Transcript of Jeff Bridges

No, you are. You always have been and still are.

I guess there's a portion of me that is definitely who I am. Yeah.

Welcome back to where everybody knows your name. It's just me today. My friend Woody's making a film overseas. I had the best time talking to Jeff Bridges. He's one of those actors, people say this about tennis players, too. He's so good that when you work with him, he makes you better. He just sucks you into his reality. And he's one of my favorite people. I had the pleasure of working with him once on a film called The Amateurs, and it's one of my highlights. He makes getting into a character's skin seem so easy, whether he's playing the dude in the Big Lubowski or the outlaw country singer Bad Blake and Crazy Heart. He just draws you in. We had a great rambling conversation. I had the privilege of working with his father, so I got to know him early on. But there's so much more to Jeff than his acting. I mean, he's an amazing musician. He has albums you can download. He's an award-winning photographer. He's a Buddhist practitioner and a grandparent, and is married to the amazing Susan. He's starring in a fantastic FX drama series called The Old Man. He plays a former CIA agent, Dan Chase, which earned him an Emmy nomination.

I've seen it. It's just an amazing series. I really encourage you to watch it. And season 2 is airing now. So such an honor to call him a friend. Here is Jeff Bridget.

Okay. Have you been well?

Yes. We're on, by the way. We're going.

So yes, I have been well.

I am blessed with, as are you, one of the... I'm with the most perfect human being in the world for me.

God, isn't the marriage a wonderful thing?

Especially, well- Well, so Susan, we're in the same league here. Oh, God.

But marriage, that opportunity to play with the so-called other. You're doing that together and you get to feet and you're in this playing field, say, We're going to do this. We're attached. And then to To be able to jam like that. And the opposite, the opposite, that's all makes it even better how different we are.

Absolutely. And to go this period of life, which definitely you do see the arc of life at this time. I'm 76, about to be 77. To have a partner at this time that all you do is laugh with. When one of us is in fear, the other one go, Hey, it's okay. We're all right. To be witnessed is amazing. Great.

And to have the growth continue because it's basically all about intimacy, right? Yes. I mean, that's the high, right? And that's what we go for in life, not only with people, but the whole deal. To have a partner, man, that you can do that with and that can remind you.

Hey, can I jump in? Because I want to jump in because it's coming off of partner. I could almost tear up thinking about Susan more than you. Oh, God. Oh, of course, man. Because I have been in a hospital with pneumonia and look at Mary and see the fact that she wasn't sure which way this was going to go. But it's the partner to that moment in your life where you had COVID and went into the hospital for a month. Is that right? Yeah. And it was you didn't know.

I had cancer. Right. Before that. Before that. Can I tell the story quickly?

I'll try to be- Yes, please. No, not quickly.

Well, I'm doing the old man. Sue and I were going to go to Montana. We were all excited about it. I'm on the floor and I'm feeling my stomach doing some stomach exercises. I feel like I've got a bone in my stomach. It's not your bones there. They say, Yeah, you ought to get that checked out. No, it doesn't hurt. We go to Montana for two months, hiking around, come back, and we got two weeks before old man is going to start up again. I said, I better get the thing checked out here. Check it out. I've got a nine by twelve inch mass in my stomach. Nine by twelve inch.

Inside your stomach.

Inside my stomach. And I'm thinking of the old man doing all those fight scenes with this thing in my stomach.

Wow. And other than feeling it, you didn't have any other sensation about not well?

No pain. Oh, well, in Montana, I would have night sweats. I said, oh, that's because it's hot and humid, and I'm sweating at night. My shins itched, and it felt so great to scratch them. Two signs that you have lymphoma.

Now when I start scratching my I'm fine.

Does it feel good to scratch your leg? Yeah. I get the thing removed. This incredible doctor, so gifted.

And he tells you it's cancerous?

Yeah. It's lymphoma. Cancer, yeah. They had a very hard time figuring out what cancer it was, so what was the right cocktail, medicine for it. They finally found this. I wish, again, memory. I can't recall the names of the drugs now as I'm trying to remember. But they gave me this one thing they tried and the thing just imploded. Because it wasn't something you operated on. You had to find the cocktail. It shrunk down to the size of a pea. It's remained that way. Now, I have MRIs every once in a while. But in this treatment, I'm going to the treatment getting that when this is working, January sixth, I come home, I'm seeing on TV what's happening. And I said, Oh, this is wild. What the heck? Surreal. You've got a letter. Okay, I get this letter. Open this card. It's from the treatment center where I've been getting me. He says, You've been exposed to COVID. I said, What? What does that mean? A couple of days later, I found out what it meant because this treatment- You had no immune system. No, he had just stripped. That was the idea of it.

And so that COVID made the cancer look like nothing, man. For a month, right? For a month in the hospital. We didn't know about... Again, Sue, she would ask, Is he going to die?

They wouldn't- They wouldn't say no.

They wouldn't say no. She said, she used a lot of cuss words, said, You better not let me get done. But she's a very strong, strong woman.

I sometimes think it's almost easier to be the patient in a way Oh, God, so much more.

Because you know what you're dealing with. So much more. It's almost a cliché, but times like that, you hear people say, That was a gift, and that you really get a present That you can't get any other way than going to that- Being humbled. Yeah, to that place.

But- Did you know, Oh, this is dangerous? Or were you just too busy dealing with the moment to moment of not feeling great. Do you know what I mean? Did you have a philosophical thought of, Oh, this could be it?

