Eastwood to Spike Lee: Shut Up

At 78, Clint Eastwood doesn’t have much patience for his current critic Spike Lee. The most influential African-American filmmaker has taken issue with the lack of black people in Flags of Our Fathers and, previously, with having a white man direct Bird, the 1998 Charlie Park biopic. "A guy like him should shut his face," the five-time Oscar winner told the Guardian.

Eastwood prefers that his films be historically accurate rather than look like a "commercial for an equal opportunity player." So don't expect to see many black characters in his latest flick Changeling, set in Depression-era LA. It wouldn't be accurate, he says. He jokes that he'll stick to that formula for his next project, The Human Factor, about South Africa. "I'm not going to make Nelson Mandela a white guy." (More Clint Eastwood stories.)