Scott Eastwood is sharing a decades-old on-set story about his father, Clint Eastwood, and actor Kevin Costner that has quickly drawn attention across entertainment outlets. During an appearance on the Aug. 3 episode of the podcast "Armchair Expert" with host Dax Shepard, the 40-year-old actor described what he called a "legendary story" from the making of the 1993 film "A Perfect World," which Clint Eastwood both directed and starred in alongside Costner.
According to Scott Eastwood, everyone on his father's sets held him in high regard, largely because of his calm, no-nonsense demeanor. "He didn't raise his voice ever," Scott said, before diving into the story, which he prefaced by noting he might "tell it a little wrong."
The younger Eastwood explained that Costner, who was in the midst of his rise to major stardom at the time, seemed to have developed "a big ego" during production. As Scott Eastwood recounted it to Shepard, Costner would not come out of his trailer on a day when he was scheduled to appear in a scene. When Clint Eastwood, who was directing the film, learned that Costner was refusing to leave his trailer, his response was simple and direct: "Well, send him home then."
Crew members then relayed the decision to Costner, according to Scott Eastwood's retelling, which was reported by both Fox News and USA Today following the podcast appearance. Costner reportedly pushed back, saying, "What do you mean I'm in the scene?" The crew's reply, as Scott Eastwood remembered it, was blunt: "Well, I guess you're not anymore. Clint changed that."
Costner was sent home for the day. But according to Scott Eastwood, the standoff didn't last. "I think the next day he was on set ready to go," he told Shepard, suggesting the incident quickly resolved itself once Costner returned to work.
"A Perfect World" tells the story of an escaped convict, played by Costner, who kidnaps a young boy during a cross-country run from the law. Clint Eastwood plays the Texas Ranger tracking him down. The film, released in 1993, also featured Laura Dern, Linda Hart and Bradley Whitford, as USA Today noted in its report on Scott Eastwood's remarks.
Fox News reported that it reached out to representatives for Costner for comment on Scott Eastwood's account, as did USA Today. Neither outlet indicated it had received a response by the time of publication.
A Directing Style Built on Staying on Set
Scott Eastwood used the anecdote to illustrate a broader point about how his father operates as a filmmaker, telling Shepard that Clint Eastwood historically avoided secluding himself in trailers between takes. Instead, he preferred to remain on set with the rest of the cast and crew. Scott Eastwood said his father instilled that same ethic in him from a young age.
"He always told me, too, as a kid, 'You want to learn how to make movies? You want to learn how to do this? You stay here with everybody else, and you make the damn movie,'" Scott Eastwood said, according to USA Today's account of the podcast.
That philosophy, Scott Eastwood suggested, is part of why the Costner incident became such a well-known story among people who worked with his father. Clint Eastwood, now 96, has built a reputation over a decades-long directing career for running efficient, low-drama sets, and Scott Eastwood's anecdote reinforced that image by showing how quickly he was willing to act when he felt a scene was being disrupted.
Growing Up Removed From Hollywood
The conversation with Shepard also touched on how Scott Eastwood's upbringing shaped his own attitude toward fame and set behavior. He told Shepard that he witnessed troubling conduct on movie sets while growing up around the industry, telling Joe Rogan on "The Joe Rogan Experience" in June, as cited by Fox News, that he saw "some behavior in this business that is shocking."
Despite that exposure, Scott Eastwood credited his father with shielding him and his siblings from the pressures that often accompany child stardom. The family did not live in Los Angeles, he said, but instead in Carmel, California, which allowed for a more ordinary upbringing.
"I mean, kudos to my dad, cause he did a really good job of protecting us from that and very private," Scott Eastwood said. "We didn't live in LA, we lived in Carmel. It was a very... as normal as it could be, in the sense that he was like, 'No, you just you need to be a normal child and learn how the world works.'"
He connected that reflection to a broader conversation with Rogan about child actors who achieve fame at an early age, saying that early stardom can cause someone to become "stunted" in their personal growth.
A Separate Clash on the Set of 'Fury'
Scott Eastwood also used the "Armchair Expert" interview to revisit a different on-set conflict, this one from his own career. He described tension with actor Shia LaBeouf while filming the 2014 war drama "Fury," in which the two co-starred. According to USA Today, Scott Eastwood said the dispute stemmed from a scripted moment in which his character spits tobacco on a tank, an action LaBeouf reportedly objected to despite it appearing in the script.
Eastwood said he had been trying to keep his distance from LaBeouf, whom he described as "tormented," but the disagreement escalated to the point that Brad Pitt, another cast member on the film, intervened to defuse the tension. "Brad Pitt sort of broke up a tense moment," Eastwood recalled.
He added that the confrontation was not an isolated incident, saying that other cast members also had tense moments with LaBeouf during filming. "Everyone had moments with Shia that were, I think at one point, going to come to blows or not," Eastwood said, according to USA Today. "It's funny, the film industry, it attracts psychopaths."
Neither Costner's nor LaBeouf's representatives had publicly responded to Scott Eastwood's comments as of the reports from Fox News and USA Today.
