"The Longest Ride's" Scott Eastwood Suits Up

He has movie star looks in the sense that he looks like a specific movie star who’s been famous for half a century. There’s a photo on Scott Eastwood’s Instagram of the young actor messing around at the old man’s office, mugging for the camera in front of a Dirty Harry poster, his index finger pointed like a gun. The same pose has been struck by countless Clint Eastwood fanboys, but this time the impostor is the spitting image of the man up on the wall, except that the younger Eastwood doesn’t — and likely can’t — look as mean as his dad. “Just watched American Sniper,” Scott comments. “It’s amazing!!!!” It looks like Take Your Son to Work Day on the Warner Brothers lot. Scott seems appropriately stoked.

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Most of us were introduced to Scott Eastwood by a 2013 Town & Country photo shoot that grabbed millions of eyes online. Scott was (mostly) on a boat, channeling the shirt-eschewing, model-loving, cigar-chomping glamour of his father’s youth. There was a sense that the Internet had stumbled on an Eastwood family secret, which is not far from the truth. Scott denies the rumors that his father didn’t publicly acknowledge him until 2002, insisting that Clint — father of seven children by five different women — was always there for him when he was growing up. The idea of a paternity denial is, at this point, insane. It’s pretty clear which American actor had an affair with a flight attendant named Jacelyn Reeves that resulted in the young man you see here.

The resemblance is uncanny, but not exact. The younger Eastwood lacks the rangy, hard-ridden vibe that Clint had, even at his son’s age (28). Scott comes off as a more approachable, corn-fed version of his father — broader in the face, quicker to smile. Think Clint Eastwood as Abercrombie model, which Scott Eastwood was, back in 2013. He still models occasionally, posing for the Hugo Boss FW14 campaign, which, judging from social media, was one of the few times he put on a shirt last year. These days, he’s focused on becoming more than just a ringer for a leading man.

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His early résumé is a study in contrasts. Between bit parts in his dad’s films (Gran Torino, Invictus, Trouble With the Curve), Scott did made-for-TV movies and voiced Jack the downtrodden donkey in a Christian animated film about some animal friends trying to avoid the sacrificial altar. He claims to have auditioned with the masses for every part he’s ever had — even when his father was the star, director, and producer of the project. The Eastwoods share some screen time in Gran Torino, along with dialogue that seems a little fraught for a man and his son, given that the son’s birth certificate allegedly reads: “Father declined.” In the scene, Clint’s character, a curmudgeonly, gun-toting war vet, is busy saving a teenage girl from a gang of thugs while Scott’s character looks on helplessly from the sidelines.

Trey (Scott Eastwood): Nice job, old man.

Walt (Clint Eastwood): Shut up, pussy.

Scott was still Scott Reeves back then, but “Trey” was his last credit under his mother’s name. In 2006 — allegedly at Clint’s behest — Scott made the switch.

The “Eastwood” thing still seems kind of new for Scott. He’s insisted ad nauseum in interviews that he’s a normal guy who leads a normal life of hunting, fishing, golfing, boxing, shooting, skydiving, whiskey-making, and especially surfing, which he does extraordinarily well after growing up between California and Hawaii. He’s co-owner of the Saddle Bar, a dive in Solana Beach, Calif., not far from San Diego, where he lives when he’s not making movies. (The tabloids reported that he split with his model girlfriend, Brittany Brousseau, last October.) He poses for the kinds of pictures that non-famous people take with actors, posting them to social media and making sure to clarify that he’s “on set with Danny glover” or “Chilling with Gerry butler” in case his followers don’t recognize the person standing next to him.

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The father worship (Scott’s favorite movie of all time is Unforgiven) feels 100 percent genuine, if a little over-earnest. “My dad is the man!!! Love you pops. #83” was Scott’s commentary on a Hollywood Reporter story titled “Clint Eastwood Saves a Man From Choking.” This is not the kind of thing you see from Jaden Smith. Scott’s favorite hashtag, #eastwoodlivin, seems aspirational for him, something he’s still trying on.

That may change in April, when The Longest Ride hits theaters. Scott scored a starring role in the latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation, about a college girl who falls in love with a cowboy. Yellowing love letters will be read aloud in hospital rooms, western shirts will come off very, very slowly. With any luck, the turn as a Sparks-ian ultraromantic will do for Eastwood what it did for Ryan Gosling and Channing Tatum, although Eastwood has a very specific career path in mind for himself. His ultimate goal: to become a leading man in the mold of, well, guess who? It can’t hurt that Scott looks (almost) exactly the part.

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