Filled with that stuff. It was a big time, man. You say, Oh, people die, and this is me doing that. I said, Okay, interesting part to play. Okay, I'm up for it. As an actor, you're going, I don't know how to do it. Yeah, you're just going to do it, and it will be done, and that's what happened. I said, Oh, this is me dying. Okay. The doctor would come up to him, down really low. You got to fight, Jeff. You're not fighting. You got to fight. I said, What the fuck is he talking about? Fight? I don't know. How does one fight? How does one fight? I was in surrender mode. Just like, take me. Do it. Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it.

I was working with your brother Bo at that moment. Oh, man. Were you? What show? I think Mr. Mair, and he had a tour, whatever, episode arc. So we talked a lot about you. That's how I knew what you were going on. And he mentioned that, well, you know Jeff, he just went, Well, here's something else I get to experience in life, and embraced it. Yeah. And so some doctor said, No.

No, that was the only assignment, to surrender what's going down. But there's so many different ways to approach it. That was one of the things I learned during that experience. Some people fighting That's what is required for that person. Now, my daughter, Jessie, lived with Sue while I was going through this thing. She moved down from Oakland. Good for her. Wonderful. Both of them experienced the whole thing completely different. Their strategy about how do I deal with my loved one who's going to die. It was interesting to see that and coming to the realization, all of us, Isn't it interesting? We all react to this so-called similar thing in such unique ways. Can we love each other and hold compassion for our own weird and everyone else that doesn't quite fit the pick. You learn stuff, lots of stuff.

This wasn't Mary and myself, but the mother of my kids had a massive stroke during delivery.

I was just going to tell that I was going to ask, is it okay to tell that story? Talk about that because that is amazing, man.

I'm just saying that how you hold it differently. It was similar in many ways. But the point, the reason why I brought it up just now was afterwards, after she was out of the woods, she was still dealing with it. I mean, she had to deal with it her whole life. It had an impact on her physicality. We would go, let's go to a movie. We'd find We had a babysitter for Kate, our daughter, and we'd get to the parking lot and never get past the parking lot because we would have these fights that were basically, where were you when I was having this stroke? Why didn't you keep that from happening? Which was conceivably a valid question. And mine was even more irrational. I don't trust you anymore. You almost died. You said you're not going to leave me ever. You almost died.

Go on. No, I was just confused because Mary had a heavy operation. I thought you were going to tell that story. No, no. This is another whole story. But they both had strokes?

No, no, no. Mary was a brain operation. No, no. Mary was interesting.

All right. Let me clear that up right away.

Okay, yeah. Mary, this is a different brain story. Mary, about 15 years ago, I think it had happened to her before you guys worked together on Open Road. Yeah. Yeah. She went in to have a something. I don't know. It was a bandaid, in essence, to walk out. But they had to put her under completely, which means anesthetic on the whole thing. Anastasia and probably let her blood pressure drop too low. And maybe there was a little mini stroke or a little something that happened. Nothing that she walked out thinking of. Actually, she was told that years later by somebody said, I bet I know what happened, a doctor. Anyway, she came out of that with a brain that operated differently. Literally. She went from somebody who had a normal relationship to music, loved it, appreciated, didn't really play an instrument, to somebody who was obsessed and could not stop hearing music in her head. She says in hindsight, she wasn't any different than that five-year-old musician who picked up a guitar and started playing at five and had music. They probably obsessed on music, too. But she went from zero to 100 overnight. I thought I was married to somebody different.

Talk about a gift, a so-called bad thing. She Became a- She's a songwriter. A songwriter. She was very universal.

I want to go back. Okay, so this is how I first met you was through your daddy. Your dad, Lloyd and I, made a movie called Cousins, was from the French Cousin Cousine. He was brilliant in it and so sweet to me. He played my father. And afterwards, just started including me in some of even a family meal or two of yours. Oh, you got the head of my mom.

Yes, Dorsey. You got the hit of my mom.

Oh, big hit of your mom. Wasn't she wild? Magnificent. But you were very rock and roll at that point. You were at the height of your- I'm trying to figure how many years ago that was.

How old were you?

In your 30s, mid-30s or something? This was maybe '85, '86. So you were off and running in a big way. How old were you at that time? I'm guessing 38, 37, 38, something like that. Isabella Rossalini was in it.

I was mid-30s. I can't remember what I was doing at that time.

But I'll tell you, I don't remember the exact movie, but I was awestruck, and you were in the corner doing music with either Bo or something. I don't know what you were doing, but it had guitar. That's my first glimpse of you. Then I think I may have bumped into it, and we'll talk about some of these things. I think at a fundraiser for No Kids Hungary, didn't you start that years ago?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I bumped into you because of that. And then, I think moguls, the amateur.

The moguls. Now, you see, isn't that is such a bitter sweet as you say that word? I get all these sad, happy emotions.

Why sad?

Well, because it was among, I think, about five or six other movies that were financed by this guy who was a total crook, and the movie never got released. You can see it. I think it's online. It's called The Amateurs, but we did it when it was called The Moguls. We had such a great time.

It's actually brilliant. It's funny.

Don't you think it's a tone? It's a tone. It's just as if Frank Capra made a porn film, but its tone is unique. This guy, Mike Trager, who directed it and wrote it, was such a dream to work with.

Wonderful guy. Oh, yeah.

All of the cast.

You had some of the best character actors around. Oh, gosh. Joey Pantz.

Oh, yeah. But as we talk movies, all these... Because they're like little lifetimes, aren't They're all connected.

Families, little family.

Yeah. We're related in a sense. My father played your father. Yeah. Yeah.

That was an amazing show. That was your second, and you were nominated for an Oscar. Yeah. Wow. Did that mess you up?

