Clint Eastwood had a lot to say in the interview with Kurier, a small Austrian publication.

Or did he?

The truth seems to be somewhere in the middle after Eastwood, the 95-year-old actor and director, accused the paper of running a “phony” question-and-answer featuring a conversation he did not have.

The interview, first published May 30, included Eastwood’s thoughts on the state of Hollywood, his age and his drive to continue working.

Monday, Eastwood disputed the interview altogether.

And Tuesday, the publication responded by saying that while the quotes were real, they were not from a continuous Q. and A. interview, but rather aggregated from a series of interviews conducted in front of a group of reporters. It said the reporter should have made that clear.

Quotes Go Viral Despite Confusion

The conclusion to the confusing saga came after a few choice quotes ricocheted around the internet.

Eastwood said in the interview that “there’s no reason why a man can’t improve with age.”

When asked about the women in his life, he said he was not concerned with age differences.

“Although I’ve always been older than my wives at some point, I feel just as young as they do, at least mentally,” he said. “And physically, I’m still doing well, so hopefully no one will have to worry about me in that regard for a long time to come.”

But perhaps what garnered the biggest reaction was his response to a question on the state of Hollywood. Eastwood is quoted as saying that he longed for the days when “everyone has a new idea.”

“We live in an era of remakes and franchises,” he said. “I’ve shot sequels three times, but I haven’t been interested in that for a long while. My philosophy is: Do something new or stay at home.”

(Eastwood, for his part, has done a lot of new things. He has directed 42 movies, most recently “Juror #2,” has won five Academy Awards, and received the lifetime achievement Palme d’Or in 2009. He also gave a prime time address at the 2012 Republican National Convention, addressed mostly to an empty chair.)

Eastwood Calls Interview ‘Entirely Phony’

He released a statement two days after the initial publication. “A couple of items about me have recently shown up in the news,” Eastwood said in a statement shared with Deadline. “I thought I would set the record straight. I can confirm I’ve turned 95. I can also confirm that I never gave an interview to an Austrian publication called Kurier, or any other writer in recent weeks, and that the interview is entirely phony.”

By Tuesday morning, Kurier added a disclaimer to the interview saying Eastwood’s accusations were being investigated.

A few hours later, they issued an additional statement. “The interview was obviously neither fictitious nor fake,” the statement reads. The statement added that the author, Elisabeth Sereda, said that she sat with Eastwood for around 18 roundtable discussions via the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, of which Sereda is a member. The journalists present receive transcripts of the conversations, which they may use freely.

“The interview published in the Kurier was a best-of from her conversations with the star,” the newspaper’s statement read. “In this recently published article, she unfortunately did not clarify that it was not a current interview, but rather a summary.”

Reporter Explains Compilation Process

In an email, Sereda said that Eastwood gave 14 interviews to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. She said she was asked by the Kurier to write a “best-of” compilation in honor of the actor’s 95th birthday with quotes from the many interviews she’s done over the years.

“So while Mister Eastwood may not be familiar with the publication Kurier, he is certainly familiar with the HFPA — having given more than 20 interviews to the group dating back to 1976,” she wrote. (She was only part of the HFPA for 14 of what she estimates to be even more than 20 interviews total, she later clarified.)

Eastwood’s representative did not respond to a request for comment from The New York Times.

The page that first linked to Sereda’s article now redirects to a piece by Martin Gebhart, Kurier’s editor-in-chief, further explaining what happened with Sereda’s piece on Eastwood.

The quotes are real, Gebhart writes, but there was important context missing.

While summarizing interviews or taking quotes from multiple conversations is common, best practices dictate noting when an interview happened, whether it has been condensed or edited or if quotes have been taken from a variety of sources.

In the article, which has since been taken down, Eastwood is quoted as saying: “Of course, there are directors who lose their touch at a certain age, but I’m not one of them.”

It’s unclear when he said that.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Talya Minsberg
c. 2025 The New York Times Company