The Total Film Interview - Jeff Bridges

There are difficult interviews. And then there are difficult interviews. And Jeff Bridges is a very difficult interview indeed. Not because he's feeling prickly. Not because he's playing clam. And it's certainly not because he doesn't want to talk. Origin

BY Total Film Dec 1st 2003 15:15PMFILED UNDER: Features

Be the first to comment

As far as conversations go, it's more than a little frustrating. Is Bridges phased by the staccato crackle of the interview? Yeah, right. A man so laidback you could practically walk the plank on him, despite five disconnections in all, Bridges doesn't miss a beat (typically: "Where were we? Yeah, so then Clint Eastwood said..."). He talks right up until he hits the parking lot. That's an hour and a half. That's one hell of a phone bill. Anecdotes that don't make the final cut include the misery of the G-string he had to wear during Tron ("Very little sitting down on that movie, you know?"); how director Hal Ashby got fired from Eight Million Ways To Die; acting opposite a fresh-faced Arnie in Stay Hungry ("He plays violin in that movie!"); even his on-set photography (soon to be released in a book called Pictures: Photographs By Jeff Bridges). He's also prone to exploding into loud, generous laughter; you detect there's still something of the boy in the adult. Jeff Bridges is nearly 55. Jeff Bridges still says "man". He's no bullshit, a total gent and great fun.

Don't be fooled, though. The Big Lebowski's deeply casual Dude may be his signature role but he's a tricky talent to nail - a naturalistic performer with the versatility of a character actor but the charismatic clout of a leading man. Literally born into the movies (dad Lloyd starred in more than 100 films; Jeff made his debut as a baby in 1950 drama The Company She Keeps), when he says he's in it for the art rather than the fame, you actually believe him. So to his new movie Seabiscuit, in which Bridges plays real-life Depression-era tycoon Charles Howard, a philanthropist who dumped his profitable car dealership to invest in a knacker's-yard racehorse that turned against-the-odds champ. It's massive Stateside. It's very, very feel-gooey. It could earn Bridges a fifth Oscar nomination. Let's talk...

To say you've had a varied career sounds like a cliché but you're a very hard man to pigeonhole.
Yeah. My dad had some wonderful success in the late '50s with a TV show called Sea Hunt. Too much success, perhaps: people actually thought he was the skindiver of the show, so instead of it being a great acting job, to the public he was that character. In actuality, he was a very versatile actor. Growing up, I could see how frustrated he got out of developing such a strong persona. So I've gone about trying to make as many 180-degree turns as far as character choices go to keep it fun but also to not develop a persona. That way, it's easier for the audience to imagine me as a character, rather than a type.

But not just the audience. Didn't a member of your family see you playing Seabiscuit tycoon Charles Howard before the script was even written?
Well, a couple of years ago, my cousin Kathy called me up after she'd read the book and told me there was this character she could see me playing. Three years later, the script lands on my desk. It gave me a smile to be able to call her back and tell her that her prophecy turned out right.

Director Gary Ross claims that you used Bill Clinton as an influence on Howard, which we don't get...
Ha! I don't understand that either. I didn't really use Clinton so much as my father. He was quite a gregarious guy, a champion of the underdog but he also had a darker side. He often came to mind when I was playing Charles Howard. My grandfather, too - he was one of you guys, a Scouser who moved to America, and a big race fan. I'd drive him to the races when I was a teenager.

You also drew inspiration from Howard's original wallet, right?
Laura Hillenbrand, the author of the book, was kind enough to give me a lot of photos of Charles Howard, which was helpful. She also lent me a precious wallet of his that I kept in my pocket throughout the shoot and used as a touchstone.

Similar to when you wore Preston Tucker's original cufflinks for Francis Ford Coppola's Tucker: The Man And His Dream...
Yeah, that's true. When you're playing somebody who was a real person, I find all kinds of ways you can steep yourself in that character - talking to relatives, friends and so on. I don't know about occult things but I take advantage of everything I can get my hands on. To touch something you know your character's touched gives you some kind of connection.