No.

No? I don't think so. It wasn't like, Oh, no, no. I have something to live up to.

Or, Oh- Let me say, no, I don't think it did. I was so surprised. It It was back in the day when there was no PR push. There was none of that. I remember a 19, 20-year-old kid waking up in the bed at 4:00 in the morning and somebody saying, You nominated from the camera came up, What are you talking about? Out of nowhere. And it was a thrill. And as far as fame, like you mentioned, my dad with Sea Hunt and his fame in the '60s. Huge. Yeah, I was pretty... So Fame, I saw how he handled it, and I handled it basically the same way.

I'm assuming he taught you well, because I've never seen Fame or anything or publicity or anything about you that was you spinning out because of success. I mean, he took both of you, the whole family, under his wing, right? And you were a theatrical family. You worked with Oh, man.

Oh, yes. So many showbiz family, the parents, the get the kids, don't go into it. My dad was just the opposite. He loved all at the aspects of it. The publicity, the sign and autogravs, the of course, the acting. He was really a schooled actor. When that Sea Hunt TV show happened, he was so successful and he was so good in it that people thought, Oh, he's a skin diver. That's the scripts that he was offered. But he could do anything. There's a part of my uncle in a movie called Blown Away. I went up to the guy and I said, Hey, I got somebody who looks like me, good actor. What do you think Lloyd Bridges. You ever heard of this guy? He said, Oh, yeah. But he's really more of a comic. I say, What are you talking about?

He's thinking airplane.

You know what I mean? I say, Are you kidding me? You're going to make the guy come in and read for the part? He said, Woody? My dad, of course, came in and nailed it. But my dad, he taught me all the basics. When I was a kid, maybe eight, and he was doing sea hunt, and there was a part for a little kid, he'd say, Hey, you want to come to work and play with dad? All right, now do my lines. I remember sitting on his bed and we do line that. He's now, go back, go out there, and do it completely differently. Now, come in with a different attitude.

All these different things. How wonderful.

Oh, my God. But the main thing that you experienced from him that he taught me, that it wasn't anything he necessarily said, but how he approached the work was with such joy.

Did you dig that? Joy and in seriousness.

Oh, serious? Oh, yes. But he was having a good time.

Yes. See, I remember I clocked you once during moguls, the film, and we were working together. I don't know why this should surprise me, but you're about ready to start a scene, but there's 30 seconds or a minute, and you would immediately start improvising. You didn't make it a big announcement. You just said, Hey, let's try this, and you'd start. It was so effortlessly getting you in the mood to go pretend in this scene. There was a seriousness. Now, we're good actors. We're serious actors. Let's give it everything we've got feeling that trickles down, I think, around you.

What comes to mind as stories are triggered is Kevin Bacon. Have you ever worked with Kevin?

Never had the pleasure. Met him several times.

We're doing a big special effects crazy movie together. Now it's got all the principal players in the room, and it's a big special effect thing and a lot of lines we have to say. It's a complicated scene. Kevin calls us together and he says, remember, guys, everything depends on this. It had such English on it, right? Because for me, that's ridiculous. We're making a movie. But yeah, you're right. This moment, this is it, man. Everything depends on what we're going to do. I love that.

When done well, acting is a great gift to how to live your life. Oh, God.

Well, that was like saying my dad just encourages us. I remember when I was saying, I don't know, I'm in my music, dad. He says, Jeff, don't be ridiculous. They're going to call upon all of your dreams and talents. That's what it's all about. You'll get to do that.

And you might win an academy award.

Yeah, not in my wildest dreams.

On the way in today, I wanted to... I obviously couldn't read. I was driving, so I went I know. I had Alexa play Jeff Bridget's music, and up came, you know. Crazy. It is so good, Jeff, the music. Now, who wrote that? Did you write it or who wrote the actual lyrics?

Well, the guy who I mentioned, John Goodman, wrote one of the tunes. Anyway, he wrote the title song, But T-Bone.

T-bone, yeah.

And Stephen Bruton wrote the majority of the songs. And then Greg Brown. Are you hip to Greg Brown? Oh, you and Mary?

I'm sure Mary is.

You think... Yeah, because he's a great writer. He gave us a song.

Wow. Maggie was good in that, too. Gill and Hall.

Wasn't she great? Had you worked with her before?

No, but I know her family.

She was so wonderful to work with.

Gosh. Really good. Let me do one more memory, then I have other places I would love to go with you. We had moguls, which was, for me, an amazing highlight. But we'll do this later. I'm looking, as I'm saying, speaking of jumping around, you're an astounding photographer, and you do books and photos.

This will trigger different thought as you look at the book.

Photographs of everything you've ever been in since... I can't remember when, which movie you said.

Starman.

Starman. Anyway, You and Mary were in a film together, Open Road, with Kate Mara and- Justin Timberland. Justin Timberland and- And Harry Dean. Harry Dean.

Stanton, yeah.

We had one night, we rehearsed at our home. We rehearsed in our home in Ohio, and you stayed nearby in some bed and breakfast. But we had Justin Timberlake and a few other, Kate Mara.

I got pictures of All staying in our home.

Then at night, we had the most... I remember one night, I think Bill Paxton came over. He lived nearby. There was this hoot nanny. You Guys, I can't remember Justin saying, but what knocked me out besides you was Harry Dean's- Spanish?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, his Spanish ballads.

Oh, yeah. Well, you can Google Harry Dean.

He had a standing gig, didn't in LA for years? Oh, yeah, I think so, yeah. He was very good. And he said he didn't speak a word of Spanish, and yet it was all in Spanish, all those things he was singing. You truly thought it was Yeah, he's remarkable.

