Loading summary

Transcript343 lines

[00:02]
Jeff Bridges
Tetragrammaton. Unlike a lot of entertainers, my dad encouraged all his kids to go into showbiz. And so when I was about 8 years old, he'd say, hey, come on, you got to come to work with dad. You know, you get to get out of school, make some bucks, you know, buy some toys or whatever you want. Come on, you know. I said, oh, okay. And so I looked at it as basically pretend. Remember being a kid and pretending? And so, you know, it's always, you know, nowadays it's like advanced pretend, basically. You know, you get into play with all the cool kids, you get the cool gear, you know, that's basically what it is. And something else that hasn't changed is my anxiety about it all. You know, I'm always quite anxious.
[01:13]
Interviewer
You know, what do you attribute that to?
[01:16]
Jeff Bridges
Just the unknown, you know, you don't know what's going to happen. You know, it's. And we never know. You never know, man. And you know, but we have this imagination that we can jam, man. We can ruminate our asses off, man. And so. And that's what, you know, acting is all about. That a story just popped into my head. We go string of consciousness in this. Yeah, yeah. So I'm about 16 years old and I go with a bunch of my dear friends and we go to my parents beach house down here. And now it's time to leave. I'm turning out the lights, right, to leave them lock up. And that little feeling of fear of the dark, Remember that feeling, the fear of the dark. I said, what happens if I invite that in and let it engulf me? And boom. Drove me to my knees. I went fetal, man. I just was shaking like, when was this? Just like what, 16, you know, so how many years? I don't know, you know, I'm 76 now, you know, so I don't know what year it was. And my friends came in and said, what's wrong? What's wrong? You okay? I said, yeah, man, there's something amazing just happened. I said, what? I said, I can be afraid of anything I want to be afraid of. Yeah, it was really quite remarkable and so that you carry that into. Into the acting too. But, you know, remember pretending, you know, when you were a kid, you're. Yeah, the better you can, you know, the more real you can take the shot or the more real you can do anything, the better, you know, there's a lot of different approaches to acting, but that's kind of my approach.
[03:08]
Interviewer
Tell me about your dad.
[03:10]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, well, like I said, my dad loved acting, man. You know, his father didn't want him to be in acting at all. You know, wanted to study law or something like that, but my dad wanted to act. He became the. The head of the drama department in UCLA. This is. You know, I'm in the 20s or early 30s. That's where he met my mom. And he just, you know, loved acting and struggled his ass off. Went to New York. You know, here's an interesting little tidbit. So this is, like, I don't know what year, maybe 60. Meredith Wilson wanted my dad to be the music man, because my dad sings, and I. One of my earliest memories is Meredith Wilson and Rene Wilson, his wife, coming over to our house and playing the whole score. The music. What a score.
[04:14]
Interviewer
Yeah. Amazing.
[04:15]
Jeff Bridges
One of my earliest memories is Meredith Wilson coming up to me as a kid and say, you got trouble right here in River City, you know, doing that whole song to me as a kid.
[04:24]
Sponsor Voice
Wow.
[04:26]
Interviewer
So cool.
[04:26]
Jeff Bridges
And then Teague Dacosta, the director, wanted Robert Preston, who just kicked ass in that role. I mean, he was remarkable. And my dad got Sea Hunt that same year, so it worked out well for him. And then my acting career kind of, you know, took off. I was doing stuff in high school, you know, different things. I had an agent and all of that, but I resisted acting quite a bit, really, because I had other things I wanted to do. Music, painting, art. I had a bunch of other stuff. And I didn't want to compete with my brother, who was all bo, who was also an actor. And my dad and I didn't like that whole. What's the word?
[05:10]
Interviewer
Nepotism.
[05:11]
Jeff Bridges
Nepotism. Thanks, man. You know, that whole thing. So I said, dad, you know, I don't know. He said, jeff, don't be ridiculous. That's the wonderful thing about acting is that you're going to be called upon to do all of these things that you're interested in. You know, look at Crazy Heart. You know, when that award that came out of listening to my dad and the music, you know, came around, you know, amazing. So that gives a hit of my dad. Then when I were doing Sea Hunt, he would teach me all the basics. You know, he. I remember sitting on his bed and running lines. So he's got, you know, learn your line so you're not thinking about it. Thinking about what you got to say, but also listen to what the other guy is saying. You don't just say your line when that guy stops talking. You got to let what he said inform what you're there. So that kind of basically. Now go out of the room, come back in. Now do it completely different. I don't care how you do it, just do it completely different.
[06:10]
Interviewer
Great advice.
[06:11]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, yeah.
[06:11]
Interviewer
And do it different each time. Yeah, Just try new ways.
[06:15]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, yeah, new ways. And mess around like that. So he taught me all the basics, but the amazing.
[06:21]
Interviewer
As a little kid.
[06:22]
Jeff Bridges
As a little kid, the main thing doing Sea Hunt, Now I'm about 8 years old, and I remember the time this kind of embarrassed me. But looking back, I say, oh, I'm so proud of my dad. You know, that's another thing I love about making movies. It's all kinds of people, different points of view, philosophies, politics, all of that, you know, so you're working with all different kinds of people. And there's some directors there, many different approaches, and a lot of them work a lot of different ways. One way that my dad did not abide by was cruelty or meanness. And there was some director that was being sharp with a PA and embarrassing this young woman. And my dad, who was the star of the show and Sea Hunt, he said, excuse me, I'm going to be in my trailer. And after you've apologized to the crew in front of, you know, what you did to this woman, you can come and get me. But until that time, I'm just going to be in my trailer. So let me know, you know, as a kid, I said, oh, you know, but looking back, you know, I said, yeah, that's. That's the kind of guy he was.
[07:36]
Interviewer
That's great.
[07:37]
Jeff Bridges
And then another example of what he was like was probably the most important thing I ever learned from him. Although it wasn't in the form of words. It was just his behavior was the joy in which he approached the work. You know, they call it a play. You know, it's play. It's like, this is cool, what we're doing. We're playing, man. And he would come in with this attitude, and that would go through the whole casting crew, this sense of joy. And of course, when you're joyful, you get relaxed, right? And out of that relaxation comes the good, right? Or that's what I find.
[08:17]
Interviewer
No, for sure.
[08:17]
Jeff Bridges
And so as then, as an adult, I got to work with him twice. First time was in Tucker with Francis Coppola and talk about pretending and, you know, like, he's got a great child quality to him, as well as being a, you know, incredible artist on many levels. And one of the things Francis would do is that he Storyboarded quite heavily. And then he would shoot with the film camera, his storyboard. And then we had a two week rehearsal. The first week was just hanging out, getting to know each other. And the second week he got the cast and crew together and he said, all right, guys, now this week we are going to shoot the entire movie. Vittorio Storaro here, he's going to use this little new fancy digital camera and that wheelchair that's going to be his dolly. And you wardrobe people, look at these curtains. These would make good wedding dress. And you actors get off book if you can, because we're only going to do each scene one time. And we're going to do it in order. It was like Little Rascals, you know, come on, let's make a movie, you know, we're having fun, you know. And he shot the entire thing, filmed it like this. And then what we didn't know was to and fro from work, he sat in the back of his black Citroen and edited this thing. At the end of that week, he gave each of us the movie. He said, look here, you just gotta polish it up.
[09:56]
Interviewer
Amazing.
[09:57]
Jeff Bridges
And then what he would do, he had that storyboard. As he completed those scenes, he replaced the storyboard with those scenes. And then as we shot the movie, he replaced it. He replaced that. So the movie was always in existence.
[10:13]
Interviewer
That's unbelievable.
[10:14]
Jeff Bridges
Isn't that a wild take?
[10:15]
Interviewer
I've never heard of anything like that.
[10:17]
Jeff Bridges
No. It's so incredible. And then for an actor, because you shoot out a sequence to have the whole story there was really.
[10:25]
Interviewer
Yeah. You can understand the emotional arc in a way that you never could.
[10:30]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. And that brings to mind Sydney Lamed, who my dad worked with in Transunion Temporary Town. I worked with him in a movie called the Morning after with James Fonda and Sidney, who was an actor.
[10:48]
Interviewer
I didn't know he was an actor.
[10:49]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, yeah, yeah. He knew about rehearsing and what that's all about. And so we rehearsed our ass off in that movie. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie, but we would run the whole movie twice. He taped out a gym, like a play, basically taped out a gymnasium. All the. The right size of the sets that had been chosen. And his main direction is. I don't want any indication here when we do this. Every time you do the scene, I want full blown performance level shit and get off the book as soon as you can. But it's interesting, all these different approaches. You know, some directors say no we don't want to rehearse. You're going to leave it. But acting, you're going to do take after take. And, you know, this thing. I didn't read all the books that my dad read, so I got a lot of it from just him talking to me and my mom. He said, when you're working on a scene, work on it in three different ways. One way is how you would do it. It was happening to you. So really look into yourself, you know, and use how you would be a viewer of the character, and then do it from the character's point of view and work on the scene in that way. In other words, if the guy's got a limp or an accent or, you know, a twitch or whatever, start to work on it that way. And then the third way, and I remember him saying, probably the most important way is architecturally, in a way. Like, think of each scene as a building blocks. You're building a building, you know, this story that you're telling. And each scene has a purpose in this story, you know, and you can do it very many ways. You can hold back. How does that story look? How does that brick in that building look? That's why it was so helpful to bathe in the story that way, you know, get familiar with what are we telling, what are we saying here? You know, some of the actors that I. I admire, I'm just watching Philip Seymour Hoffman in a Sidney Lumet movie. Wow. What is it? Before the Devil Knows yous Dead. Have you seen that? Oh, God. You get the Criterion Channel.
