However, Warner, his home studio, were lukewarm. They were loathe to let him down, but did it have to be this? "They said, 'No boxing movies have done well in recent times and a woman boxing has never done well,'" says Eastwood. "I said, 'You know it's not really a boxing movie at all. It's a love story about the father that she never had and the daughter that he never had - two people alone in the world, that becomes a love story."

Eastwood, unbowed by Warner's reluctance, did a tour of the other studios where he was uniformly met by polite reluctance. Boxing? Female boxing? Are you sure? "They would be like, 'Uh, we were thinking more in terms of Dirty Harry coming out of retirement.'" Finally, with a mind to the legacy of their relationship, Warner agreed to a budget of $30m. Off Eastwood went, accompanied by Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank, and with typical lack of fuss made his movie. " Then it was like 'Well why don't we just put it out and see if anyone likes it. It kinda found its own life."

This savagely emotional drama, featuring among its many pleasures Eastwood's finest performance, ended up beating the hot favourite - Martin Scorsese's The Aviator - to the big Oscars. The film took home Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Eastwood's third directing nod.

Clint Eastwood On... A Perfect World
(1993, CLINT EASTWOOD) "I just like smaller stories and interesting people," says Eastwood without apology. "I thought it was an interesting role for Costner, something he hadn't played before, someone who had a slightly bent personality and he wanted to do it badly and I thought he did a terrific job."

The news that Kevin Costner, neophyte prince of the western, would be sharing the screen with Eastwood, grand old man of the saddle, was greeted in some quarters like the second coming. Surely it would be a sprawling western in the great tradition, enhanced by both their qualities. A studio dream of a high profile, cross-generational team up.

Naturally, Eastwood didn't go that way at all. This small, almost leisurely road movie, about a con bonding with the small boy he kidnaps where the two male stars barely share the screen, left most nonplussed. Eastwood only appears at all when Costner suggested he was a perfect fit for old Texas Ranger on his trail, and the director had originally wanted Denzel Washington.

Allowed time to mature, it is viewed as a minor classic. Eastwood is right, Costner is terrific, and the film possess the warm heart and lean, dusty depiction of small-town America that have become part of the Eastwood aesthetic (to a lesser degree look at Play Misty, Honky Tonk Man, Pink Cadillac and Million Dollar Baby).