Paris, Texas, was a great movie that was.

Right before the first time you did a table read, we were making breakfast for everybody. I was the caterer on that film. Harry was outside and asked for a cup of coffee, and I brought it to him and he said, Could you put a little something in it? I thought he meant cream or sugar, something. No, he needed just a little shot of something, tequila in his coffee, because he was nervous and it was the read-through, and it was just... I don't know why it just touched me so much.

You triggered a scene that I have with Harry Dean in a movie called Rancho Deluxe. And it's the movie I met my wife on. And there's a scene. It was a bold choice, man. It's like the climax of the movie. This is online, people, wherever your camera is. You can check this scene out. Harry Dean, Jeff Bridges, Ping Pong. No, Pong, just the game Pong. And it's the climax of the movie, and the director decided to do this rather long scene with us playing Pong. In our reflection, that was the whole thing. I thought it was a great scene, man. And of course, there's improvisation involved because you don't know if you're going to make the shot or not. It was wonderful. You know how good that feels, capture something real. But Harry Dean, wow, what a gift he was.

Yeah. Amazing. You won a nomination. Was that with Clint Eastwood? Rancho Deluxe?

No, no, no. That was Thunderbolt light for it. Oh, sorry. But Rancho Deluxe was with my buddy Tom McGewin wrote it.

Was Sam Waterston in there?

Sam Waterston was in it, man. I've done a couple of things with Sam. You must have done Sam.

But I love the fact that somebody, that when you went up to Susan on that movie, you saw something. Well, I should let you tell it, but someone captured that moment on film.

Oh, well, we're talking about how wonderful marriage is. And whenever I have a little slight doubt of it, this image comes to mind of what happened that you're talking about. So I'm in the I'm in the hot tub at Chico Hot Spring in Montana with Sam and Harry Dean and Richard Bright. Do you remember Richard Bright? Yeah. We're in this hot tub and I'm looking around. I see this girl in this bandana. She's gorgeous. And I can't take my eyes off her. I'm just drawn to her. And she's got two black eyes and a broken nose juxtaposed to that beauty. And I'm going, and finally, it's tough to ask a girl out. It's tough to do that, to say, Hey, you want to go out? But I finally got myself together and saw her there as we were rapping. And I said, Hi, I'm Jeff. Would you like to go out with me tonight? And she She said, No. I said, Oh, really? She says, No, it's a small town. Maybe I'll see you around. I said, Okay. Now we cut 30 years later. Turns out that her prophecy did It proved to come true that we met at the rap party, danced and fell in love.

I could make a long story. I'm going to go short. But now we cut 30 years later and we've been married now about 25 years. I'm going through my mail and I get this letter from this guy who is the makeup man on Rancho Deluxe, the show that I met Sue. He said, I was going through my files and I saw this picture of you talking to a local girl. He sent it and there's a picture of me asking Sue out and her saying, No, click. I have that. He took a close-up of it, too, so I have that two shots. I've seen them. I must have seen them because I'm so proud. If I was looking for my wallet, I don't have it. But yeah, so whenever I think- Did he know that it was your turn to be- No, that's what I mean.

You just said some local girl.

No, that's what I meant. That's it. You had no idea.

I love that. That's fantastic. Talk to me a little bit about the Coen Brothers. You did what, too?

Have you worked? Well, you did. I never had. But you did the TV show that was Fargo- I did the TV Vargo.based on Fargo. Which was- You were so good in that, man.

Yeah, those turned out to be great.

They really did, didn't they?

I kept thinking, why are you remaking a TV? No.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I said to the Coen brothers when they wanted me to do True Grit. I said, Why are you making this? John Wayne did that big thing, and you're going to remake. Yeah.

Won an Academy of Lauren.

And they said, Yeah, exactly. They said, Have you read the Charles Portis book? And I said, No. I said, Read it. And I read it. It's like, Oh, it reads like a Coen brothers script. So I was like, Oh, obvious. But, oh, gosh, they're wonderful to work with.

I hope Wasn't... Am I mistinking here Big Labowski. Labowski was Coen Brothers? Yeah.

Great.

Yeah. I think the dude who's written knowing you.

Because I mean, that's what they said. Oh, really?

They did? Oh, yeah.

They said, I saw blood simple, and I was not. I said, That's great. And then they say, We've written something for you. I said, Really? And they said, I said, What? This is like nothing like I've ever done, but somehow.

I love it. Sometimes people approach you thinking like the dude is some creation that made you be No, you are the dude. You always have been and still are.

I guess there's a portion of me that is deaf to who I am.

I don't mean there wasn't artistry involved, but that happy goal lucky, but deep water is going on behind the eyes.

Gosh. But they were incredible to work on. What a great show. This little book that you talked about that we did. I have books like that from Starman up to- With all your photographs.fearly recently, much of it. I got my La Balski book. I can go through that and boom, boom. Each of those images I remember. And working with John Goodman. You must have worked with him sometime, huh?

I haven't married him.

I have not. So he was such a cool guy. Really cool. And we had rehearsal, as I said, with the Coen brothers. They write so Well, then it all seems like improvisation. Yeah, you're right. But no, man, you stuck to it. You wanted to play the music as it was written on there. You could interpret it and give ideas and stuff, and they were open for that. But there it was. We stuck to every fuck, every man in the right place because it was like music. It was brilliant. We had the time to work with it. I think we did some improv to discover the realness of the scene. But so much I look for in a director, it's just the attitude that they created on the set. How it's all going to happen. They just said this thing about... What popped in my mind, the different kinds of directors, hot directors, cold directors, hot directors say, Yeah, you're going, oh, they're really enthusiastic, but genuinely so. And that's wonderful. And then the cool guys say, Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. There's no big deal. We're just here doing our thing. No, nothing important. And that's a little bit more their thing.