[13:05]
Interviewer
Yeah, yeah.
[13:06]
Jeff Bridges
It's on that Ethan Hawke, who's, you know, another. What? And those guys cooked, man. Tommy Lee Jones is another guy. Like. So there's an opaqueness. You're not. He's not showing you. He's just. It's not indicating.
[13:19]
Interviewer
Yeah. And it also lets you get more involved as a viewer because it's like there's more to discover.
[13:30]
Jeff Bridges
That's right.
[13:30]
Interviewer
They feel they're not telling you what to think.
[13:32]
Jeff Bridges
It's like, musically, it'd be violins, you know, that.
[13:36]
Interviewer
Like, it's open to interpretation. And all the best is open to a new.
[13:40]
Jeff Bridges
Think of radio.
[13:41]
Sponsor Voice
What?
[13:41]
Jeff Bridges
Radio is like, my dad, I remember he did radio before tv.
[13:45]
Narrator/Announcer
Really?
[13:45]
Interviewer
I didn't know that.
[13:46]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, and I think that might be coming back. And T Bone and I are doing a. I guess they're called podcasts.
[13:52]
Interviewer
Yeah, great.
[13:53]
Jeff Bridges
We're doing something, you know, a movie
[13:56]
Interviewer
like that, A recorded story.
[13:58]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. Because then the audience supplies all of the special effects. All of the sets, everything. And there's a technique on how you draw that out just the right amount. You know, both my mom and my dad. My mom is probably the best actor of the whole family. And I could tell you stories about her. You know, she would have this thing that she did with all her kids called time. And that was every day, each kid would get an hour with mom doing whatever that kid wanted to do. Could be. I want to go into your makeup. I want to make you up like a clown, and I want to, you know, make me up like a clown. Yeah, you know, okay, now, this is the spaceship. You get under there, you're the astronaut, and I'm going to be a Martian coming after you like that. The phone would ring, no, I'm having my time with Jeff. I'll call Betty back.
[14:55]
Interviewer
Amazing.
[14:55]
Jeff Bridges
You know, an hour a day, and there was no sense of duty. It was. She was getting off. I mean, she was playing with her kid. You just love. So now we cut. Thirty years later, I'd call her up, I'd say, mom, need some time. What are you doing for dinner? You know, be great. You know, now she's about, you know, 90 years old or something. Do you ever eat at a restaurant called the Palomino in Westwood? It's a nice restaurant. And we'd finish our dinner, and now we'd be walking back to get our car. The valet would be there, and my mom would say, be mean to me.
[15:38]
Interviewer
Be mean to.
[15:39]
Jeff Bridges
Be mean to me. And I said, oh. And I knew. And I didn't have to. I didn't have to ask her, what are you doing? I just knew exactly what she was doing. And I say, get to the car. And I say, get in the fucking car. And she goes. She looks at me, she goes, why are you. So I said, don't talk back to me, bitch. Get in the car. This is funny, man. And we never, you know, and we just never broke character. And we just enjoyed the guy's face, you know.
[16:06]
Interviewer
Unbelievable.
[16:07]
Jeff Bridges
That was her sense of humor. And she would just love to do that kind of thing, you know.
[16:12]
Interviewer
So funny.
[16:15]
Jeff Bridges
I just thought of another. Something my mother. Talk about my mother. And this is such a deep mantra, really, that she gave me as a young kid, you know, acting being, you know, in high school, going off to a gig. And my mom could tell me, oh, yeah, he's anxious, you know, and she would say, jeff, Jeff, remember, have fun and don't take it too seriously. Yeah,
[16:46]
Interviewer
great advice.
[16:47]
Jeff Bridges
And now my wife, when I. Because I. You'd think you would learn that lesson. No, I never learned it, man. My wife.
[16:53]
Interviewer
How did your mom know it?
[16:55]
Jeff Bridges
Well, she's married to my dad, man. I mean, the actor. And she, you know, she knows it herself. She was an actress. Isn't act. She knows the anxiety. Performance anxiety, man. That's a tough thing, you know. So a few years ago, three years ago now, it goes fast. But I was at death's door. I had terrible health problems.
[17:16]
Interviewer
Really.
[17:17]
Jeff Bridges
I had cancer, had a tumor in my body.
[17:20]
Listener/Interviewer
Wow.
[17:21]
Jeff Bridges
9 by 12 inches in my stomach. I had no idea was there. And, you know, I was doing some sit ups and I talked to sue, my wife. I said, something feels funny there. It just feels like it's a bone where a bone shouldn't be. I said, feel it? Yeah. When you ought to see a doctor. I said, no, no, it doesn't hurt. We're going to Montana, you know. So I went to Montana for two or three months and had a great time. My shins itched and I had night sweats, but I think it's summer, you know. Those are all symptoms of lymphoma, man.
[17:57]
Interviewer
Wow.
[17:58]
Jeff Bridges
So I had this giant thing in my stomach and I was just about to go back to do the second season of the old man, this TV show, and I said, I better get it checked out. So I go there and, yeah, you, you have lymphoma. That's a giant lymphoma there. So they put me in the hospital and they did all these tests and stuff. And it was an unusual form of lymphoma. They finally found the right cocktail for it. Now I'm in chemo, doing the chemo sessions, and it seemed to be working. I said, oh, that's great. And then I get a letter from the chemo place you may have been exposed to Covid. And that proved to be true. And the COVID made the cancer look like nothing because I had no immune system. You know, the chemo stripped my immune system and the COVID just kicked my ass, man. So I was on death door.
[19:00]
Narrator/Announcer
Yeah.
[19:02]
Jeff Bridges
And what I found sitting at the doorstep there where you pull out all your tricks, man, all your spiritual, philosophic, you know, tools that you can. And the one that gave me the most sucker was, remember, have fun and don't take it too seriously.
[19:23]
Interviewer
Amazing.
[19:24]
Jeff Bridges
I just said, that's right. Everybody's dying. This is me doing that. Feel all the love that's coming from all those nurses, from your family, all your friends, how much love you feel coursing through your body.
[19:36]
Interviewer
Yeah. That attitude probably had as much to do with you being well now as anything other doctors did.
[19:42]
Jeff Bridges
Maybe.
[19:43]
Interviewer
So that sounds like healing medicine.
[19:45]
Jeff Bridges
Oh God, isn't that wild? So my mom, I mean, I could go on and on about both my parents. They were quite remarkable.
[19:54]
Interviewer
Did going through that health trauma change anything in your life after it?
[20:01]
Jeff Bridges
When you go through something like that, it's a big hit, like a hit of, you know, some kind of drug. It takes you to a certain place.
[20:09]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[20:09]
Jeff Bridges
And that lasts for a while and then it starts to dissipate and you kind of get back to so called
[20:14]
Interviewer
normal, you know, and you feel like yourself. Now
[20:19]
Jeff Bridges
you say that? Of course not. You know, it's like, yeah, it's like take. You know, I'm developing this camera with my wife now and I take these wide lux pictures and you know, photography was a big thing for me growing up. That's the thing about photography, you know, this miracle, taking pictures, capturing light and shadows.
[20:44]
Interviewer
Like a magic trick.
[20:45]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, like a magic trick. It's funny making movies. I always thought there's magic tricks and then there's real magic. Or I guess you could call them miracles. Then when you look around. Miracle. That's kind of a normal thing, man. I mean, this is off, miraculous.
[21:02]
Interviewer
Every day.
[21:02]
Jeff Bridges
Every day. And photography, whether it's through the lens or just realizing that each moment, just these little ordinary moments are extraordinary.
[21:22]
Sponsor Voice
As nutrition science advanced through the mid 20th century, researchers began to understand that modern eating patterns, limited variety processed foods and time constraints could leave small but meaningful gaps in daily micronutrient intake. Today, large population studies confirm that approximately 90% of adults fall short on one or more essential vitamins or minerals. AG1 was formulated in response to those findings. Each daily serving provides more than 75 vitamins, minerals and whole food source nutrients, including vitamins A, C, E, B6, B12, magnesium, zinc, selenium and iodine. A scientifically developed formula backed by nutrition research and delivered in forms the body can readily access because utilization depends on absorption. AG1 also contains probiotics to support gut health and digestive function, helping the body make effective use of what it receives. AG1 contains no gluten or dairy, uses no genetically modified ingredients or artificial sweeteners, and is suitable for a wide range of dietary approaches, including plant based paleo, keto and low carbohydrate diets. Available in single serving packets for when you're on the go. Manufactured under strict quality controls, every batch of AG1 is tested to confirm its composition, nutrient levels and the absence of contaminants. Ensuring reliability from one serving to the next. It's no wonder AG1 is trusted by the world's top athletes and experts. What was once a futuristic concept, daily nutritional support in a glass is now the result of applied science. Learn more@drinkag1.com Petra do it today.
[23:36]
Interviewer
Tell me how the camera came to be.
[23:39]
Jeff Bridges
Well, I first came in contact with the wide locks. Maybe you had this experience too. In high school there was a rumor going around that the guy was gonna take the class picture, had this camera that panned and if you ran around real quick, you could be in the picture twice. Do you remember anything?
