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Clint Eastwood got the idea for his “very unorthodox” speech at the Republican convention hours ahead of time, and made a last-minute decision to cast an empty chair as an invisible President Barack Obama, the actor said in an interview with a California newspaper.

The Dirty Harry star told the Carmel Pine Cone in the interview published on Friday that he had little public speaking experience but felt his improvised chat with Obama had accomplished his goals. It was his first public comments about the unscripted speech he gave on Thursday last week.

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Eastwood’s remarks puzzled viewers and became the brunt of jokes.

“I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle,” the Oscar-winning actor and director said in the interview. The newspaper serves the California town where Eastwood was mayor in the 1980s.

“They’ve got this crazy actor who’s 82 years old up there in a suit,” he said. “I was a mayor, and they’re probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.”