And then there's some people also that make you feel like you have carte blanche, that you can do no wrong. Whatever choice you make is going to be perfect. They may direct you and move you, but that feeling of, Oh, I'm in the groove, and I can do no wrong is a wonderful place to act from.

I remember Michael Cimino, his first movie, Thunderbolt Lifeblood, one of my early movies. I remember you're riding a Harley up in Montana, and you're preparing for this character and thinking about who he was. In about two days before we started shooting, I went into Mike's office and I said, Oh, man, I'm so sorry. Why? He said, Mike, I led you down this road for a while. I'm not right for this part. I don't know who this... I'm sorry. I apologize. I'll do everything I can. Of course, you don't have to pay me. But God, I just can't do it. Mike said, You know the game tag? I said, Yeah, you're it. I said, What do you mean? He says, You're it. It's like what you said. You couldn't make a mistake if you wanted to because you're it.

Yeah.

Wow. Interesting acting lesson.

That was with Clint, he's been?

Clint, yeah. That must have been a host. And Chimino, after that, we did Heaven's Gate.

For about two years or something.

Where he would do 60 takes. And Thunderbolt Life, Clint only liked to do one, maybe two, maybe three at the top.

As an actor, not just as a director.

He was a producer. He gave Chimino his shot to direct this thing, and Chimino wrote it, too. So I go up to Mike and I say, Oh, I got an idea. What if I do this? And he said, Well, you have to go to the boss. Clint would hear it. You go, Yeah, get a shot.

That's crazy. Have you ever worked with my co-star here, Woody Harrelson?

No, but every time- You should. I cannot believe that you had him. Every time we bump into each other, I get an immediate boom. Oh, yeah, man.

You would love him.

No, I do. I mean, I admire his acting so much. Me, too. Just this character. From what I've probably Google surfed him, but I always dig him. Yeah.

He has one of the world's best dispensaries. I try to plug it whenever I can.

Yeah, but isn't it interesting? Now, he's not smoking or does he smoke? Oh, yeah.

He does. It depends on what day of the week, but yes, he does. Not when he works. I was I was terrified that when we started doing this, that I was going to have to be stoned with him every day to do this.

No, I don't do that. Not when I work. Yeah, I'm like that, too.

Yeah.

I can't smoke now because of my lungs and my health, but I'll do the texture occasionally.

I take a gummy to go to help with... Because I have a lot of arthritis, so I wake up uncomfortable in the middle of the night. So I take this gummy that has percentage of THC. And I've always said, It just helps me sleep. One night, our dog woke us up, about four hours into my sleep, which I've never been awake for. I I woke up going, What the fuck is wrong with me? I was, Oh, you're stone. You're really stone. But I had never been awake for the stone part.

Exactly. Isn't it amazing how pot, remember when we were in high school.

Buds and twigs.

But it rests. You get busted, and now it's become a big health thing. People are looking at it so differently.

Rightfully so. Although now, because when I go to work, I need every brain cell showing up for work. Absolutely. To be able to pull it off. It's like, no. Then a couple of our kids are having in-house narfs, and then we have grandkids. The idea of you have actually an evening to pull this off is far and few between. I'm just trying to tell our audience that we're not strong right now.

We're responsible people. Absolutely.

Music. Do music. You started... You were going to be more a music guy than you were an actor, right?

Yeah. Well, I don't know. I mean, both my parents and my mom, too, who is very gung-ho, What kid wants to do what their parents want them to do in their teenagers? I resist. I noticed that in my life. I resist a lot, but it's served me well in a funny way, I think.

You resisted what? Piano lessons?

I resist so much thing. I resisted piano lessons. Now, that's a resistance I'm sorry I made because I remember my last piece was for Elise, and I bitched, bitched. I don't want to do it, mommy. Okay, but you're going to be sorry. She's so right. Now, I play, but nothing like I would have been able to play if I had done some wood shedding, and that's the way I feel about the guitar. Kids like to play on video games. Well, some kids back in the day, video game was this. To have that, be so fast Do you write lyrics and compose stuff?

Yeah. So you compose on guitar or piano?

Both.

Yeah.

How about Mary?

She has done piano. It's slower for her because she's not totally proficient, but she can... She's composed two or three songs on her own on the piano. And then, okay, one other thing, or many other things, but how did No Kid, Hungary? Tell me the origin of that and the why and the how.

Yeah, well, it goes back, right?

Well, tell me, sorry. Tell me what it is first. I can't describe enough, but obviously it's about feeding kids.

I wanted to tell you about That's what it is I've got to tell the story. I'll do an acting challenge to try to truncate in a creative, elegant way. Don't truncate. Well, back in, when was asked?

For me, '75. You did Est. I did in New York.

Yeah. You remember The Hunger Project? Yeah. You remember Warner Earhart, who has become a controversial cat.

I got a lot out of it.

I got a lot out of it. I went with Sue She didn't dig it.

No, Mary wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot call. I love it.

