The way I hear it Clint Eastwood arrived in South Africa to shoot Invictus on a Friday, never having visited the country before as an explorer looking to absorb and learn. He began shooting two days later (i.e., the following Monday) and, typically for Clint, shot it fairly quickly — two days under schedule, I’m told. He would always finish at five and then, my source says, work out for a couple of hours each day.

My heart and admiration goes out to anyone with that level of vigor and discipline at an age when most people have downshifted if not ceased operations altogether. The guy is amazing — an inspiration. Daily workouts are obviously a way of keeping flush and toned and attuned and overpowering the natural aging process, which tends to begin shutting things down once you’ve hit your late ’70s or thereabouts, if not sooner.

Clint “obviously knows what’s coming” — who doesn’t? — “and that’s why he’s moving so fast and doing one film after another, and making them so cheaply that no one’s going to say ‘no’ and knowing all the while that his brand has an intrinsic value and so on.” I just have to shake my head and go “wow.” Talk about being the captain of your soul.