So where on earth do you start with a character like Starman? An alien with no real human traits?
I had this notion of Starman impersonating a human being and, through that process, learning to become one. I hired a friend of mine, Russell Clark, to help me out. He's a dancer, strange-looking guy. When I'm researching a role, I sometimes look through my address book for inspiration to see if any of the people I know remind me of the character I'm about to play. So with Starman, I looked through my address book and thought, "Which one of my friends could be aliens?" Russell Clark was top of the list. He's a very thin, very tall black guy with platinum-blond hair. So I hired him and we worked out Starman's movements in a studio, experimenting, dancing... Naked most of the time. 

Which reminds us: you and Robin Williams, naked in Central Park for The Fisher King. Fond memories?
Oooh, yeah! Robin rubbing his ass on the grass. That was the last scene we did on the movie, so it was important we got the shot. We shot in Central Park, very close to dawn, and we didn't want the light in the sky. To make it worse, I remember some crazy guy on a bike just wouldn't leave us alone, going round the set and harassing us. We were so scared of not getting that final scene that even me and Robin started chasing him around.

Sounds like a typical Terry Gilliam shoot. He's got a rep for thriving on chaos...
[Laughs] Oh, Terry's one of my favourites! He creates a very loose set. One of my concerns was working like that with Robin Williams, who's famous for going off on one of his rants, but Terry not only allowed Robin to improvise, he actively encouraged him. We worked late nights on that movie a lot, people were exhausted, trying to get that second wind, and Robin would get up and do about 30 minutes of improv on the cast and crew. Terry would egg him on and by the time he'd finished everybody was re-energised. But like you said, Terry thrives on chaos.

Don't know if you know this, but Peter Jackson's remaking King Kong. Any advice for him?
I do actually. It's something I tried to tell the guys on the movie. In my version, the monkey falls off the tower, crashes to the ground and goes up in flames. The monkey's a machine! A machine the natives have been worshipping for thousands of years. In the sequel, Charles Grodin's character buys the carcass, takes machine Kong on the road...

Carlo Rambaldi won an Oscar for Kong's hand but as far as we can see, it caused nothing but trouble.
An Oscar? For that? Did he? Man, that thing was frightening and funny all at the same time. I remember when John Guillermin, the director, was nearly sent crazy by it. They were shooting this scene where Jessica Lange's in the palm of Kong and the hand was worked by having each finger operated by a different individual. And all of these technicians were Italian and couldn't speak English. So John lost his temper and said [adopts English accent]: "Just look at the bloody hand and follow my fingers!" So the guys followed what John did with his fingers, pulled the levers, and between them nearly crushed Jessica.

We heard you were almost killed by a piece of shrapnel on the set of Blown Away. True?
I hurt myself falling off a motorcycle but I wouldn't say it was, like, a death thing. I was much closer to being killed on White Squall - by another one of your countrymen, Ridley Scott. I got very close to drowning shooting the scenes where I rescue the guys from the sinking boat. It wasn't so much the water or the waves. They had jet engines producing the wind and, of course, the engines couldn't be put on full blast because they would have fallen over and set us all on fire. So they put them on low, but along with all the wind was all this fuel residue so when you took a deep breath before going underwater your lungs would fill up with gas. So the combination of that and being exhausted - they were very long takes - I would be giving my muscles assignments and my muscles would tell me to just forget about it.

Surely the set for The Big Lebowski was a bit more, er, relaxed?
I didn't smoke while I was on the set. It would have been a great excuse to get high. But that's a lesson I've learned. Working in an inebriated state is fine for a couple of takes but you've got to sustain that all day and that really doesn't do you a whole lot of good. So for The Dude I did some sense memory work. I was a bit of a pothead in my youth so I had a lot of experience to draw on...

The great thing about The Dude is that there's no character arc to him. He ends the movie like he starts it. Like he never moved from the sofa...
The Dude's a force of nature, man! Usually when I catch one of mine on TV, it's like watching a home movie - oh, I remember that moment, you know - but every time it's The Big Lebowski, I always end up watching the whole damn thing.