But I got off as an acting thing. It was like little inner improvs, and so it was wild. But then his hunger project really moved me when he presented the problem, the existence of hunger, the fact that it doesn't have to be that way, that we know how to end it. And it's not about scarcity, it's about creating the political will, which finally gets down to the will of us who elect the politicians. And to not just make a gesture It's like you see a guy in the corner, you feel sorry for him, you give him 10 bucks that eases your guilt. Do something that is sustainable, something that you can keep doing until it's done, until the job is done and one that fits into your zone, your wheelhouse. So I asked me, What can I do? I said, Well, I'm in the entertainment business. I do all these promotions. I'm doing what I'm doing right now, pitching something. Now you're asking me, I got to talk about it, right? So I said, Oh, I can find some other guys and we can make an organization that supports communicating this problem and what can be done about it.

So we created the End Hunger Network, and that was wonderful. I would go to Washington to do a lot of lobbying, and I'd have my things that I want to tell this gut Senator, and I get the meeting, and I say my thing, and the guy is getting it. He goes, Wonderful. Gosh, look into that. That's really incredible. Joey, let's get a shot of me and Mr. Bridges. Then he walked down the hall after the meeting and said, What just happened here? That's a gunslinger, man. He got what he wanted. It really took the wind out of my sail. Then I was doing something at the Boys and Girls Club in Santa Barbara, and I meet this guy, Billy Shore, who has an organization called Share Our Strength. We started both of these about my organization, the Ant Hunger Network, and his started about the same time. Anyway, he came up to me and says, Hey, I want to make a proposition to you. I want you to be the spokesperson for No Kid Hungary. I said, Well, what's that? He said, Well, rather than concentrating on the feds and how they can change the situation, we're working with mayors and governors and local people.

People who are answerable.

Yeah, and who are there and really firsthand. He pitched this idea and it just sunk in. We've had just incredible results doing it that way. That trickles up to the politicians So that's... And basically, it's getting nutrition to kids that need it, that can't afford it. School programs. Summer is particularly tough time for kids, but there's numbers that they can call. I'm very happy to be involved with it.

I discovered through my work with Ocean Activism that my job is to stand in front of the tent and say, Thank you for watching. Cheers. I appreciate it. I'd love to have you meet this Marine biologist who's standing behind me. She has something really important to say. That has always been job. But by being consistent like you just described with hunger, you learn a lot. You're not just a spokesperson. You really do know, which gives you a lot of credit, I think. You end up... Yeah. Thank you. He's been here for a long time. This is a worthwhile thing. He's not just fly by night.

Well, what you're saying triggers in me is that subject we started the whole conversation conversation with marriage. I had just thought to marry life or to marry the world in your dream, that relationship of like, you can do what you want, but we're here. This is what we're doing.

This is what we're doing, meaning this is life. This is what we're doing.

This is life, and we're married, so you can bitch about it. That's totally fine because I'm going to bitch at you back at you, too. But here are together. We're married. What marriage do you want? What do you want? Oh, you want intimacy? Oh, well, what does that look like? What does that mean? Well, I want to... What's scary is asking, take me to my edge. Take me where I don't want to go and help me grow in that spot. Life will do that. Like with the hunger thing, I had to give myself a little caveat because what What Werner was initially asking, that's big stuff to make that commitment and think, Oh, I'll probably fail. I was supposed to sign. They had a thing you could sign. The little caveat that I made in my mind to be able to sign on was that go to the light, to this dream that you're realizing is the truth as far as you can see, go towards that. But if it gets too heavy or you don't... Asking too much, you can just turn around and just feel the light on your back. You don't have to do it, but you're in it.

You're married to the idea, and then you can turn around and do those things. So as I approach the hunger work, they'll ask something that I go, I was going to do this, I was going to do that. And sometimes I'll go like that and just say, It's okay to say no. It's okay to say no. Then sometimes they'll say, when I do this with myself every once in a while. I'll say, I'll do a little experiment on myself. I'm going to do it when I don't feel like doing it. See what happens? I'll do it and boom, a bloom will happen. There'll be that gift, that little gift that the challenge gives you.

But I think having that caveat in your brain also probably keeps you from just quitting. Oh, yes, totally. I can let some steam off.

You don't have to break. You can bend with this stuff. And that's what's allowed me. And then to get that little kick of like, Oh, no, this is me following my dream. This is where I'm needed. This is the part that I can play to see that. When you're, Oh, I'm in the groove. I'm in the thing. That furthest the next one. And you remember that feeling and you can carry that on.

It also makes Fame and celebrity something you can make use of. It has a purpose other than just ego. You can go, Oh, it's okay to make use of Jeff Bridges, the movie star, because I'm going to go try to work on this hunger thing and make use of my celebrity like other people do, but I'm going to It was it, too.

Yeah, exactly.

I think that saved me early on. For some reason, I learned that during the height of cheers, I bumped into an ocean advocate who was trying to stop Occidental Petroleum from slant drilling into Santa Monica Bay. Oh, yeah. We worked together and found a solution and beat them. It was very naive, but some part of me, and to be honest, I was stoned. I know where I was. I was on route to some event, some probably award show, and I was a little buzzed. I came up with the idea, basically, the idea event Starting an environmental organization and hiring this environmental lawyer, my friend. It was this naive thing. But then, sorry, this is longer than- No, this is naivete. I love- Talking about going to Washington. The first time we announced our little organization, and no one was really focusing on oceans in the mid '80s that much. And so we decided to go to Washington, and Congress announced this, and we had very sweet people, Al Gore and Barbara Boxer and all of the California delegates standing behind me in this big, huge press room in Washington, Wood Things. I literally, it's the only time in my life I've experienced what it means to have an out-of-body experience.

It was so powerful, and probably some part of me knew, Oh, this is going to be your life's work, that I literally found myself looking down at myself, talking and in the whole room. It lasted about three or four seconds. Then I said, You better fucking focus focus on what you're saying. And I came back into my body. But I had one of those moments of, Oh, this is where you're meant to be.

