Clint Eastwood is known for his directing career as much as he is known for acting. As a director, Eastwood has delivered revered films such as Mystic River, Unforgiven, and Million Dollar Baby. He also won the Academy Award for Best Director for the latter two films. However, Eastwood’s Bradley Cooper-led biographical war drama film American Sniper is arguably one of his biggest hit with a $547.4 million collection at the box office.
However, despite the film receiving praise for its writing, direction, and performances, one aspect of the Eastwood directorial was brutally criticized. The film features a prop baby in one of the most emotional scenes in its 132-minute runtime, which rubbed many critics and viewers the wrong way. As a result, viewers must be curious to learn why director Clint Eastwood opted to film the scene with a baby doll instead of an actual baby, and here is everything you need to know about it.
Clint Eastwood Decided to Film Important American Sniper Scenes Without Baby Actors
As a director, Clint Eastwood is known for filming his movies quickly and in a cost-efficient fashion. The director likes to complete filming most scenes in the first take. However, this filmmaking mantra of Eastwood came to bite the director during his biggest commercial success. Eastwood directed the 2014 war drama film American Sniper, which is inspired by the life of Chris Kyle, a United States Navy SEAL sniper.
During a scene in American Sniper, Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller are seen enacting a heartfelt moment with a baby doll instead of an actual baby. The scene drew criticism online and the film’s screenwriter, Jason Hall, took to Twitter (now X) to clarify the use of the prop in that and some other scenes of the film. In the since-deleted tweet, Hall stated the following:
“Hate to ruin the fun but real baby #1 showed up with a fever. Real baby #2 was no show. (Clint voice) Gimme the doll, kid.”
Advertisement
Hall explained that the scenes were originally planned to be filmed with real baby actors. However, circumstances prevented director Eastwood from shooting the scenes as intended. Instead, he was forced to rely upon a prop baby, resulting in a poor result. Hall’s comment also implies that Eastwood’s swift filmmaking style is also responsible for the film featuring a prop baby in some of its most important emotional sequences.
American Sniper‘s Prop Baby Received Major Criticism
The film’s use of a prop baby attracted major criticism, particularly because of how fake the baby looks. Moreover, the prop baby has also been called out for being distracting during some of the movie’s most emotional scenes.
Writing for Hitfix, critic Drew McWeeny responded negatively to the use of the prop baby. While McWeeny understood the restrictions on the use of babies on film sets, he found the prop baby distracting.
“There’s something wholly artificial about it, and it drew my eye immediately. As a result, the entire rest of the scene, that’s all I can look at. It’s so obvious, and neither one of them looks like they are comfortable holding it.”
McWeeny wrote the above comment after watching the film at the AFI Fest. McWeeny also theorized that Eastwood’s fast directing style might be responsible for the almost comical end result achieved by using the prop baby.
Similarly, Fandango’s Dave Karger claimed that the plastic baby would hurt American Sniper‘s chances of winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards. While Karger was likely joking, the film lost the Best Picture award to Birdman at the 87th Academy Awards. As a result, despite being one of Eastwood’s finest directorial ventures, the use of the prop baby left an undeniable negative impact on the film.
American Sniper is available to stream on Max.