[23:57]
Interviewer
No, I don't. I don't remember this at all.
[23:59]
Jeff Bridges
And that rumor proved to be true.
[24:02]
Interviewer
It's a still camera.
[24:03]
Jeff Bridges
It's a still camera that pans. That pans.
[24:06]
Interviewer
So it's like inside.
[24:07]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, it doesn't move. The shutter is a slit that pans across and exposes the film.
[24:15]
Interviewer
I see.
[24:16]
Jeff Bridges
And then when I got married in 77, this guy Mark Hanauer came to our wedding, you hear, just in the Malibu hills up here of Las Flores and Ramblo Pacifica, you know. And he took these pictures with this wide length camera. I saw those pictures. I said, oh my God, what is this? This is remarkable. And then my wife gave me one and that's the only camera I used from then on.
[24:48]
Sponsor Voice
Wow.
[24:49]
Jeff Bridges
And you know, back in high school I had a dark room, you know, turn my bathroom. You then put tinfoil and got the red light. And the tunes, you know, you'd listen, you know, all the Beatles and Dylan and all, and Bach and all the miles, all the great jets, you know. Music was a big part of the dark room experience. You'd be in there what you thought was an hour, but it turned out to be six hours because you're so deep, you know, so focused. My wife became a professional photographer and we had this built a dark room up in Malibu. Really into it. And then I started making these little books for the cast and crew. Karen Allen was her idea when we were doing Starman and she said, let's make it book. So Charlie, Martin, Smith and Karen and I made this book for the cast and crew with my photographs. And also Sid Baldwin, who was the still photographer on the show. And everybody seemed to like it and I loved it because I was talking about that miracle. You know, I look at these pictures and I'm transported right back to those times, you know. So as much as it was a gift to them, it was a gift to my so. And I Started making these books. I think I made about 30 of these books now.
[26:07]
Interviewer
Wow.
[26:09]
Jeff Bridges
I just had a. Did an exhibit of. Of my photographs up in Santa Barbara, the Tamson Gallery. And my daughter Jesse was the host. So we jammed on that. And one of her questions, she says, yeah, Dan. And there's a guy who shows up in every book. I said, it's not me. I would take some selfies with it. It was a great camera for selfies because. Well, you know, I like to take selfies where I'm not looking at the camera. So, you know, I mean, if we took one here, it'd be. Position it so you can't even see my arm, you know, like that. This is before selfies kind of became a thing. She says, it's not you, dad. Who is it? And of course I know who it is. It's Lloyd Catlett.
[26:50]
Interviewer
Who's that?
[26:51]
Jeff Bridges
Lloyd Catlett is this guy. We've made over 70 films together. I met him in 1969. He was this young 16 year old kid who was in the Last Picture show and he was hired as an actor. He had a good part in the movie, but also to teach us California kids how to be Texas, you know, how to be Texans. And he fell in love with the circus. You know, when we left town, he was right on our heels.
[27:23]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[27:23]
Jeff Bridges
And then he became my stand in and acted in movies with me and standing. But I have this thread through all of the movies.
[27:32]
Sponsor Voice
All.
[27:32]
Jeff Bridges
Can you imagine that?
[27:34]
Interviewer
So cool.
[27:35]
Jeff Bridges
And you know, like we were talking about our memory, how shitty our memory is. He's got a much better memory than I have. So he. Can I say, what's that guy's name? Boom, he's got it. You know, I say, remember that? Yeah, we laugh, you know, together. So that has been just a real gift.
[27:51]
Interviewer
Do you photograph out in the world as well?
[27:54]
Jeff Bridges
I've got quite a few photographs, you know, that aren't on movie sets. But I. That's kind of my specialty, you know, I. One of the things I think is valuable about my photographs, that I'm in a unique position right in the center of making movies.
[28:10]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[28:11]
Jeff Bridges
The latter part of the 20th century, early part of the 21st century, with this weird camera, this unique camera. So that's kind of makes the. And there's a historical aspect to it because everything is changing so fast, man, with all this.
[28:26]
Interviewer
AI, walk me through from the beginning to now all of the changes that you saw happen in making films.
[28:36]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, man. Well, so my first movie is a movie called Halls of Anger. It might have been Rob Reiner's first movie too. He was in an actor.
[28:48]
Interviewer
How old were you at the time?
[28:50]
Jeff Bridges
Maybe 19. And it was all about busing white kids into a black school, which was pretty interesting subject, you know, so white people could kind of feel what prejudice feels like. That was the idea. And I played the white kid who was trying to integrate. And the black kids kept beating the shit out of me. And there was a scene where I've been trying to do it and the kids keep beating me up. And then the boys vice principal, who was played by Calvin Lockhart, he says, you've got to go back, you know, you got to keep going on this. And I. It was in a very emotional scene, you know, for me, I had just ended a love affair. Do you remember your first? What that feels like? Your heart breaking? It was terrible feeling. It lasted for years. And I was able to do some thespian judo with that feeling.
[29:47]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[29:48]
Jeff Bridges
And take it for this thing. And I. I kicked ass in the sea. I remember they shot everyone's else's pipe. And then they got to my thing and it made me think. I told you about talking to my dad, saying, I'm not sure if I'm cut out for. Then I said, finally I said, I think I could do this, man, this is pretty wild. I got very emotional and cried and all this stuff. Get an applaud from the crew, you know, that's always hot. And now we're the premiere of the show in Watts. I think my dad's on my right, Bo's on my left. And I'm sitting back. I said, okay, now wait till you see this scene. And here it comes. And the way they cut it, they cut to my face and I'm like, you know, some. And I didn't see the build up. There was no. The audience burst out laughing. I think I might have a little bit, you know, So I just, you know, it laid a little. I was so, you know, it was just so terrible.
[30:54]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[30:55]
Jeff Bridges
And that was a. Interesting lesson, man. That was like, so what do you do about that?
[30:59]
Interviewer
How do you.
[31:00]
Jeff Bridges
Do you protect yourself? Do you give it up? You know, what do you do? And my choice was, you got to give it up. And you gotta. You can't be worried about it. That's one of the elements of making movies. It's a collage. And the collage ain't up to you. It's up to who's ever cutting the film. Hopefully it's the director. And every once in a while you had high expectations going in, and now it's even better. What they do, you know, that happens. And sometimes it don't, man. And so you can't. But you can't protect yourself, you know, you can't.
[31:34]
Listener/Interviewer
It's.
[31:35]
Interviewer
How do you control.
[31:36]
Jeff Bridges
You can control it in certain ways, but it. It's self defeating because it dampens the whole energy of creativity, you know? So that was a big thing for me, that really about editing, you know. Now I'm getting off track a little bit more, but I'm gonna go with the editing aspect. Bo's first movie was with Hal Ashby.
[31:58]
Interviewer
Wow.
[31:59]
Jeff Bridges
Hal's last movie was my movie.
[32:01]
Interviewer
Incredible.
[32:02]
Jeff Bridges
Million Ways to Die. Hal was an editor. Think of his films being there, Coming Home, Last Detail, man, these masterpieces. And he worked through improvisation. It's interesting where the directors come from. You know, some are actors like Sidney Lumet, some are, you know, writers. Some are editors. So Hal said, just bring it up, you know, Give me all your, you know, And.
[32:29]
Interviewer
And then he'd figure out how to make it into something.
[32:32]
Jeff Bridges
He would make it into something.
[32:33]
Interviewer
That's great.
[32:34]
Jeff Bridges
I remember asking him, I said, are we gonna have to do much looping, you know, much ADR stuff? And he goes, no. I said, what do you mean? I'm an editor, Jim. I said, what do you mean? He says, man, I get in there with a little razor blade and I can. On the. This is on the T. Old school shit, you know. And he, you know, he.
[32:52]
Interviewer
Physical.
[32:52]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, he was a master at this stuff. I remember him saying, the key to editing is just bathing in the film. He would sleep in the editing room, you know, and just look at it over and over and over again. But you think of, like, that monologue that Jon Voight gives in Coming Home, you know, that's improv, man. That's. And I think I have a feeling that you might work the same way T bone does as well. Creating the space, it's hard for people to understand what that is. But that's my favorite kind of directors. And you guys are directors, too.
[33:30]
Interviewer
We have no idea when we're going in what it's going to be. No clue. And there's a lot of different versions of good, you know.
[33:36]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah.
[33:37]
Interviewer
And you don't know until you're discovering it.
[33:40]
Jeff Bridges
It's a funny talent. When you have a visitor come in and watch you at work, they say, well, he's not doing anything. What is he doing? It's space creation. You know, it's just safety, vibe, playfulness, joy, humor, love. It let it do us.
[33:56]
Interviewer
Yeah. Watch it unfold.
[33:57]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. It's a miracle, man.
[34:00]
Interviewer
It is.
