DUDE ABIDES!
JEFF BRIDGES The Big Lebowski
eff Bridges says he resists just about every acting offer he gets. “I’m reticent to engage,” he says, “because I know once you engage, it costs something.” It costs him time away from his wife, Sue, and his Cavapoo dog, Monty, as well as his three daughters, Isabelle, 40, Jessica, 38, and Haley, 36, and his three grandkids—and time away from other things too. “I don’t even know what they are, but I can’t do ’em!” he says with a laugh.
But then something will hook him, like his role in the new TV series The Old Man ( June 16 on FX), a thriller drama in which Bridges stars as Dan Chase, a former CIA agent on the run from people who want him dead.
Bridges, 72, is Zooming with Parade from his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. “This is the wildest little place,” he says with glee. He’s in a cozy sweater and glasses, kicked back in a stuffed chair, facing a garden fountain in his yard. “I’m in my garage that I’ve turned into—what do they call it—a men’s cave?” In the background are the sounds of birds chirping and water trickling, while behind him, the walls are covered in photographs chronicling his wide-ranging life and his career, which he began as a child actor.
There are pictures of his mother, Dorothy, and actor father, Lloyd Bridges (High Noon, Sea Hunt); and with his older brother, actor Beau Bridges, 80, and younger sister, Cindy; and photo mementoes of his own achievements as a movie star (The Last Picture Show, The Big Lebowski, Crazy Heart, True Grit). The room is also filled with hallmarks of his other passions. He’s a
Jsinger-songwriter with three albums who also fronts his own band, Jeff Bridges & the Abiders; a photographer with two published books; an artist who paints, sculpts, doodles and makes jewelry; the national spokesperson for the organization No Kid Hungry, dedicated to feeding children around the world; and a longtime activist for the environment.
This room is also, he says, “where my hospital bed was.”
Bridges announced in October 2020 that he was diagnosed with lymphoma—and while being treated with chemo, he got COVID on top of it. “I was just messed up!” he says. “It was quite an experience, I gotta say.” These days, though, he’s feeling great, and before he heads off to get a CT scan for a health update, he shares what impacted him most as a child and talks about his new role in The Old Man and why the Dude from The Big Lebowski continues to abide.
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What drew you to playing Dan Chase in The Old Man? I hadn’t done TV in a long time, and I was curious if it was different than making movies. And it’s no different! All these guys were just top-notch, you know? [Co-stars] John Lithgow and Amy Brenneman bring so much joy and fun; it’s such a ball!
That’s the other joy of acting—you don’t know the people, but the object is to get close, so we can jam.
How did you prepare for the fight scenes in the show? We cast great stunt coordinators and my stunt double. But putting [my character’s] age on the fights was an element; he had to fight like a guy my age. One of the things to prepare for my part was getting into stoicism as kind of a philosophy of guys like Dan. It’s a wonderful philosophy. I like how it mixes with my Buddhist bent.
What do you do for your health every day? Foundation Training. There are two back exercises: a standing decompression breath and the eight-point plank. What it’s about, too, is dealing with stress. We try to avoid stress; but stress is life. That is how it rolls, man! So, to put stress on yourself, it’s a wild thing! I do [the exercises] fairly religiously. I don’t want to get out of the groove, ’cause it’s a good groove.
You’re in The Old Man, but do you feel like an old man? Yeah, especially at certain times. But I also feel like a kid, about 8 years old sometimes! And I don’t think I’ve changed at all. I’ve just come kind of sharper into focus.
What were the most formative experiences of your youth? Probably being born. My parents had lost a kid to SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome, just prior to me. I can’t imagine what that must have been like [for them]. My mom was kind of a magical woman; she did this thing with all her kids called time. She’d spend time, just an hour a day, doing whatever that kid wanted to do, jammin’ with her kids. My mom gave me all that time and attention and my dad gave me my work path. Which, like most things, I resisted. You know, who wants to do what their parents want ’em to do? I’d say, “Oh, I don’t know if I wanna do this, Dad; you know, I’m kinda into music and art and paintings.” And he said, “You’ll get to do all those things, Jeff! It’s a wonderful life.” And I said, “Oh, OK.”