Clint Eastwood dishes to Esquire on Obama, death penalty

(CBS News) A month before Clint Eastwood spoke to an empty chair at the Republican National Convention, he chatted with journalist Tom Junod of Esquire magazine.

The interview touched upon Eastwood's upcoming film, "Trouble with the Curve" and his family's reality TV series, "Eastwood and Company." And not surprisingly, the conversation also turned to politics and President Barack Obama.

"There are two kinds of people in this world, 'I' people and 'we' people," Eastwood said. "I've always tried to be a 'we' person. I think that our president is an 'I' person. He speaks as though he killed Osama bin Laden himself."

Eastwood, who has thrown his support behind Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, also spoke about Mr. Obama and power.

"Can you imagine being him, surrounded by people all the time? I'd hate it," the 82-year-old actor told Esquire about the president. "But he seems to like it. He seems to like what I'd hate, all the trappings of power. He said that if he failed in his first term he wouldn't seek a second. Well, here he is -- unemployment's still up around 8 percent -- and he's doing anything he possibly can to keep power. There's no way he's going to give it up."

The subject of the death penalty was mentioned as well.

"There's not a guy in the world that wouldn't want to drop the hammer on them," Eastwood said of  death row inmates. "But in our society you have certain people trying to analyze what we give them for lethal injection. What's the difference? Battery acid would be fine."

Eastwood stars in "Trouble with the Curve," alongside Amy Adams, John Goodman and Justin Timberlake. The film opens Friday.

The October 2012 issue of Esquire is on newsstands now.