[34:00]
Jeff Bridges
I mean, is it. You know, my task as a creative person is getting out of the way. Right. How do you practice doing that? How do you get in that spot? You know, that's a. An interesting, you know, practice to mess with. But how? So Bo did his first movie, Landlord. I did his second. Eight, Nine Ways to Die. I think it was Andy Garcia's first film. We had a ball working together. There was a guy, Mark Damon was the producer, and Hal had a bad rep right around that time, you know, doing coke. And it was, you know, I think he had done that Stone documentary or something. I was. He just, you know, had a bad reputation. And so the script was just a basic outline. We would never shoot the script. We would just jam on the essence of the scene. And this guy had no faith in Hal's process. I mean, look at the pudding that's coming out of House oven. You know, these are masterpieces. So he bitched and bitched. I can understand how it would frustrate the financiers to say, that's not. That's not the script, man. You know, where are you going to go with this thing? You know, so he comes in. We've got, you know, about two weeks to go. Shoot. He comes in and he says, we're pulling the plug today. This is your last day. House is. What are you talking about? We've got major stuff. Hal went into his trailer, burned a dupe, I think came out and said, all right, I've got. Here's how we're gonna. We're gonna do a phone call. Andy, you're gonna have this big, long phone call. You know, he didn't let it crush him, you know, I mean, you know, he didn't say, oh, you know, oh,
[35:41]
Interviewer
he solved the problem.
[35:42]
Jeff Bridges
He just. Yeah, because that's basically what movies. It's all about. These little, you know, trying to figure out how we navigate these challenges, you know, so there is a challenge. So he came up with this long monologue, and he created the kind of space of such safety and inclusion that I saw Andy doing the scene, and I had an idea about what would make it better for Andy. And I went up to her, I said, hell, we wonder if Andy, you know, did this instead of that. And he goes, that, that's a really good idea, but let Andy cross the bridge. Let him find that out. My idea came from the idea we're. We go time. We got a time crunch here. We got a lot of stuff. And he said we got all the time in the, you know. God, the vibe he created. So we actually shot the movie with all that hindrance. We shot the movie hell in mind. Then the guy fired. Hal didn't let him edit the film, man. And just cut it against the grain.
[36:43]
Interviewer
Unbelievable.
[36:44]
Jeff Bridges
And then Hal died. I mean, he broke his heart, man. God,
[36:51]
Interviewer
crazy story.
[36:51]
Jeff Bridges
I remember your. Your question was how is. How has it changed over the years? That kind of has remained the same. These stories that, you know, it's a communal art form. You know, you're working with other guys that can shut you down. So it's up for grabs. You know how it's going to turn out. I love this thing. This is what keeps me coming back. Is that when it transcends your high expectations and it does that every once in a while, isn't it a great feeling? I was going in with and God, look what happened. That is so amazing. So that kind of stuff, those first editing stories, that still happens, the good and the bad of that. But when, when you ask me what's changed, a great example of that is Tron. I've had great luck with first time directors. Just wonderful. You know, some of my best movies have been first time guys. But this was Stephen Lisberger who came up with this idea of Tron. Yeah, we shot it in Black and white, 70 millimeter black and white, all hand tinted by these Korean women. All our costumes were in black and white. We would go into this black and white box, you know, this soundstage, the special effect, everything was black duvetyne with white adhesive tape. That was our. That was our special effects, you know. Then they did it all in post, you know, coloring stuff and made it glow and shit. And then you'd go outside after being that black and white and color. Oh my God. Color would be. Hit you like a ton of bricks. So now we down the second one. I'm scanned. You know, they. They do a scan so I can. They can jack with me, you know, digitally. And they did that. And so I was. That's basically what the first movie was all about. Getting scanned into a computer. Now it's happening in real time. And so I could be a play, a younger version of myself. But it was kind of primitive. I thought I looked more like Bill Maher than I did myself. You know, it was just. It didn't matter that much. Now the whole AI stuff is so much more advanced. In the sequel to Toronto, he had all these dots on our faces and now they don't do any of that. Now it's scary. So just that it's leaps and bounds, you know, what that AI does. And it's amazing how just the whole AI idea because in movies, you know, remember seeing Jurassic park for the first time, you see, look what they can do or, or see in the Hobbit movies, you look at all the people and then finally it loses its vanity. Yeah, yeah, because it's just, you know, and you say, oh, still it's an interesting tool that, you know, you can use, but it loses something, you know, I mean, pretty soon I'll be out of gig, man. I mean that. You know what? I'll probably lease my image, you know, Say we want to combo De Niro Bridges and let's put some Andy Garcia in there, see what happens, you know, A little more Garcia. A little more, you know, you know, I mean that's, you know, not too far off. I mean, they can do it already, you know.
[40:16]
Sponsor Voice
LMNT Element electrolytes
[40:23]
Jeff Bridges
have you ever felt
[40:24]
Sponsor Voice
dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? Do you want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add element electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper. Improve your cognitive function. Experience an increase in steady energy with fewer headaches and fewer muscle cramps. Element electrolytes Drink it in the sauna. Refreshing flavors include grapefruit, citrus, watermelon and chocolate salt. Formulated with the perfect balance of sodium, potassium and magnesium to keep you hydrated and energized throughout the day. These minerals help conduct the electricity that powers your nervous system so you can perform at your very best. Element electrolytes are sugar free keto friendly and great tasting. Minerals are the stuff of life. So visit drinklmnt.com tetra and stay salty with element electrolyte. LMNT.
[41:43]
Interviewer
How did you meet Bernie Glassman?
[41:47]
Jeff Bridges
I met Ram Dass's birthday party. I make these little ceramic heads, you know, and I do this thing where, you know, I'll make a pot or a vase or something and then I'll have a hunk of clay left over and I'll let my hands make a head out of it. And they're like aspects of myself. This is something I, I do and I've got, you know, hundreds of these. So I went up to Rom Das and I said, I always wanted to give you a little head. You know, happy birthday. You know, I give it away and then we sit down there and I just kind of tubby Jewish guy over on the Left he doesn't look like. I said, what is he doing here in this spirit? And he turns out to be the real thing. This guy's a Zen master, big time.
[42:37]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[42:38]
Jeff Bridges
And he says, hey, I really dig Lebowski, man. And Lebowski is just chock full of all these modern day coons. I said, what are you talking about? He says, well, look who wrote and directed Lebowski. The Cohen Brothers. Very good, okay. He says, the dude abides. That's very Buddhistic right there. I say, yeah. He says, my favorite co on in Big Lebowski is. Well, that's just like your opinion, man. I said, oh, I'm getting it now, you know. Well, you know, what a coin. What's the sound of one hand clapping these questions that really don't have traditional answers to them. I said, give me another one. He says, well, shut the up, Donnie. There's another call on. So he starts to list these things, and he says, hey, let's write a book. I say, what do you mean? Yeah, let's write a book about Lebowski and how it, you know, might have some of these ideas, these Buddhist ideas into them. And I'm, you know, kind of Buddhistly bent myself, you know. I'm a big fan of Alan Watts, you know. You must be. Yeah. He is probably the best, isn't he? So good.
[43:54]
Listener/Interviewer
Love it.
[43:54]
Jeff Bridges
I mean, God, you know, he's my wife's favorite, too, because he's got a sense of humor about the whole thing. He says, yeah, let's do this. I said, well, I've got a ranch up in Montana. Let's go up there for a couple of weeks and just hang, you know. You know how you hit it off with somebody very quickly and you say, wow. And so I hit it off with him just immediately. So we went up there and we just had a two weeks of conversation, and then his wife Eve Marco edited it, and Bernie was, you know, my dear friend and teacher and. God, what a guy, man. I mean.
[44:37]
Interviewer
Do you remember when you first read the script for Lebowski? Tell me what you remember.
[44:43]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, I remember bumping into the Coen brothers. Maybe it was at a party or something, I can't remember. And the. Theo, we've written something for you. I said, oh, you're kidding. Great. No, I was a big fan.
[44:55]
Interviewer
I know they wrote it for you.
[44:56]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, I was a big fan of Blood Simple.
[44:58]
Narrator/Announcer
Yeah.
[44:59]
Jeff Bridges
And then I read the script and I said, wow, this is not like anything I've ever done before. Why did you think of Me, you know, it's like something from my past, kind of weird vibe.
[45:11]
Interviewer
Did you laugh out loud when you read the script?
[45:13]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I thought it was. I was. I was amazed that when it first came out, it didn't do anything. You know, it was not successful when it came out. It had to get, you know, came back from Europe and, you know, was successful over there and then splash back here.
[45:30]
Interviewer
How much of what you read in the script is what the movie is and how much did it evolve through making it?
[45:38]
Jeff Bridges
Well, they write so well that it feels like improvisation, but it's not. And Walter, John Goodman and I, you know, we were very precise, you know, about where each was. Each man was. I love pot. I'm a, you know, was a pothead. I'm not doing it these days, but I didn't smoke any pot on that movie. I really wanted to be as clear and not, you know. You know. You know, what are they? What's the acting term? Sense memory. I had done a lot of pot. I knew what that, you know, I could get there without, you know, having to smoke it. Now, we would do improvisation. John and I remember doing this to feel the vibe of the. The scene. And then we would always go back and descript. It was almost like, mute, you know, like music.
[46:31]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[46:32]
Jeff Bridges
You know, you want the right melody, you want the notes. And each man was there for.
[46:37]
Interviewer
But you would jam to better get into the script.
[46:41]
Jeff Bridges
Yes. Right. Right.
[46:43]
Sponsor Voice
And.
[46:43]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, man. It was. Oh, man, I want to. You know, I was talking about my photography, and I made a book for Lebowski, you know, and I look through that book, and I get. Boom. I get right back to each of those scenes. You know, the day Turturro comes, you know, he's gonna do this one little scene kissing the ball, you know. Oh, God, he was just so incredible.