Yeah, that's right. And all through life, we resist that, don't we? We fight. Talk about fighting. We fight against it. Remember, was it Maryanne Williamson? I think it was her saying something about we're not afraid of failing, but we're afraid of really being as great as that opportunity and the possibility. That's frightening. I think that's true.

You have to sacrifice a lot. You have to give up your ego. You You have to give up your... You have to be willing not to be right all the time. You have to get over yourself. You have all these things that you have to let go of.

It's like this stranger says in Labowski, Sam Elliott, She says, Yeah, sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you. You can know all the tricks, all your strategies. Life is just...

Mary and I have this joke that is, sadly, not an exaggeration. Whenever she has an idea, and I go, Oh, no, no, no, no, to her kite. It's like I'm always trying to pull her back in.

That's how Sue is. I love that, man. That's so wonderful. Gosh, that's a great thing. Sue and I, we have the fewer and fewer now. It's that miss in a way, our prime battle, the prime evil battle that goes back before we made anything. We've developed this method. When we get like that, we'll get a little closer than we are now. Just look at each other's eyes, and whoever wants to go first can go first, and they just say their thing until they've run out. And then the other person, while they're saying their thing, you're not making notes on what I'm going to say in my rebuttal. You're just receiving. That's your task. And then it's switched. And the other person says her thing, and that person is just to receive it and understand it, but no real aimless about where it's all going to go. So the prime battle is You don't get it. You don't get it. What it's like having a relationship with you and what you do all the time, man, you don't get it. What came so clear to me many years is, God, you're so true. I don't get it.

You don't get me. Here we are, we're married. What do we do about that? Isn't it wonderful that neither one of us but we're in love and just accept that edge? It's the same edge when you're asked to love this person and It grows and it grows and finally it gets so big. It's so precious, man. We haven't had one of those. They happen more so because you're getting this buildup of intimacy. We had one the other day and it was slight, and you learned all and you say, Oh, no. You go, Yeah, and you're running that in your mind. I regret a little bit not cashing in and say, Come on, let's sit and do our exercise here. I let it go. Then, of course, because you remembered that answer, what it's all about, but you forgot it, you had another chance to hit it again, but no, you let it go, and now it slips back into where it was. Timing, huh? When you pulled the trigger on things. Trust, too.

Trust. I think we're both blessed, lucky, whatever. But if you're not with somebody who isn't willing to look at themselves, it's not very conducive for you to look at yourself.

Are you hip to Byron Katie? Tell me. Oh, she's really interesting. She's this woman. Her history is fascinating. I'm not going to go into that, but Google her. I think both you and Mary would dig her. Because she had this shift, like Mary's shift. She had this an enlightened shift. Anyway, she was really down the hub. She developed this thing called The Work.

You heard of that? Yeah, now I've heard of that.

Go on. If you had a problem, Mary never listens to my good ideas. There's a worksheet that you fill out. You don't try to be enlightened or anything. It's that hard feeling, you write it down. Then the first question that you're asked, Is that true? Then you write why that's true. Then the second question is, Are you certain that that is true? That just opens it all up. Then I'm going to run through it very quickly. You can edit this down, but then I think in the next one, What would you feel like if you didn't have that feeling? Then I can't remember the fourth was. Then there's the turnaround where you replace what you said about the person like, I never listened to Mary's... Not to make you feel... Just to sit with those different words. It's music, how does that make you feel? That's something that I think is useful.

It is. I have this thing I've noticed recently where the only time anger is in the with us. First off, it's usually there's either fear or love, I think, in the world. If you're coming from fear, nothing good will come of it, really. If both of us are in fear, we're screwed. We're going to have some anger. If one of us is in fear, the other one can go, No, I get it, but it's all right. You're just scared. It's okay. We'll be fine. When we're both in fear, that's when And I realize I only get angry at Mary when I'm wrong because I don't want to be that person you just reflected, that mirror you stuck in my face. I don't want to be that. And I'm pissed off that you're making me look at this person. I don't want to be- But value it.

Who else in the world could do that? I know. I know. I was so fortunate to have the problem, right?

The challenge. And if she's wrong, I'm fine. It's like, oh, That's sweet. Look, she's wrong. But it's almost always me getting mad because I don't want to be who I just realized I am.

It's all inner work, isn't it? It's all… It's wild.

It's Can you talk about your show for a second.

Oh, yeah, The Old Man.

It is brilliant, by the way. I saw the first season. I had read this script for some reason, and it was an amazing script. It's so pleasurable to believe Probably see somebody, I don't know how old you were when you started that, but 70, maybe.

Oh, yeah. Probably. I can't remember.

But whatever, it's called The Old Man. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And The Old Man fucking kicks ass because he's been around the block.

Yeah, well, you got several old men. You got John Lipschall.

John, who's one of my favorite actors on the planet.

He's so great. And then you have Joel, who trumps us all. Joel gray, who's in his 90s.

Yes.

He was in his 90s, and he was wonderful to work with. But yeah, the script. As I mentioned, the word resist, that I resist things. That's how I went into this. As I go into both things, I spend so much energy when somebody says, Hey, what about this? I start to resist because I think of all of the things that it will imply all the time away from my family, all the other things that I want to do that I can't do, all the other cool things that are coming down the road that I won't be able to do. So I resist, resist, resist. And then I get in and talk about fear. You don't want to meet with the creatives because I'll get sucked into their dream. And I don't want it, so I resist that. And so Tim Stack, he's a friend, and he gave me the book, The Old Man, by Thomas Perry, maybe seven years ago. And I read the script, and like you, I liked it, the script. And I told Sue, I said, This is pretty good. And she says, Yeah, Tim gave you that book years ago. I said, Are you kidding me.

