[IMG:L]Jeff Bridges is an acting icon for every generation: Baby Boomers fell for him in The Last Picture Show and followed his career through acclaimed films like The Fabulous Baker Boys and The Fisher King; Gen X fanboys remember him in the original CGI movie, Tron, or the first sci-fi heartbreaker, Starman; and of course The Big Lebowski has spawned annual festivals for college-age fans of The Dude’s slacker Zen.
And now Bridges’ demographic may get even younger for the new millennium, with upcoming turns in the CGI animated film Surf’s Up and in the forthcoming film adaptation of Marvel Comics’ armored superhero Iron Man. Computer graphics have come a long way since the days of Flynn and the light cycles.
“Man, leaps and bounds,” Bridges laughed at the comparison. “I remember when we did Tron, we were so excited, seeing it and then I remember about a week after the opening going home and seeing all that technology in a commercial. Just boom, just made it passé like that. That’s the way technology is. It happens so fast.”
But what impresses Bridges most about Iron Man are not the fantastic creations of the techno-wizards – it’s the nuts and bolts of the performances. “It’s been wonderful working with Jon Favreau who’s the director of the film. He’s a wonderful actor that I’ve admired for a long time. I remember first seeing him in Swingers. He wrote that, did such a great job. And Robert Downey Jr. – we’re doing a lot of improvisation in Iron Man to discover scenes and getting off the written page and doing a lot of work like that.”
Bridges says Favreau‘s technique lends itself to a more realistic comic book movie. “I know Jon is very interested in grounding it in as much reality as he possibly can. That’s kind of informing the whole thing. The suit for instance, I don’t know if you saw the first suit, the primitive kind of suit, it looks like, oh yeah, maybe that could happen. It’s all plausible.”
Favreau cast Bridges as Obadiah Stane, the ruthless, manipulative industrialist who’s been challenging Iron Man and his billionaire alter ego in the comic books since 1982. The actor chose to grow out a shaggy beard and shave his head to a buzz cut. “In the movie version, Tony Stark, that’s Robert Downey’s character, Iron Man, [I’m] sort of his mentor. I run his company, Stark Enterprises. The beard is just there, you know.”
[IMG:R]Now that Bridges is nearing the end of filming, it is safe to admit that Iron Man was not one of his childhood comics. “I used to read comics when I was a kid. You know, Iron Man – he wasn’t part of the Fantastic Four, was he? He was in The Avengers, right? No, I wasn’t too much into Iron Man. I was more of a Superman, I was into Green Lantern. I shouldn’t be saying that. Those are DC guys, aren’t they?”
With a long history of taking behind-the-scenes photos of the sets of each of his films, the elaborate production and outrageous costumes of Iron Man would seem to offer the perfect backdrop for Bridges’ snapping, but he corrects that assumption. “Sort of, but not really because I’m kind of a supporting player in it, so I’m missing a lot of the action, the day-to-day work of the thing. And also, a lot of the special effects are going to happen in post [production], so there’s not really too much there. It’s kind of frustrating with this Wide Lux camera: it shoots film. If there’s no focus, the light in the places where you film is usually so low, to get a good shot it’s kind of tough. I kind of got out of the groove of it for some reason.”
Photography has actually taken a backseat on recent film sets. Known in the past for handing out photo books to journalists at his press junkets, the gifts stopped after The Door in the Floor. “I think that part of my life may be over. Not over, I shouldn’t say that, but I was into it in such a groove. I don’t know how many movies I did that on…Then I put a compilation of all those books together in a big coffee table book and that was kind of I felt like I hatched my egg. Now I’ve got to fill up again or something, I don’t know. I haven’t been taking pictures as much.”
Music remains a frequent artistic endeavor when Bridges is not committed to a film. “I play all the time. I played not too long ago. I think I’ve got another album in me. I’m going to get my buddies together collecting songs. My friend John Goodwin, he’s got a lot of music. If you go on my website by the way and you go to the music page, you can hear a lot of John’s music. You can stream his album that’s available on iTunes and it’s called Up to Here. John Goodwin, not Goodman, but Goodwin.”
Jeffbridges.com also fulfills Bridges‘ artistic instincts, but family time remains the priority. “My oldest daughter Isabelle is getting married, so we’re kind of all gearing up for that.”
The Dude as a father-in-law? “I’ll be easygoing father-in-law. The guy that she’s marrying, Brandon Dash, is a wonderful guy. They’ve known each other for many, many years and toured Europe together. I figure if they can survive Europe…”
[IMG:L]Acting has been a family business since father Lloyd got his sons Jeff and Beau into the business. But the new generation of Bridges remains out of the spotlight. “Unlike my father, I didn’t make it as available to them as he did with us. Not that my dad was a stage parent or anything, but he just enjoyed it so much and he wanted to turn his kids on to it. And he was right. I’ve enjoyed it myself and have had a wonderful life because of it.”
It wasn’t always as sunny as the set of Sea Hunt, his dad’s signature series. “I went through a period where it was awkward for me. Whenever you’re the child of a famous person, you get judged in odd ways because of that. Then I remember when I first started my acting, I thought, ‘Oh, I just got this job because of who my father is.’ A lot of nepotism stuff. I’m a product of nepotism, I’ve got to say. I don’t think I would have gotten into it if my father wasn’t so enthusiastic. Anyway I chose to not do that with my kids and I’m kind of regretting that a little bit now because now they’re in their twenties and they’re at that crossroads where they’re starting to ask themselves, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ And I’d say, ‘Do you ever think about acting? You’ve got it in your blood, you’ve got three generations of it and I’ll help you work on the stuff.’ They say, ‘Eh, I don’t think so.’ So I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if any of them kind of stumble into it someway.”
Acting wasn’t much of a shared sibling activity either, except in the case of Baker Boys well into their adulthood. Growing up, a significant age difference gave the Bridges boys a different dynamic. “Beau was eight years older than I am and my dad was working a lot in those days, so he was kind of like a surrogate father. He taught me all the sports. He was always small for his age, I was always big for my age, but he was an excellent athlete and he was scouted by the Dodgers. He played on the UCLA basketball team. Since I was bigger for my age, he would teach me all the sports stuff and kind of vicariously have me go out and be his knight or whatever.”
“I enjoyed it for a while. It was fun to be close with him but I didn’t get into the competitive side of it,” he explained. “He has a wonderful way – my father had this, too – of getting great joy out of competition. Maybe it’s just that I’m so competitive that I don’t like to even get in there. I don’t like to loose. Maybe that’s it, I don’t know. But Beau and my dad would love to compete at like tennis and all that stuff.”
When it comes to acting though, family has always kept things in perspective. “My mom would often say, ‘Remember, don’t take it too seriously.’ I say, ‘Oh yeah, thanks.’ My wife, whenever I’d go off to work and I’d be kind of anxious, she’ll say, ‘Remember, have fun.’ ‘Oh, I forgot, thanks for the reminder.’ Because sometimes we do forget. We take it all too seriously and there’s a lot of joy to be had wherever you are. Tap in and kind of get out of your way and there it is.”
For more with Jeff Bridges talking about his latest film Surf’s Up, check out our video interviews with the cast here.