[47:07]
Interviewer
When you were young, in addition to working with your dad, you got to work with a lot of the great actors. Do you remember any things that they directly told you that were helpful going forward?
[47:21]
Jeff Bridges
Well, don't you love it when you've got these heroes of yours, you know, and you put them on a pedestal, and when you meet him, they let you know, I'm just one of you guys. I love that. I just love that, man. So my second film was a movie called the Yin and Yang of Mr. Go, written by Burgess Meredith.
[47:44]
Interviewer
Had he ever directed or written before?
[47:46]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, he was. You know, people are most familiar with him playing the penguin in the original Batman TV series. Yeah, but he Was a classical. You know, I just watched.
[47:57]
Interviewer
And then in Rocky as well.
[47:58]
Jeff Bridges
And Rocky, that's another. Yeah. But, yeah, he was a wonderful actor. And James Mason was also in that film. And he was, you know, so down to earth. And I, you know, Lolita, you know, I just remember, you know, all his great movies. And another story with James just popped into my mind working with John Euston. And I worked with him as an actor and as a director. I was in a movie that he directed called Fat City. My big brother Bo did some agenting for me. He went up for the part, and he was a little too old. He's eight years older than me. He says, but you ought to check out my brother. So I went in to see the casting guy, and they liked me. And then they got a call from my agent that John Houston wanted to meet me. Oh, great. Where? Madrid. Madrid? Yeah. So I get on a plane, and where he wants to. Where the meeting used to be, is it the Prado? So I get there and I'm Again, I'm about, you know, early 20s, and I'm checking into the hotel and there's this beautiful girl there. You can start to talk. And she says, take you out to dinner. Let's go have beautiful food, fish. So I said, well, I gotta get home fairly early because I got this interview. So I go out with this beautiful girl and have a wonderful meal. I get home, get into bed, and I wake up with food poisoning, man. It's just puking and shitting and just the worst. And I've got to meet John Houston at the Prado. So there I were, looking at the Goyas and the, you know, all of these great painters, Velasquez and something like this. Trying my best not to puke on the paintings, man. I mean, I'm literally puking in my mouth and swallowing my, you know.
[50:00]
Interviewer
Yeah, it's the worst feeling.
[50:01]
Jeff Bridges
And John doesn't talk about the movie at all. He's just pointing out art to me. And I'm saying, well, that I've lost that part. Oh, God, help me. I hope I don't die. I was just feeling just terrible. And I'm in bed and I don't speak Spanish and I can't talk on the phone to the desk and everything. I said, what am I going to do? And I get a knock on the door, and I crawl my hands and knees at the door and open the door. Who's standing there? James Mason. What are you doing on the floor? And he saved my life. He, you know, he Got me, you know, a doctor. Got the right shot and stuff.
[50:47]
Interviewer
Cast you for the movie after the food poisoning.
[50:49]
Jeff Bridges
I got the part. Yeah, I got the part, man. And it was with Stacy Keats, a wonderful actor.
[50:59]
Interviewer
Yeah, great.
[51:00]
Jeff Bridges
Susan Terrell and. And Candy Clark, who I fell in love with. And we became a. You know, we lived together for many years. And John, you know, he was kind of, you know, not feeling well, actually. He was with, you know, would have these, you know, on oxygen all the time. There was a scene, it was my favorite scene in the movie, where I'm having a dream, and I wake up in the middle of the dream, having dreamt that my wife, Candy, was holding the hand of my best friend. And so I said, don't touch. You know, I'm pissed off. I'm still in the dream, but I'm awake. And there was a certain comedic element to this whole thing. And my approach was the more serious I could play it, the funnier it would be. And John had some other ideas, and I was trying to do it with him and saw dailies the next day. And Ray Stark, who the producer, is in there, and after the dailies, he's walking with me. So what'd you think? I said, no, I. I didn't really like it. He goes, yeah, I know. He says, but don't worry. When we truth shooting, I'm gonna have you and Candy take acting lessons, and then we'll come back and reshoot the scene. And that kind of hit me weird because I had already been nominated for an Academy Award. Yeah. But I said, okay. So that's what happened. And we. Jeff Corey was an acting teacher. Pretty tough acting teacher, you know, having to, you know, really get the emotion out of you. I was living with Candy at the time, and we would go like twice a week to this acting teacher, and Candy would say, you know, she had to cry in the skin. I don't want to go. Yeah, I don't. I don't want to cry. I said, come on, Ken. You know, this is what acting's all about. You gotta do the hard. So he would go and he'd make her cry every time, you know, and now. Now we're kind of come back to reshoot the thing. We were instructed by Ray, don't tell anything to John about taking any lessons or anything. The kit Candy goes to John says, I'm not supposed to say this, but we've been taking these acting lessons, and I don't know how to play the part. I don't know how to do It John said, just do it the way you did it before. Just do it the way he did it before.
[53:29]
Interviewer
Great.
[53:29]
Jeff Bridges
Knowing full well that would never be in the movie anyway.
[53:33]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[53:33]
Jeff Bridges
And we shot the scene and it was, you know, never in the movie. But now, years later, I'm doing a movie called Winter Kills and John Houston's playing my father. Directed. Again, I mentioned having great luck with first time directors. This was Bill, Richard, the cast of this movie. John Houston, Elizabeth Taylor, Toshiro Mifune.
[53:59]
Listener/Interviewer
Wow.
[54:00]
Jeff Bridges
Sterling Hayden, Richard Boone. It's amazing. And he, and he just, he got this cast together just through his, his sheer charisma. He was a wonderful guy. John Houston was playing my father and John, when we were doing Fat City, you know, I was always jealous of Stacy because John and Stacy were playing backgammon and so forth. And I kind of felt left out. I think, you know, that was where he wanted to direct me, keep me on my heels.
[54:33]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[54:33]
Jeff Bridges
And then doing this Winter Kills, he not only was very open and gregarious with me, but he was also this first time director. He was like showing how an actor should behave to a director. He would say, how was it, Bill? How was it for you? Should I give him the ideas? What would you like me to do differently?
[54:55]
Interviewer
Yeah, you know, amazing.
[54:57]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. So that was, you know, great.
[54:59]
Interviewer
Wasn't Winter Kills band or something. Something happened with Winter Kills.
[55:03]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, God.
[55:04]
Listener/Interviewer
Oh.
[55:04]
Jeff Bridges
Another actor that was, was who played in Psycho, you know, Anthony Perkins. Yeah, he was in it. He played the bad guy in it. And this is such a weird, weird story. So Bo had done a movie with Anthony Perkins, a Larry McMurtry story called Love and Molly directed by Sidney Lumet. Tony did acid every day,
[55:35]
Interviewer
you know,
[55:36]
Jeff Bridges
and one of his acting techniques was what drug would be appropriate for this thing. So we're doing this scene at the climax of the movie where he's kidnapped my girlfriend and I take his arm. I have a blackjack in my eye. I break his arm. I tell me where she is. I'm going to break your other arm. Tell me where she is. So he says for this scene, I think amyl nitrate. So the director goes out and gets a box of Amy's and you know, rolling. First time, you know. Are you ready? Okay, action. Yeah. And he's got this long two page monologue and he hits it and he does it beautifully. He just does the whole thing. Now it gets to my side and I said, I think I'll do a naming. And I hit that poor guy so hard with that fake blackjack that, you know, shut down the day's work. You know, that's crazy. Oh God, it was terrible. And I don't know if it was the same day or maybe it was the reshot of that thing. The stage doors, these big doors open to the sound stage and income. The union guys and shut us down because all the cast and crew wasn't being paid their union dues. And they were all just there because of the love of this guy Bill Richard had.
[57:08]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[57:08]
Jeff Bridges
And so they shut us down.
[57:10]
Narrator/Announcer
Wow.
[57:11]
Jeff Bridges
And we had major scenes to shoot. And, you know, it kind of again broke all our hearts. And a few weeks later, I get a call from Bill. I got this idea, man. I said, what? He says, what we're gonna do. I've written this script. It's a great script and you'll be just so perfect in it. We're gonna shoot it in Germany. I've got the money. And then we're gonna. That's gonna come out. And then we'll get the money to finish Winter Kills. And it's a great scene with Sterling Hayden that you're gonna. And I said, okay. And off we go to Germany, shoot this other movie. And his prophecy proved true. We came in, finished Winter Kills.
[57:55]
Interviewer
Amazing.
[57:56]
Jeff Bridges
I mean, just all these adventures, you know, crazy.
[57:59]
Interviewer
So when Anthony Perkins does the amyl nitrate, you didn't think, this is crazy? You think, good idea, I'll do it too.
[58:07]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, well, this is back in the day, man, you know, much younger and the things like that. You know, I thought of another. I thought of another drug story. I'm going to tell you. Doing Thunderbolt and Lightfoot with Clint Eastwood. This is again another great example of first time directors. This was Mike Cimino's first time directing. This is the guy who directed the Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate and so forth. And Clint is famous for only wanting one or two takes.
[58:40]
Listener/Interviewer
Really?
[58:40]
Interviewer
I didn't know that.
[58:41]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, yeah. And I was the young punk kid who said, you know, I'd go up to Mike. I say, I got an idea in line. And he said, well, you gotta ask the boss. You know, he would go over there and talk to Clint and Clint would say, yeah, give the cat a shot. So I really appreciate that, what Clint did. And then we're doing the scene. You ever see that movie?
