Clint Eastwood was too young to serve in World War II. He did enlist in the army to serve in Korea. He never saw any combat action, but did have to swim three miles to shore after his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Military service was part of his generation’s coming of age, so it is fitting that his latest project Flags of Our Fathers (which opened nationwide on October 20) honors that service from a typically complex Eastwood point of view. As a director, Eastwood doesn’t do sappy. He celebrates his subjects in all their messy contradictions. World War II may have been a noble cause, but there was a high price to pay. Flags of Our Fathers follows the six men immortalized in the famous photograph of marines hoisting the flag at Iwo Jima. Only three survived and their lives did not come with the storybook ending. But Eastwood didn’t stop with Flags. He was also determined to tell the story from the Japanese point of view, as well. The result was a second film – Letters from Iwo Jima, which will open in Japan in December. After a career spanning more than a half century and more than 60 films, Eastwood has once again confounded expectations and earned a lot of buzz abort yet another Academy Award nomination. With his life in hyper-drive right now, catching him for an interview wasn’t easy, but Dina (she must have connections) managed to corner him for a few minutes just before he jetted off to yet another exotic locale.

Dina: Can you describe the process of making two different movies at two different locations from two different perspectives?

Clint: The locations for the two movies were all very interesting. We used Iceland as Iwo Jima in Flags of Our Fathers. The rock is black, geothermal, just like Iwo. We shot it last summer. Their summers make Carmel summers look hot. Anyhow, we had days in Washington DC, Chicago, LA. Then the following movie, Letters from Iwo Jima, was shot mostly in Barstow. Once again, lots of rock and in and around a silver mine to duplicate the caves in which the Japanese lived and fought from.

Dina: What was your favorite location?

Clint: I like Iceland. It was nice, different. The beaches were beautiful, black sand beaches, much like Iwo Jima. The people were nice and intelligent. Spoke perfect English.

Dina: Was there anything that was really hard to shoot?

Clint: The only difficult part is doing a film with all the visual effects that you are planning on paper. You have to plan every shot ahead of time and plan as if it’s completed. Geographically you can change things around, but not so with effects.

Dina: The double movie concept… has it ever been done before?

Clint: No, I don’t think so. The double movie concept has not been done that I know of. Some movies have shown two different reactions to the same event. Movies such as Tora Tora Tora showed two different sides within the same films.

Dina: Can you talk a little bit about the screenwriter for both movies? One is well-known and established and the other a first-timer.

Clint: Well, Paul Haggis is becoming one of the most important screenwriters of our time. He wrote Million Dollar Baby, followed it up with Crash, and then wrote this for me. When I told him I wanted to do the same film from the “other side,” I told him I had an idea but I didn’t have any money. I asked him if he could mentor someone on this project, some student or young film writer. And he said, “Well, let me think about that.” He called me a week or so later, telling me he had a young woman who had written a few things, a Japanese-American named Iris Yamashita, who did a vast amount of research and came up with the story as it is today. We shot almost exactly as she wrote it. It had to be written with a lot of cultural principals in mind. The whole film is shot in Japanese. It has English subtitles.

Dina: I know with you it’s always story first, but did the history angle interest you as well…. any personal feelings about World War II that you wanted expressed?

Clint: It’s just showing what people go through, the sacrifices they have to make for their country. More so than a combat film. Both of them are about the characters and what these men and women had to go through. Not just a “shoot ‘em up” war movie.

Dina: How is it that you work so quickly and on budget?

Clint: I am very decisive. When I like something, I print it and move on. I am not over-analytical. When it feels and looks right, I move on. I set an atmosphere for the actors where they can perform with the least amount of stress.

Dina: What’s your favorite part of the process…. development, scoring the music, shooting or editing?

Clint: I used to like the editing, as it was the final shaping. But, I must say, I have enjoyed the shooting more in recent years. Watching all the young actors breathe life into their characters. And it’s fun that it’s not ME doing that part of it so much anymore. It’s more fun to step back and watch the younger actors that are coming along.

Dina: In retrospect, how difficult was it?

Clint: It was difficult, in preparing Flags, the curiosity to find out more about Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayash, which led to gathering all material possible on his life. Most of it consisting from a book of letters he had written home to his family when he served as an envoy to US and Canada in the late ’20’s and early ’30’s.

Dina: How do you think Japanese audiences will react to the movie?

Clint: They have been taught next to nothing about Iwo Jima. All the actors on this film had no idea what had happened there. I hope they react well. I think it is important they remember what these people went through, regardless of what the political climate was at this time. Most of these people were everyday people taken out of their home and sent to war. It is the story of those guys, asked to go die for their country. And on Iwo Jima there was no coming back for the vast majority. Twenty-one of twenty-two thousand Japanese soldiers died there.

Dina: What is your personal reaction to seeing the photo of the U.S. Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima?

Clint: I was 15 when it came out. My reaction was probably like every one else’s; thought it was another photo of the war and our American patriots. Now, when I see it, I feel it’s a very artistic framing, very difficult to duplicate or to plan. It’s one of those freakily good pictures that seem to represent a lot.

Dina: What sets Letters from Iwo Jima apart from anything else you have done?

Clint: What makes it unusual is that it is a biographical story and you have to live up to certain things. You cannot take license, moving things around, having them do things they didn’t do. In the case of Letters from Iwo Jima, there were very few survivors so we had the problem of having to combine real characters with SOME lore. Nobody ever found the bodies of Baron Nishi or General Kuribayashi. We have to go with the lore, but it all seemed to have a feasibility.

Dina: Is it relief? Let down? Is it like a kid… where despite all your love and attention, you never actually know how it will turn out?

Clint: It is a relief when you finish but there is a let down, kind of a blue period. And, sometimes, I catch a little cold or something as I come down physically from the 24 hour a day thinking process. Unlike with children, I do have control over how the project turns out. When you know you’ve done your best, and the pictures turn out pretty good, there is not a thing you can do to make an audience like them or not. They take on a life of their own.

Dina: Many people are predicting another Academy Award nomination, or several. Does it matter to you?

Clint: Nah. It’s always great when you make a good movie and people like it. But sometimes, they don’t go for it, and there’s not much you can do.

Dina: At this stage in your career, what drives you? Not only are you doing the best work of your career, but you are taking on challenges that most in Hollywood would shy away from?

Clint: I think you always have to learn, educate yourself, stretch your brain, experiment. Having a 9-year-old and 13-year-old in the house helps.

Dina: What’s next?

Clint: A LOT of golf and relaxation until the next project comes my way.

Dina: Will you ever act again?

Clint: Not if I can help it. The only acting I want to do is that I enjoy getting up early enough to drive our daughters to school. (And at this point, the interview ends to get Morgan off to school)