The father-son/mother-daughter acting competition in Hollywood has been around for many years, and it usually seems cordial. We’ve seen this from Kirk and Michael Douglas, Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson, plus the Brolins.
Now we’re seeing another good example with Scott Eastwood (Clint’s son) who’s making his own path in movies and other projects. Have you ever seen one of his movies? Let’s look at the best ones he’s been in so far and if he can become as iconic as his famous dad.
Early career of Scott Eastwood
The youngest son of Clint Eastwood, Scott is the only one of Clint’s sons to follow in similar footsteps. Clint has a lot of children from different relationships, but it seems only a daughter (Alison Eastwood) has been brave enough to take on an acting career.
Scott Eastwood was born in 1986, which may not seem very long ago. This was already late into Clint Eastwood’s career, though Scott’s mother was a flight attendant named Jacelyn Reeves. Scott even took his mother’s last name for a time.
If you happened to catch his early acting performances, you’ll notice he was billed as “Scott Reeves” in those days. Of course, “those days” were not long ago considering Eastwood is only 32 years old.
Like many actors who became superstars later, Eastwood had prominent short scenes in movies and a famous music video.
Moving beyond “Scott Reeves”
Eastwood managed to land a small role in his father’s Gran Torino in 2008, yet hardly a memorable role. It wasn’t until landing a small part in a film called Shannon’s Rainbow when Scott Reeves became Scott Eastwood. Scott clearly took a risk taking his father’s name. Even so, it certainly helped him advance. His film fortunes started to slowly take off after this point.
What’s most interesting is that Scott auditioned for many of his father’s movies while ultimately being rejected for a few. One of those he didn’t make the cut on was American Sniper.
It didn’t matter, because Scott’s breakthrough came in his lead role for the film Enter Nowhere a few years earlier. Considering he resembled a young version of his father by this point, it likely did a lot toward springboarding to the A-list.
A co-starring role in the WWII film Fury more or less proved that Scott Eastwood was somewhat falling into the same lines as his dad. With Clint Eastwood starting out in action films (including a few WWII genres), the trajectory was a bit eerie. The only difference is the spaghetti western isn’t in now like it was during Clint’s nascent career.
Still, films like The Longest Ride had Scott Eastwood starring in what’s generally considered a “neo-western romantic drama.” Ditto goes for Diablo. You can almost count these as a rebirth of the western.
By this time, Scott was appearing in a popular Taylor Swift video for her song Wildest Dreams. Since that point, he’s had bigger starring roles in several high-profile films.
From Snowden to Pacific Rim Rising
The film Snowden enabled Scott Eastwood to co-star in a true-life spy drama, proving his versatility in the genres he could take on. His role as Lieutenant GQ Edwards in Suicide Squad also put him on the map as a potential lead in the perpetually burgeoning superhero movie genre.
Wisely, he’s also moved into producing films. He’s lent his name as a producer to films like Dawn Patrol and executive producing Walk of Fame. Latter moved him into comedy, something we didn’t see his father do very often.
After prominent roles The Fate of the Furious and this year’s Pacific Rim Uprising, Eastwood is ready to take on further film genres and perhaps go beyond just popcorn fare. Will we eventually see him begin to star in Oscar-caliber fare like his father finally accomplished?
Lightning doesn’t always strike twice. Nevertheless, the evidence is out there the offspring of famous people often exceed their parents in accomplishments.