[59:05]
Interviewer
Not in a long time.
[59:07]
Jeff Bridges
But you've seen it, I believe at the end of the movie I get kicked in the head by George Kennedy and I'm having a stroke and I die. Basically. It's a death Scene I had this idea. I said, if get a dentist, get some Novocaine and shoot novocaine in my mouth and just, you know, go up there and I'll be right off. And he said, okay. So we did. It worked great. Lost the film. We had to do it all over again and did the same thing.
[59:38]
Interviewer
Lost the film. Physically lost the film.
[59:41]
Jeff Bridges
Just, you know, like, I can't remember. It was either lost or was no good. We just had to reshoot it again. Now, years later, we're doing Heaven's Gate. He had just won the Academy Award for Deer Hunter. He was the darling of Hollywood. They said, do whatever you want, Mike. He said, well, I've got this epic Western I'm going to do. But he said, but I don't want any of the suits or any press to come because it's going to be a challenging thing to do it. And everybody who was in it, I can't remember. I think it was maybe six months shooting. That's where I met T Bone on here. T Bone played my maid in the thing. And Willem Defoe was his first movie. He played my two. My. Those were my housekeeping guys. Willem, I think, got fired for laughing inappropriately in a scene. In one. What? You're just hanging out when Mike was directing, and it was a very interesting experience because unlike what it was with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot was, you know, one or two takes. Mike would do 60 takes.
[60:49]
Listener/Interviewer
Wow.
[60:49]
Jeff Bridges
I mean, it was like, let's show up. We'll be in costume. If we get it, we get it. We don't. We'll just come back and we'll do it again. So they never knew when it counted. And I guess from his point of view, he's looking for that happy accident, you know, that one little thing. But from the acting thing, it was kind of tough because you don't know when does it count?
[61:10]
Interviewer
And it's hard to make it count 60 times.
[61:13]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And everybody gonna do it together. You know, it was, you know, challenging that way. Now we're doing this battle scene when I supposed to get shot, and then I give a big speech, and I go up to Mike and I say, mike, you know, I'm being shot here, and there's a medic there. You know, what if the medic shoots me up with some morphine? And then I give my speech? And he goes, yeah, yeah. And I said, but I. I know he's got some morphine, but I want. Before we do it on film, I want to see if I can do that. So how do you feel about him shooting me up with the morphine? Then I'll try the, do the scene. And he said, you just want to get high on the morphine. I say, yeah, but I think, no, I really think it might be effective, you know, for the movie as well. And so I get the, you know, I get the real doctor there and he shoots me up with morphine and I do this thing and I, I say, oh, this is great, you know, this, I can do this. It's a good effect.
[62:21]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[62:22]
Jeff Bridges
Now we're going to shoot it on film and now we're doing with the actor and he's got the, you know, he's talked to the medic and he's gonna do it and we practiced it and, and he does it and it's just terrible, man. It's not morphine, it's some other, some like methadone. I don't know what he was shooting at me. These are back in the days when we experimented with drugs, you know,
[62:52]
Listener/Interviewer
So much of today's life happens on the web. Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world. Designing a website is easy using one of Squarespace's best in class templates. With the built in style kit, you can change fonts, imagery, margins and menu so your design will be perfectly tailored to your needs. Discover unbreakable creativity with Fluid Engine, a highly intuitive drag and drop editor. No coding or technical experience is required. Understand your site's performance with in depth website analytics tools. Squarespace has everything you need to succeed online. 3to4blog monetize a newsletter Make a marketing portfolio Launch an online store. The Squarespace app helps you run your business from anywhere. Track inventory and connect with customers while you're on the go. Whether you're just starting out or already managing a successful brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create, create and customize a beautiful website. Visit squarespace.com tetra and get started today.
[64:20]
Interviewer
I remember reading a story you told about if it's in church, you're not in the service. Oh yeah, tell me about that.
[64:31]
Jeff Bridges
19 years old, you know, really ripe for Vietnam. And I followed my brother's footsteps. He enlisted in the Coast Guard reserve. And in the Coast Guard Reserve you go to, you know, regular old boot camp. Boot camp is 10 weeks. Wow. I can remember going there in your civilian clothes on a bus. Arriving there, we all get lined up and the, the guy who is in charge of us, he's walking up and down the lines questioning us. You know, what's your name? He goes up to one kid saying, what's your name? My name is Joe Samuel, sir. Quit moving your head. Why are you moving your head like that? I don't know, sir. Don't move your head. Yes, sir. Now there's a guy in the line behind him who starts to laugh. You know, like this drill guy goes over to that guy and says, you like laughing? I want you to continue to laugh until I tell you to stop. You understand? Yes, sir. Start laughing. Now we're. This is now hours later and we're up in our racks, you know, two o' clock in the morning.
[65:56]
Narrator/Announcer
Still.
[65:57]
Jeff Bridges
Still, you know, wow. I mean, it was torture, basically. They strip you of your. They give you a number, strip you from your identity. You know, I guess that's effective for fighting battles and shit, you know, working for the team, you know, get rid of your individuality. And now where it's about the second week and we're all, you know, stripped down, we're kind of being bashed around. And the guy says to us all, today's Sunday. You have a choice to make. You can go to church or you can high point rifles on the Grounder. How many people want to go to church? So we often go to church. And the guy in there, Don Harris, was the chaplain, and he said, I want to start today by telling you guys that when you're in here, you're not in the military. You're in the house of the Lord. Praise God. How can Louie, you know, all his sermons were all about dealing with tough times and, you know, and in love and all these things. He had me play my guitar and sing to the troops and he would have discussions with all the guys and everything. Remarkable guy. Turned me on to an incredible book. Are you into Kazan, Zakis at all? Do you know who he is? His most famous book is Zorba the Greek. But he also wrote the Last Temptation of Christ. He would write, rewrite, like the New Testament, you know, his version, you know, why not? Why. Why can't I be tapped in like that? And they're remarkable stories. The Last Temptation of Christ, it's a big, thick book. The last half of it is a dream that Jesus has on the cross.
[67:48]
Interviewer
Wow.
[67:49]
Jeff Bridges
Of being a normal person, having two wives, all these kids, and then he wakes up. Yeah. I mean, it's a great book. Marty Scorsese made a movie about it. And he turned me onto a wonderful book that I can't recommend high enough, called the Saviors of God. That if anybody's going to Save anybody. We've got to save God. And it's quite an amazing book. And during that time, I got into a Christian phase in my spiritual journey. And so I really appreciated all of that.
[68:24]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[68:25]
Jeff Bridges
Especially, you know, when you're in tough times, you pull out all your. All your trick. What am I. What's going to help me, man?
[68:31]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[68:32]
Jeff Bridges
And that's, you know, what helped me, that kind of stuff. So I really appreciated that. Then we got Honor Company about in the ninth week we were there. All the companies get it. At some point we got honor company, and that means we could. We're on leave and going to San Francisco. And he said, I'm going to break the rules, Jeff. I said, what? He says, I want to take you somewhere. I said, where? He says, I'm just kind of. I'm going to break the rules. I'm going to give you some civvies so you won't pop out. And they gave me civilian clothes. And he took me to the Carousel Ballroom to see Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother.
[69:15]
Sponsor Voice
Right.
[69:16]
Jeff Bridges
And I just, you know, that was all fresh. That was all fresh music at the time. I just went, holy. And then he ended up, you know, many, many years later, ended up marrying me and Sue. So Don Harris, wonderful, wonderful guy. My wife, you know, I've been. I'm going on 50 years, man. And the love thing just gets stronger and stronger. And we've been doing these movies together for so long, so she knows what it takes and how to.
[69:50]
Interviewer
How'd you guys meet?
[69:51]
Jeff Bridges
Me, we met on a movie. Met on a movie called Rancho Deluxe up in Montana. I'm doing a scene in this dude ranch called Chico Hot Springs. I'm in this big hot tub, natural hot spring. Sam Waterston on one side, Harry Dean Stanton on the other. And we're doing the same. And I look over and I see this girl. I cannot take my eyes off her. She is so gorgeous. And she's got two black eyes and a broken nose. So this beauty juxtaposed to this disfigurement math, it was just so amazing. Am I finally get the nerve to ask her out? And I don't know about you, but asking girls out, man, that was always tough.
[70:40]
Interviewer
Terrifying.
[70:40]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's. Yeah. So I was so attracted, I couldn't help it. And I said, you know, after we were shooting that, I said, would you like to go out with me? She says, no, it's a small town. Maybe I'll see around. I say, okay. And then her prophecy proved true. And we had the wrap party, and she was there, and we danced and felt, boom. It was it. Got married and, you know, had a bunch of kids. Now we cut 30 years later, and I'm going through my mail, and I get a letter from the makeup man on that show, and he says, I was going through my files, and I found a picture of you asking a local girl out. It's two pictures, a close up and a two shot of the first words we ever spoke.
[71:33]
Interviewer
Unbelievable.
[71:34]
Jeff Bridges
Me asking her out and her saying no. Click.
[71:37]
Interviewer
Unbelievable.
[71:38]
Jeff Bridges
Isn't that wild, man?
[71:39]
Interviewer
That's great.
[71:41]
Jeff Bridges
And so that's my prized possession after this thing. I can show you that picture. You made me remember?
[71:47]
Interviewer
Have you ever done theater?
[71:49]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[71:50]
Jeff Bridges
What's that like with my dad?
