Mexican actor Eduardo Minett poses for a portrait during an interview on September 23, 2021 in Mexico City.Gladys Serrano
In his latest film, Clint Eastwood continues to chase the bad guys, he drives at full speed, drops a bullet, rides a horse, and sleeps with his clothes on.
Like so many other times, it seems that Eastwood is playing himself in the story of a misfit looking for redemption.
But the old cowboy is 91 years old now and has learned a few things.
In the film, he also caresses the hand of another old woman, dances a bolero, has a stomach ache from eating too much spicy food, takes care of animals and allows him to be cared for by children and women.
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Clint Eastwood, 90 years of personal turbulence and artistic success
'Cry Macho': Clint Eastwood says goodbye with a bolero
From the title,
Cry Macho
, the film smells like a farewell letter. To the vulnerable epilogue of a tough guy. Macho is a fighting cock and also the obvious allegory that runs through the film. The rooster is also the only friend of a lonely boy, Rufo, who becomes the last mission of Mike, the character of Eastwood, an old and finished rodeo star. Fulfilling an old debt of honor, his boss in Texas, the boy's father, sends him to Mexico to bring Rufo across the border.
They are the two main and broken characters in a
road movie
with a moral.
Eduardo Minett is the actor behind Rufo, a Mexican teenager who last year spent more than two months of filming being Eastwood's shadow in the desert.
Sitting in a cafeteria in Mexico City, where he was born 15 years ago, Minett remembers
Dirty Harry
(1971)
,
one of his classic testosterone-poisoned characters, to explain how he sees the new movie and his veteran partner: “All our lives we have seen him as that tough and mischievous guy but he is not the typical macho.
In this film he has shown that what is important is love and having a strong soul but not physically, if not to not conform, to get up when falling but always respecting others and being polite ”.
Do not expect a melodrama or subtleties as in
The Bridges of Madison
(1995), that rarity in Eastwood's filmography.
In a scene from
Cry Macho
, the two protagonists sleep out in the open in the desert.
Rufo tells Mike how his Mexican family hit him and that is why he wants to escape.
“The script stated that I did not have to cry and he repeated to me many times that he had to have tears in his eyes but that they did not come out.
Because males don't cry ”.
Clint Estwood and Eduardo Minett, during a scene from the movie 'Cry Macho' Claire Folger / Warner Bros. / Warner Bros. / EFE
Minett was not used to such contained characters, his last roles had been in novels for Mexican television. Nor was his first landing in the Eastwood ecosystem as director and producer easy. For the last 40 years his films have been billed by his own production company Malpaso, a Warner affiliate, made up of his trusted team. “Everyone knew each other and he delegated a lot. He gave a couple of instructions as a director but left a lot of freedom ”.
From his time as an actor in the service of Don Siegel or Sergio Leone, Eastwood learned to record quickly. To trust the spontaneity of the first take. "We hardly rehearsed and many times I changed the entry footer that put the script," Minett recalls. “At first it took me by the sling and it was difficult. But I think it makes the performances look more natural. "
The script is an adaptation - another constant in his role as director - of a novel from the late 70s, the time in which the film is set. An old project that Eastwood had been pursuing for decades. A new trip to the border with Mexico, as happened in
Mula
(2018), and in which a certain exotic look of the southern neighbor also predominates: drug traffickers and prostitutes, corrupt policemen, spicy food and courageous women.
It seems to Minett that "there are more good things than bad" in Eastwood's gaze on his country.
"But I changed some details that were in the script such as the insults, which were in Spanish, or some weird wardrobe."
The young actor especially remembers the smile of his veteran partner when it was a sunny day and they were riding with horses.
The pleasure with which he faced each day of work.
And a phrase: "I'm going to die on a
recording
set
."
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