Even the famous have their heroes. And Jamie Cullum, the multimillion-selling English jazz musician, readily admits to having a few. For a start there's Clint Eastwood, elder statesman of cinema and no slouch when it comes to jazz either. Cullum recently performed on the soundtrack to Eastwood's Gran Torino, helping to pen the film's theme song, which was nominated for a Golden Globe award.
Cullum admits to being in awe of the 78-year-old actor/director. 'When Clint asks you to do something, you don't say no,' he says of the phone call that led to him working on the film. 'It's an honour just to be around him.'
Cullum is a friend of Eastwood's son Kyle, a Paris-based jazz musician and collaborator on his father's scores. He has worked with the Eastwoods before - on the score for Grace is Gone (2007) - but Gran Torino has made a lot more noise.
The film, which continues Eastwood's quest to examine what it means to be a hero, has become his most successful release at the box office. The tale of a racist old man coming to terms with his changing neighbourhood has been ringing the tills to the tune of US$175 million and counting.
Cullum describes how he found himself at Eastwood's guesthouse, working alongside the father and son and fellow jazz musician Michael Stevens. 'I know Kyle as we move in the same circles,' Cullum says on the phone from his London studio, where he has been working on his latest CD, which is due for release later this year.
'What makes such an experience all the more exciting for me is that I originally thought I might work in film at some point because it is a real marriage of all the things I like.' Before he became an international music star, Cullum combined a film studies minor with the English literature major he took at Reading University.
