Scott Eastwood is giving an update on his dad, Clint Eastwood, six months after the Oscar winner’s girlfriend died.
“He’s good. He’s doing good,” Eastwood, 38, tells PEOPLE. “He’s a survivor, a trouper.”
Clint’s partner of 10 years, Christina Sandera, died of a heart attack at age 61 last July. At the time, the legendary Oscar winner released a statement saying, “Christina was a lovely, caring woman, and I will miss her very much.”
Asked about what he has learned about resilience from his father, Eastwood says, “It’s in our blood. You don’t complain. You don’t whine. You just do.”
He notes that the 94-year-old Dirty Harry icon “was born coming out of the Great Depression, and then he was young during World War II. He saw a lot of struggle.”
“There is no room for complaining,” he continues.
Eastwood — who first broke out 10 years ago in the Nicholas Sparks romantic drama The Longest Ride — credits his dad for his career path. “He’s the reason I’m in this industry. It’s like anybody. If your dad’s a carpenter, maybe you’d become a carpenter,” he says.
The Monterey, Calif., native (his mom is former flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves) told PEOPLE in 2015 that he spent his childhood being “dragged around to movie sets.”
He later had smaller parts in his father’s films, Gran Torino and Flags of Our Fathers. If he has plans to work with his dad again, Eastwood isn’t spilling. “Anytime I’ve ever gotten a chance to work with my father it’s been a great experience,” the actor says now, adding that his father is an “inspiration.”
Eastwood worked with another icon in his latest movie, Alarum. In the action-thriller, he goes toe-to-toe with Sylvester Stallone, whom he calls a “badass.”
“What I like about guys like Stallone is they’ve got this iconography behind them so the audience can really immediately believe who they are because they have all this history,” he continues.
Growing up around Hollywood, surely Eastwood must have crossed paths with the Rambo icon previously? The actor admits his memory is somewhat, um, rocky.
“I think I did. I don’t really remember,” he says. “I think I met him in passing. Maybe!”
Alarum is in theaters, on digital and on demand on Friday, Jan. 17.