[71:51]
Interviewer
Oh, really?
[71:52]
Jeff Bridges
He did summer stock. He did Guys and Dolls. That was one of, you know, thing he would do in round. He do a lot. Remember, I was on stage with this other woman. My dad's entering the stage, and I see him walking down the aisle, and he's with his zipper, you know, he comes on, and I see his zipper is just totally off the track, and it's just open like this, you know, and the people start laughing and shit. And my dad, you know, breaks the fourth wall, says, okay, okay, okay. I'm gonna go up and change my pants, Jeff. Entertain the people. And so I'm up there, you know, all alone, and I said, well, I took some tap lessons. I'm gonna do a little tap routine for you now, you know? You know, I mean, it was just. It gets, you know, just so bizarre sometimes.
[72:46]
Interviewer
It's an unbelievable story.
[72:47]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah.
[72:48]
Interviewer
Do you think your dad felt like you can handle this?
[72:52]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, I mean, I don't. Yeah, I don't. I mean, I just had to, you
[72:55]
Interviewer
know, is it like, the show must go on?
[72:58]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, that's exactly. The show must go on. Yeah. Working with him on these two movies as an adult with Blown Away, I got to work with him. It was quite a big part. We had so much fun pretending, you know, with your dad on that level.
[73:17]
Interviewer
Did it tap into things from childhood? Did you feel like you were reliving your childhood doing that with him?
[73:22]
Narrator/Announcer
Huh?
[73:23]
Jeff Bridges
It started like an extension. It's not because it wasn't even reliving. It was just like an extension. Because I'm thinking of a couple of things, you know, coming from a showbiz family, you know, we were encouraged as kids to perform do, you know, shows and plays and stuff. I remember I just saw this recently, so wild. I did a movie called The Giver, based on this book. And I tried to get it made for, oh, easy 20 years. And I just saw this, a whole movie where I cast my dad as the giver. I ended up playing the part 20 years later, but I cast my dad as the giver. Bo's kid was playing the. The lead in it. And it was shot in our house. Bud Court was narrating, reading the book, the whole book. And we did the whole book. And Casey both saw, you know, shot it then. Another example is my folks had a place in Bear Valley up in central Northern California, Ski place. And we were up there, and my dad was pretty old, you know, in his 80s. He didn't like getting old, man. It pissed him off. He was such a vital guy. And to have his body breaking down like that, really annoying. And he's locked himself in his room, and we're saying, dad, come on, are you okay? He says, leave me alone. I'm in here. I'm working. What are you working on? Leave me alone. Now hours pass, and he finally comes out and he says, bo's son Dylan gathered us all around a table, and I have wide Lux shots of this whole story. I'm going to tell you, he says, dylan has asked me to write a script based on Robin Hood. I've called the story the Robin of Bear since we were in Bear Valley. I want you all to participate in it. I've casted it certain ways. I'm going to direct this, and I. I want you to do this in a very professional way. You know, he's very serious about Casey. I want you to shoot it. And so we have this document with special effects. I'm just Robin Hood, you know, he was, like, pulled behind a snow machine. Just, you know, I mean, it's, you know, fake fights, very elaborate and funny. And, oh, we had such a great time. I was. Wife sue got so pissed off at my dad because he had my daughters. They were playing peasants out in the snow, you know, and they didn't have proper clothes on. And sue would say, can't you put jacket? No. This is a period piece, you know. No, no. And she. So real fights, you know, happen. Real family fights. I'm trying to do something, you know, and then Beau and I, you know, would come in there and have ideas and try to direct. So it was just hysterical. The combination of, you know, humor and seriousness.
[76:31]
Interviewer
And I love the fact that your dad took it serious.
[76:34]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, yeah.
[76:35]
Interviewer
Beautiful.
[76:36]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. But he was also. I mean, this is the guy who did Airplane. You've Seen the movie Airplane, you know, so he's an incredible. I mentioned that movie Blown Away, talking to the producers about the casting, and I said, you know, who could play my uncle in this thing? He's a great actor. And he looks a bit like me, you know, in a way, is Lloyd Bridges. Do you know Lloyd Bridges? And the guy says, oh, your dad? That's funny. But he's really more of a comedic actor. What the are you talking about?
[77:08]
Interviewer
He saw Airplane.
[77:10]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, he was. Then this was coming out.
[77:12]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[77:12]
Jeff Bridges
I say, my dad is a. Some actor, man. That was an act. Yeah. That's really why I said, you want him to come in and read, or would he do that?
[77:23]
Narrator/Announcer
Oh, shit.
[77:24]
Jeff Bridges
Okay. So my dad came in, of course.
[77:26]
Interviewer
Blew him away.
[77:27]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, blew him away. That's something I learned from my dad too, is these Personas that you can develop, you know, like he did Si Hunt. He was so good in Si Hunt playing this.
[77:40]
Interviewer
You think that's him?
[77:41]
Jeff Bridges
You think that's him? And he got hype casting, hypecasting, and he got those kinds of parts over and over. And so I thought when I started my acting career, I said, I'm gonna really go about trying to shake up my characters and not duplicate.
[77:58]
Interviewer
Because you didn't want to just do one thing.
[77:59]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, yeah. And that served. That served me well.
[78:03]
Interviewer
That's great.
[78:03]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah.
[78:09]
Narrator/Announcer
There's a long tradition of reading sacred text slowly, allowing each word to settle, echo, and reveal meaning over time. Rather than rushing to conclusions, this practice invites reflection, listening, and attention. For centuries, this repetition has been used to stay close to wisdom, not by studying words as information, but but by receiving them as something lived and experienced over and over again. This tradition is known as lectio divina. Emerging in early monastic life, it engages scripture through four gentle reading, reflection, repetition, and rest. A short passage is read, a single phrase is held. Silence becomes part of the practice, creating space for insight to surface naturally. Lectio 365 brings that ancient rhythm into the present moment. Designed for modern life, it offers brief, guided scriptural reflections throughout the day. To begin with intention, pause at midday, and wind down at night. The readings are less about information gathering and more for returning to wisdom again and again, letting familiar words meet new moments. A modern way to keep biblical wisdom close, quietly present, steady, and alive within everyday life. Lectio 365 is a free resource. Find inspiration there now and always. Learn more at lectio365.com.
[80:24]
Interviewer
So tell me about your relationship to music from your earliest memory of Music.
[80:30]
Jeff Bridges
So Bo, he's eight years older than I am. Coming out of his bedroom was Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, the Platters, you know, all the bird groups. I mean, that's what I was hearing. The Everly Brothers, I'm thinking. And that was probably the first record that I real was, you know, Wake Up Little Susie, Wake. God, they were so great, weren't they? Incredible harmony and the guitar sound like Claudette, that guitar God, so good. And then he had a Dan Electro, a white dan electro that I kind of adopted and started to write tunes on. And then in high school, I was never in a band, but I had these friends that were in bands and were all good musicians. And the senior year of high school, my friend Steve Bain, the drummer, started to have these jams over at his house. No songs allowed, but singing was encouraged and writing on the spot was encouraged.
[81:36]
Interviewer
So all improv.
[81:37]
Jeff Bridges
It was a jam, all improv. And he recorded every session. And that's the only music he listened to. And we did that for maybe 20 years. Meeting over his house with these jam sessions and they were, you know, parties and they would turn, you know, there. Each one had its own flavor, but he recorded everything. You know, talking to my. About my dad and acting and sometimes I thought, I'm not sure if I wanted to do this acting thing. Maybe the music thing, you know, that kind of thing. And I then I thought, oh, you know, as I started, the acting started to take over. I said, oh, well, maybe I can combine the two. Wouldn't it be wonderful to play a musician and to play music? Yeah, that would be great. And I'd think about it. And sure enough, the universe supplied this script by this young guy, Scott Cooper, first time director, first time screenwriter, called Crazy Hard. And I read the script. It was good. I said, oh, that's good. But there's no music in it. If there's music is like it's about
[82:46]
Interviewer
a musician, but it's. There's no music.
[82:48]
Jeff Bridges
And I said, oh. I said, well, that, you know. So I turned it down. And he would keep coming at me. Years. I'm talking two or three years. Bob Duvall was his champion. So I'm walking down the street one day and I bump into my old buddy T Bone, who's walking down the street. He says, what do you think about this script? Crazy Heart. I say, well, there's no music to it, man. And he says, oh, that's the easy part. Don't worry about that. I say, easy part? What are you talking. He said, oh, yeah, we can figure that out. And then he made a beautiful direction. He said, you know, it's like, you know, you're one of the outlaws, you know, like what, Johnny Cash, Willie and Chris and Waylon, you know, but you don't have to copy those guys. We're making a movie about an ulterior universe. Isn't that a beautiful thought? You know, it's like, it's not this planet. It's like, looks like here, but it's somewhere else. I said, oh, that's interesting. And then my heart started to beat. I said, oh, shit, this could actually happen. And then I got in touch with the safety dreams have. And when you bring your dream into real life, you can fail dreams. You can't fail. It's dream. I said, how can I? Can I pull this off? I was panicky, but the universe dealt me cards. I say, here's my dear friend who's gonna, you know, who's so talented. He says, it's easy. How can I turn this down? And you say, yeah, but you're afraid. Yeah, but what else is there to do? How can I live with myself? And so I went in with that spirit and I got my dear friend John Goodwin, who is. We go back to the fourth grade, making music and painting and doing all kinds of art together. And I said, can I bring John on? And people said, yeah, sure, you know. So he came on, he ended up writing A Hold on you, which was the opening song for that movie. And then T Bone brought Steven Bruton. Did you ever meet Steven or know about him at all, who was T Bone's best friend? They go back as teenagers and Stephen was my guide through the whole thing. Every day he went to. To work with us the whole time. T Bone wasn't on the set so much, but Stephen was there teaching me, you know, more advanced guitar. What it was like being a traveling musician. You know that opening scene where I pull into the bowling lane to play a gig? Stephen said, now when I'm traveling around like this, I don't pull off to the side of the road to piss. I carry a sparkless bottle. I just pee in the sparkless bottle. So why don't you do that? And then, you know, so he was. Kept the authenticity. He was our touch base. Yeah, we rewrite scenes, all kinds of things to get it.
