwood liked the song so much that he included it in The Mule – the very film he had been preparing to make when he and Keith had their original conversation.
There are obviously plenty of factors that determine how well any of us age, and simply ‘staying busy’ isn't a magic formula for reaching your 90s in good health.
But as a philosophy for approaching later life, Eastwood's rule is difficult to argue with: keep getting up, keep finding something worth doing and don't let your age become an excuse to stop before you need to.
