Clint Eastwood filming in Tower Hamlets Photo: Thore Siebrands

Hollywood heavyweight Clint Eastwood was spotted in Spitalfields this week, filming scenes for new supernatural thriller Hereafter.

Passers-by were left feeling lucky after seeing the veteran filmmaker in a blue baseball cap directing a scene on Bell Lane, Tower Hamlets, on Saturday afternoon.

Alaina Chan, 24, a shop assistant who lives and works on the street, said up to 60 cast and crew and several trucks full of equipment arrived at about 8am.

They were filming inside greasy spoon Café Le Jardin, and left at about 3pm.

Ms Chan said rumours that the 79-year-old has begun to look frail were not true.

“Actually, he looked huge,” she said. “He was really tall, and he wasn’t hunched over, or it didn’t seem like that to me.”

“I will watch this film just to see my street in it,” she added.

Eastwood, who hasn’t filmed in the UK since 1989, warded off press attention while he worked.

He reportedly told a paparazzo to “back away punk”, and employees in Café Le Jardin denied they knew filming had even taken place when approached by East London Lines.

Happily for fans, however, Eastwood obliged in signing autographs.

Social networking site Twitter was abuzz with news of further sightings across London this week.

User FrancescaN, who claimed to be an extra in the film, tweeted that she had been told: “Under no circumstances must you attempt to approach or speak to Clint Eastwood unless he speaks to you first.”

She later updated her followers that she had been able to brush his shoulder.