BLADE Magazine

Actor & Leather Supplier, Adam Drescher, Appears in Clint Eastwood Movie, “The Mule”

Adam Drescher (middle) during a break between scenes of the upcoming movie, “The Mule.” At right is Clint Eastwood and at left is character actor Richard Herd. Adam owns Adam Unlimited, which specializes in exotic skins for the knife and motorcycle industries, especially rayskin. (Photos by Images courtesy of Adam Drescher)

Adam Drescher, known best to the world of knives for his stingray leather supply company, has enjoyed many highlights in an acting career that spans over 40 movies and TV shows, but his experience in The Mule directed by and starring Clint Eastwood ranks at or near the top.

Released on Dec. 14, 2018, The Mule is about a botanist—played by Eastwood—who unwittingly becomes a mule transporting drugs for a criminal cartel. As with most of his roles, Adam’s character doesn’t have a name.

Drescher designs most of the accessories he sells, including these rayskin knife cases made in a factory in Bangkok, Thailand.

“I’m a computer online sales guy trying to talk Clint into taking his business online,” Drescher said. “I’m in two or three scenes that were shot, though I have no idea what will end up in the finished cut.”

The scenes were in a bar, which is where Adam asked the person playing the bartender to photograph him, Eastwood and actor Richard Herd.

“Working with Clint was a dream come true,” he added. “I’m what’s known as a ‘day player’—I work on a film for a day, maybe two days at a time, then I’m done,” Adam explained. “People think they remember seeing me but they’re not sure. I’m usually there and gone pretty quickly, usually just a scene or two, and this thing with Clint is almost like the epitome. Being a day player I don’t know how it could get any better. I got to work with him, got to improvise a little bit, got to actually act, had more than one line, and had a little character part to do. I had some interaction with him. That made my day.”

There are different grades of rayskin and Adam said he uses only the best. “People would come to me and say the interior of their wallet had worn out, and we began using shark skin in the interiors of our wallets,” he noted. “[Shark skin] never wears out.”

So what was Eastwood like as both a person and a director?

“He was pretty much what I was expecting only because I’ve heard so much from other people who’ve had the privilege of working with him,” Drescher said. “He knows his stuff backward and forward, totally in charge, quiet, yeah, he’s the man.

Another of Adam’s roles was as Boss Man on the TV show Hap and Leonard starring Michael
Kenneth Williams (left) and James Purefoy (right).

“He never yells at you and from what I gather that goes all the way back to his days on Rawhide [the hit 1960s TV show]. Clint said the director would yell ‘action’ and it would spook the horses before they would start the scene, so Clint got that out of his system and said, OK, real quiet, and the next thing you know you’re doing the scene, you don’t even realize the cameras were rolling. Clint would say ‘cut’ and everything was respectful and really quiet and to the point. I’d heard that he shoots really fast. He did a couple of takes of our scenes, got different angles and got the dialogue right that he wanted. It was a pleasure of an experience for me, a highlight of a career that’s pleasurably been full of a lot of highlights.”


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