The Actor Clint Eastwood Says Will Be A Legend In 100 Years

Imagine if Clint Eastwood, a movie superstar and icon on his own right, were to tell you which actor he thinks is going to be an absolute legend in a century's time. You got it? Good. Now, let me tell you how this actually went down in real life. The great writer-director Cameron Crowe — maker of such classics as "Say Anything," "Jerry Maguire," and "Vanilla Sky"— was recently interviewed by The New York Times and told a cool little anecdote.

Crowe was invited to a dinner party by his lawyer (who also represents Eastwood) and was seated next to Dirty Harry. He was as nervous as any of us would be, especially since Eastwood isn't exactly the kind of man open to chit-chat and small talk — just ask his son, Scott Eastwood, who'll tell you that getting knowledge and wisdom out of his dad is a very delicate process. Crowe said he was timidly sitting next to Eastwood when he leaned over to him and said out of the blue:

"'Tom Cruise.' And I go: 'Oh, man, Tom Cruise. I love working with Tom Cruise.' And he goes, 'In a hundred years, they're gonna look back — that's the career, Tom Cruise's career.'"

True story.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist (or a fortune teller) to guess why Eastwood said that. Cruise is in his 60s, and he might be more talked about now than he was when acting meant more to him than pulling off the craziest life-threatening stunts as an action man. Don't get me wrong, he's one of the best at keeping the big and bold action blockbuster alive, but the road that led to this phase in his career was paved with stone-cold classics of modern cinema. He's been such an adrenaline-chaser in the past 15 years that it's somewhat easy to forget he made films like "Rain Man," "Interview with the Vampire," or "Magnolia."

But now that the "Mission: Impossible" franchise has sung its swan song with "The Final Reckoning"(see our review here), there might be another new phase approaching in the actor's late career. And Crowe, who worked with the star on two occasions in the past, seems to sense that major shift. He said:

"I see that there's a time coming, and it might have already started, where he's going to segue into character roles as strongly as he segued into doing action movies of the highest quality. That Paul Newman character phase is just around the corner and will fry people's minds."

As a long-time fan, I sure hope that Crowe is right, and I can't wait for Cruise to go back to intellectually challenging (he maxed out the physical level) and more dramatic roles because we know he's an ace at that, too.