What do you remember from shooting the Busby Berkeley dream sequence?
Oh God. Well, there's a shot in my photography book that's a personal favourite. We were shooting this Busby Berkeley thing and I thought it would be a good day to invite the wife and kids on the set. All of a sudden I realised that there was this scene I had to shoot where I fly under all these women's legs, looking up at their vaginas. So I'm lying on this skateboard and to break the ice I talk to the first girl and say to her, "Do you mind if I take a picture? I've got a real photo opportunity here." And she's like, "By all means, Dude." So I'm lying on my board, looking up at her snatch and there's these huge tufts of pubic hair sticking out of her leotard. I look up the next skirt and there's even more pubic hair. And as I go further down the line, the girls are getting more and more bushy. And I'm like, God, this is a dream! Turns out they'd been pulling one on The Dude and stuffed a load of hair inside their leotards.

You've only shot one sequel - The Last Picture Show follow-up Texasville. Aren't you tempted to bring back The Dude?
Well, that's something you'd have to bring up with the Coen brothers, but I'd love to do that. The Dude gets Julianne Moore's character pregnant at the end, so I suppose you could have The Little Lebowski... Actually, another movie I'd love to make a sequel to is The Fabulous Baker Boys. You know, what happened after the brothers split.

What do you think happened to Jack Baker? The ending's very bittersweet...
Ah, well, he turns around. He does this amazing thing: he ends up marrying Michelle Pfeiffer, has three kids and lives happily ever after [laughs]. And then he talks his brother Frank into becoming a punk rocker [laughs again].

But still doing the hotel circuit...
Yeah! Like a whole new genre. Cocktail punk!

Speaking of your brother Beau, does he still call you The Sloth?
Only in interviews. Never to my face. He calls me many different things for many different reasons. We tease each other mercilessly. But The Sloth? Yeah, I suppose I can be that way sometimes.

Suppose you got your own back when you shot that fight scene in The Fabulous Baker Boys...
That was one of my favourite parts of shooting that movie, choreographing that fight with Beau. Our father taught us how to stagefight as kids, so that was a lot of fun to do. The mistake we made was that we didn't have an "out" word, just in case one of us got hurt halfway through the fight. So he was saying: "Stop! You're hurting me!" And I'm thinking like: "Yeah, great acting Beau!" When in fact I'd hit him - and too hard. So we had to take him to hospital. He survived.

Is it true that Michael Cimino told you your job on Thunderbolt And Lightfoot was to make Clint Eastwood laugh?
I don't know! [Laughs] I don't recall him telling me that was my task. The atmosphere Clint creates has a loose, laidback feel. It was a very mellow set. As far as takes, Clint likes to have it done in one or two takes. I was the one who was always asking for more. Clint was like, "Well, I'll give the kid another shot..." Always appreciated that. It was kind of the opposite of Heaven's Gate where Cimino gave us as many takes as we wanted.

So did you detect a difference in the skill or the temperament of Michael Cimino between Thunderbolt And Lightfoot and Heaven's Gate?
Yes and no. In one sense he was the same, in that he wrote both so he had control. Whenever you needed to talk about a line, you went straight to the source. Yeah, I thought it got a pretty bad shot when it came out in the States. I don't know what it was like in England, but I can imagine that the terrible reviews swayed public opinion.

They were pretty vicious over here too. Its reputation seems to be turning, though...
It's crazy. We recreated that period so beautifully. That in itself is enough to see it. Cimino did it the way he wanted to do it. I'm not even sure what the budget turned out to be - nowadays maybe $200 million - but all of the money was up there on the screen. That being said, Cimino was an unusual filmmaker - but then most great filmmakers are.

Finally: is it true director Steven Lisberger had video games on the set of Tron?
Oh yeah! That's a great example of how a director goes about creating his own atmosphere on the set. That was his first film and, for some reason, he thought it'd be a good idea to have video games on set! Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Whenever somebody would shout at me to shoot a scene, I'd be in the middle of a game and shouting back, "Can't you see I'm researching my role here?"

Print