I said, No. So I read the script, dug in. Again, I mentioned I was afraid of meeting the creators to get sucked into their dream, but that was the next move or let it go.

Yeah.

I met with one of your guys, Littlefield, Warren, gosh, and John Steinberg. They got me. I just lived their dreams and how they were going to do it.

And they had just come off of Fargo, which was a really well-done show.

I remember part of my resistance was due to my dad, who did several TV series, and I saw how hard he had to work to do it and the slight dissatisfaction of that versus movies. I thought about that, but then I started to see some of this great work coming off the screen. You go, wow, man. Secession. That shows secession.

Oh my Jesus, that was kick-ass.

Wasn't that good and fresh? Or what about Pen 15. Have you seen that? Yes. Oh, what an acting lesson. Those girls playing 13 and 34?

Yeah.

And pulling it off seamlessly and having all... Oh, gosh. Wasn't that delightful?

Yeah. And then one of them went off to do the TV version of Mr. And Mrs. Smith.

She's great. I got a chance to get on the video with her and tell her how excited I was. That was a great actress, and they directed it, wrote it. Can you imagine? They started trying to pitch it at 24. But can you imagine trying to get money for that dream? But they were, talk about married to a dream, man. God, that was We just pulled it off.

Wow. Let me ask some questions because one of the things I loved about the first season and the script was the dogs.

Oh, yeah.

Dogs? Dogs.

Dogs. Dogs.

Dogs. Yeah. Which was Brilliant. Was that hard to pull off filming? Were they great?

No, there was a lot more of them than you see. They're all made up to look like one.

Ferocious.

No, made up literally with makeup to make them all appear to be the same animal.

So there's one dog character.

No, there's two dogs. Two dogs. Two Rottweilers.

Which gives the old man an edge when it comes to the Bad Guys. Do they make it to the second season? I can't remember.

I don't know if I should tell. Never mind. Don't. Maybe I'll say anything.

It is a brilliant show.

It really is. It's always the casting, not just the actors, but the team that you bring together, and then you, boom, let that rip and see what it is. The team that we've assembled is just remarkable. John Steinberg, the scripts that he writes. I didn't know how I would dig all the different directors, but every director has been great. Every cinematographer has been great. The look of the thing is so great.

Do you have different cinematographers? Oh, yeah. Do they tune and they switch all the time?

They switch all the time. It's very much like life, not knowing what's going to happen. If there is a third season, I don't know.

Wait, so you've shot the second and it's about to come out? Yeah.

September 12th.

I've circled John Liscount several times, but the first time I understudied him in a Broadway show called The Comedians. Gosh, I'm trying to... He and Jonathan Price. Oh, yeah. It was about stand-ups in England. Just brilliant. It was just brilliant. But then I got to circle him here and there. He's a lovely man.

Yeah, great, great guy. One of the things that I find so fascinating about acting is how available love is and friendship, this thing is this old and old thing. When you get two people intending to create that, it's pretty quick, man. Whether it's a bad guy or a good guy in the movie, I always try to get quite intimate with them or get down to it, say, Now let's let it have its way with us. Because then that creates relaxation. Too. Trying to be something that you're not with somebody. John and I both kicked into that and just had a great time.

I love actors.

Isn't it incredible?

Writers, directors. I love creating Activity.

Well, this thing that we're talking about, and I sense it with you, and it becomes so natural that it's not an intended thing. It just happens because that's how you do it. I've noticed that with you. Immediately, That whole troupe that we were on with moguls was like that. But there's some actors, please only call me by my character's name. I don't want to hang out. That works, too. I know. That goes to so many different ways to do I worked with somebody once, a leading lady who she would come and do what she'd worked on the night before, and you would just better fit in because there was no.

I thought, this This sucks. She's going to suck. Then I looked at Russia's and she was fucking brilliant. You see? You don't know.

People approach things from different ways. The Russia's thing, I wonder if you've experienced this, where you do a day of shooting and you said, Man, I kicked ass in this seat. I was fucking there. I was so emotionally full. And then you see the dailies and you say, What? Who is that asshole? Oh, you're catharting. Well, okay. But That has nothing to do with the story we're telling. And other times when the director will say, All right, mom, moving on. No, I didn't. He said, No, that's it.

And if you're not editing or producing or directing or something, you almost have to take the attitude, none of my business. Now, it's none of my business. I did my thing, and now it's their thing.

It's like we make a painting, and then they cut it up and make a collage out of it. Sometimes it comes out much better than your painting. What a great hang, man. Wasn't that fun?

Oh, man. Yeah.

I'm so happy. Thanks for having me, man.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jeff Bridges. I had the best time catching up with him. I hope you did, too. Season 2 of The Old Man is airing now on FX. Really encourage you to check it out. That's it for this week's episode. Special thanks to my buddy Woody and to our friends at Team Coco. If you like these episodes, tell a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast app. If you have some time, great rating, a review on Apple podcast wouldn't hurt. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. We'll see you next time, where everybody knows your name.

You've been listening to where everybody knows your game with Ted Danton, Woody Harrelson, Sometimes. The show is produced by me, nick Liao. Executive producers are Adam Sacks, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaka, and Apodaca. Engineering & Mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Graal. Talent Booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Genn, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osmond. Special thanks to Willy Nadler. We'll have more for you next time where everybody knows your name.