The 'Juror #2' cast still can't believe they got to work with Clint Eastwood

Nicholas Holt Surely someone made a mistake.

Clint Eastwood Wanted to talk to him about acting in his new film, a slow-burn legal thriller about an ordinary man facing an extraordinary moral dilemma. Eastwood must have meant someone else, he thought. But in a while they talked on the phone “Juror #2,” Opens in theaters Friday.

“I was very nervous,” said the British actor. “I remember telling him, “I really like the script.” I was too eager to please.”

As for Eastwood's return, Holt slipped into a pitch-perfect impersonation of his serious voice: “If you like it so much, I guess I'll have to read it.”

Suddenly Holt laughed. The tension was broken.

“I was like, wow this guy is awesome,” he said. “He's got a great sense of humor and we're going to get along.”

While the story may contain a healthy amount of English self-deprecation, its spirit is not unique to Holt. Eastwood, 94, is a living legend that leaves even the most seasoned veteran a little starstruck. “Juror #2,” his 42nd film behind the camera, is getting strong reviews for being a smart, original courtroom thriller about an impossible puzzle.

In Jonathan Abrams' original script, Holt's character, an alcoholic about to give birth to her first child, is selected for jury duty in a murder case. But when events begin to unfold, so do his memories, and he is forced to face the possibility that he may have been unwittingly responsible.

“I had it the first time I read it,” Eastwood wrote in an email. “It made me think what would you do if you were in this situation? What exactly? What is wrong? Who will you protect? A real moral dilemma. That's something I'd like to see.”

And he began rounding out his cast, led by what Holt called a true “movie star,” Toni Collette as the ambitious prosecutor, Chris Messina as the public defender, JK Simmons and Joey Deitch as associate judges, and Kiefer Sutherland, who Wrote a letter asking if there might be a role for him.

Sutherland had long imagined that she would cross paths with Eastwood. A lifelong Western fan, Sutherland's late father Donald Sutherland Even worked with Eastwood a few times (“Kelly's Heroes,” “Space Cowboy”). But he feels a new sense of urgency when he reads about “Juror #2's” plan.

“I always thought one day I would end up on Mr. Eastwood's doorstep. Then I realized that time might be passing,” Sutherland said. “I just said, 'I've always dreamed of working with you and if there's a part, any part, I want to experience seeing you live.'”

He was eventually cast to play Holt, a lawyer and an AA sponsor. The screentime was relatively short, but the experience was exactly what he had hoped for: a true masterclass.

“I've worked with people who yell and get angry and are very demonstrative,” Sutherland said. “He was so amazingly cool and calm and soft-spoken. That's someone who has the power, when they can be it, and get everything they need.”

On his first day, an assistant director was explaining to Sutherland how to navigate a door in a scene. “He knows what he's doing,” Eastwood tells Eddie, stepping in to close the tutorial. Despite his 40-plus years in the business, Sutherland said he was a little tall that day.

“It made my life,” Sutherland said. “I'm so glad I didn't work with him when I was 18, because I would have tied myself in knots.”

Colette likewise stated that she had never felt so faithful.

“As a director he is very confident, but not in a negative way. He is just so present and allows it all to unfold,” he said. “I've never worked with anyone who was so straightforward, to be honest.”

The film will also be the first time she and Holt will share the screen as they played mother and son in “About a Boy” 23 years ago, when he was just 11. They had texted a little earlier, but Colette wasn't ready for the emotional outpouring of seeing Hoult, now 34, again. Then came their first scene together, and it wasn't going to be an easy one: in fact, in fact, it was the last shot of the film.

But that's the Eastwood way. His skills on set are the stuff of legend. Sometimes you get two takes, but three is almost unheard of. Holt said he and the actors on the jury even rehearsed in secret so they would nail long scenes. Someone wanted to be the squeaky wheel.

“He's not skilled for the sake of being skilled,” Sutherland said. “I think Sidney Pollack, for example, was really skilled and when he was known for being skilled, he started trying to show off his skills. … I think Mr. Eastwood just kind of looks at a set and sees a scene and finds a straightforward way to shoot it.

Much has been made about whether “Juror #2” is going to be Eastwood's last film But he doesn't say it publicly or privately. In fact, when production was suspended actor strike, He didn't even use that time as a break.

“I remember when we came back from the strike, I thought, 'What have you done? And he was like, 'Well, I was looking for new material,'” Collette said. “It's not someone's position to say this is his last movie.”

Sutherland added: “His parking spot in the Warner Bros. lot isn't going anywhere.”