Clint Eastwood's Advice to Son Scott Eastwood

— -- Scott Eastwood, the son of legendary actor and director Clint Eastwood, didn't embrace the family name and business right away.

"To be honest, he didn’t care if I was a plumber or if I was an actor," the younger Eastwood told Treats! magazine about his famous father. "He just said, 'Whatever you do, do it well. Be humble, work hard and be a man.'"

Acting, as it turns out, was not Scott Eastwood's first choice.

"I think when I was younger, like in high school or whatever, I probably thought I was too cool to follow in his footsteps or maybe I just thought girls were more important. But then I realized, 'This is a great life -- I want to do this. So I better figure it out,'" he told the magazine.

For Eastwood, that meant trying to do it his own way -- without his famous last name.

"I just wanted to see if I could do it on my own," he said about starting out a decade ago with a different surname. "You realize sort of quickly it doesn’t really matter! If you don’t work, if you don’t hustle, you’re not going to get anywhere, whatever your name. When I was younger, I thought that was a big thing. I had a lot of pride. I wanted to earn it on my own merit. And not have people say it’s because of a name. But the reality is people are going to say whatever...they want anyway! You can’t control that. At some point you say, 'F*** it. That’s my dad’s last name, that’s my legacy.'"

Eastwood didn't exactly get any breaks working with the elder Eastwood either.

"He’s like tougher on me when I work with him," Scott Eastwood said. "He doesn’t want any favoritism at all. 'Invictus,' 'Trouble With The Curve,' 'Gran Torino,' 'Flags of our Fathers.' He was tough on me on all of them but outside of that, we have a great father/son relationship."

Now the younger Eastwood is about to step into his first leading role in the forthcoming Nicholas Sparks adaptation "The Longest Ride." Already a major heartthrob following his Town & Country Magazine spread last year, Eastwood is on the verge of stardom. But he has no plans to change his simple lifestyle or move to Hollywood.

"I try and keep as far away as possible. I live a very simple life," Eastwood told Treats. "I’m not interested in celebrity or fame. I just want to work."

Meanwhile, he dabbles in a lot of other things besides acting, including owning a bar in San Diego and trying to launch a whisky company. "I have other things in my life," the self-professed "serial entrepreneur" said. "my happiness is not tied to acting."