[85:59]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[86:00]
Jeff Bridges
Real as possible. You know, it's interesting that there are many different kinds of directors, but two major schools are hot directors and cool directors. Both are very effective. Scott is a hot director in that he's very passionate and excited and enthusiastic. Great, man. Oh, you know, you nailed it, man. You want one more? You want to do it again? Okay, let's see what you can do.
[86:28]
Sponsor Voice
Come on.
[86:28]
Jeff Bridges
Come on. You know, it's like that example of the cooler directors would be the Coen brothers, which is no big deal, you know. Oh, yeah, that was. You made me laugh. Yeah, that's good. Okay, now we go over here and do, you know, no big deal, which is another powerful statement, you know, Takes
[86:48]
Interviewer
all the pressure off.
[86:49]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, this is no big deal. And both of them are very, very effective. So Crazy Heart was great. And it was one of those examples where you have high expectations going in and then they get transcendent. Scott just did such an incredible job putting that film together. Yeah. And Bobby Duvall, you know, being that young guy's champion, you know. Yeah, that's so important. You know, you think about, you know, people say, what do executive producers really do? You know, what are they? And there's all different kinds, you know, but to have a. A. A real producer behind you, creating the space and the support, you know, Mark Rosenberg, who championed Steve Clovis in the Fabulous Baker Boys. Steve wrote that script, I think, when he was 24, 25, you know, it's a very, very good script. A lot of the major directors at the time wanted to direct that, and Mark Rosenberg said, no, this is the kids, you know, and he was there just doing that, you know. And I said to Steve, I said, you know, let's. Let's jam a bit so you can get your directing chops, and I'll get my acting chop. So we met at my house for about a month, where we would meet with my brother Bo, who's, you know, playing my brother, which was so, you know, God, what a dream. You know, if it was another actor, you'd figure out, how do we create this illusion? Yeah, no, that's the handle, man. You didn't have to do any of that, you know, so. To jam with my brother. Oh, God, what a. What a blessing it was. And so much fun. So we'd meet over at my house, and Steve would get to, you know, direct us, you know, and he would come up with different improvs. And I remember one improv that was said, oh, this guy, he's good. He said, okay, here's the deal. Here's our improv, Jeff. It's four, three o' clock in the morning. You've climbed out of your bedroom window. You've gone to see Bill Evans, who's playing at this club. I'll play Bill Evans. I'll come out of the bathroom here. I'll just shot up in the bathroom. I'm going to come to the bar and I'm going to bum a cigarette off you. And Bo, when I put my hand through my hair like this, you're the big brother. You're going to come and get Jeff out. And we did that improv for long, you know, 15, 20 minutes. And Steve was so good, you know, committing to what the assignment was, you know, I said, oh, he gets the whole thing. You know, what this advanced pretend is all about. And he did such a great job, man. And Michelle, you know, I was disappointed that my favorite song of Michelle's, which was more than, you know, do you know that song? It wasn't on the soundtrack album. I don't know why, but she sang her ass off in that movie, so. Great. So just finishing the music saga, you know. Okay. So then after Crazy Heart, I was fired up on the music thing, and I called up T. Bond. I said, hey, man, I got some tunes. You want to go in and make an album? You know? He said, sure, man. Come on, you know. So we went into an. Into a studio in the Village there, and we made an album with a lot of John Goodwin's songs. Some of my songs had a great time. And then a few years later, I got a call from Squarespace website design company, and they wanted me to do a commercial for Super Bowl. And they didn't want to hide Jeff Bridges for Squarespace. They wanted me to come up with a bizarre product with the idea that no product was too weird to not make a website out. And they gave me a list of things, and one of the things on that list was sleeping tapes. Said, what are sleeping tapes? You know, this tapes. That's such an archaic word. And they said, we don't know. It can be whatever you want. Whatever I want? Yeah.
[91:22]
Narrator/Announcer
Huh.
[91:23]
Jeff Bridges
And then also, we're going to make this product, we're going to release it, and all the proceeds can go to share our strength in your no Kid Hungry campaign, which is something I've been very involved with for, you know, 30 years. So that was the clincher. I said, okay, I'm in. How do we do? He says, however you want to. You know, it's like, yo. So. So I said, okay, I'm gonna go into a studio with Keith and we're just gonna jam, see what happens. So we go in there for a week, I think. I don't know. It was More than a week. And we just start to come up with ideas. And we have no idea what this album. But I figure sleep, that implies being awake, that implies dreams. So it's very broad subject. And during that time, Kiefus says, why don't you bring all of your, you know, any other old songs that we might work with. So Kivas and I did this album called Sleeping Tapes. It went to number two in the ambient music charts. Raised a quarter of a million bucks.
[92:34]
Interviewer
Love it.
[92:36]
Jeff Bridges
And it was just so wonderful. Then Kiefus and I would go into the studio from time to time and just jam and do things.
[92:44]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[92:45]
Jeff Bridges
And then during the COVID thing, I thought, God, I've got all of these half done songs, songs that aren't polished. I'm 76 years old, man. I don't know if I got the poop to go into a studio and polish all these things up. I'm just gonna put these things out now. This is what I got.
[93:05]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[93:06]
Jeff Bridges
And I'm gonna put a visual thing to them. So I, you know, shot stuff on my iPhone and looked at the Internet and just built that. And I started to release these. I called it Emergent Behavior. These volumes. I think I made five volumes with about, you know, three or four songs on each. Moi. I enjoyed the shit out of that.
[93:31]
Interviewer
You know, it's so much fun to make stuff and share it.
[93:34]
Jeff Bridges
It's the best feeling, you know, and rather than be tight about it. And then also after Crazy Heart, I've always tried to have a little. Some kind of. Little studio wherever I. Wherever house I'm in. So when I moved up to Santa Barbara, you know, 35 years ago, whatever, I wanted to build a studio and I looked around for a guy who could help me with that. And this guy, Chris Paulonis, you know, he's an acoustician, you know, Bill's studios and stuff. And I broke out my tunes and we played a little bit and he said, oh, this is good. You got some good tunes here, man. Do you know Michael McDonnell? I said, are you kidding me? Sure. He says, well, I'm friends with Michael. I'd like to play him some of your songs. So Michael listens to him, starts to dig these songs, and the next thing I know, we're in the studio making an album and I've got a band called the Abiders, you know, based on. And we start to tour the music dream, you know, the Beatle music dream is being realized at, you know, 65 years old or something. You know, play the Lebowski fest. You know, have my Beetle moment. You know, you get an imagine. Ah, you can look. Play into a sea of dudes, man. Come on.
[94:51]
Interviewer
So funny.
[94:52]
Jeff Bridges
You know, it was really wild.
[94:54]
Interviewer
You said something earlier about dreams are safe.
[94:57]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah.
[94:58]
Interviewer
It makes me question, do you tend towards projects that are not dream projects? Because whatever happens is okay, whereas the dream projects are too dangerous to try because they could fail.
[95:15]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, but they're the. That's got the most juice, man. It's wild. I just bowed out of a movie that I went quite far down in development of it, and I just said, God, I don't have the. The acting juice to do it, man. I'm having other desires are being built into me that I want to do.
[95:37]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[95:38]
Interviewer
You're listening to what's going on in.
[95:39]
Jeff Bridges
You started to listen to that. And it's so different than my Persona or how I'm conceived, not only from the outside, but how I conceive myself. But it was like. It made me think of, you know, Richard Dreyfuss with what is the. What's the movie where he's building the big.
[95:58]
Listener/Interviewer
Close.
[95:58]
Interviewer
Close Encounters.
[95:59]
Jeff Bridges
Encounters. And he's building that thing. I don't know why. You know, it kind of has me like that.
[96:04]
Interviewer
You're driven towards something and I don't
[96:06]
Jeff Bridges
know what it is. And so I'm following that and I'm getting off.
[96:11]
Interviewer
That's great.
[96:11]
Jeff Bridges
I mean, it's wild.
[96:14]
Interviewer
In acting, when you're playing against another character, does the other character's performance influence what you do?
[96:23]
Jeff Bridges
Of course. Yeah. Big time.
[96:24]
Interviewer
Is it like a dance?
[96:26]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. That's a very good way to put it. I'll give you an example. Just popped into my head. Every once in a while you'll get a real guy on the set. Either a guy who has actually lived the story you're telling or a person who knows what that story is about. Yeah. So I made this movie called White Squall with Ridley Scott. And it was about this wonderful floating university that this guy had in this ship, you know, a sailing ship, where he would take a bunch of students out and.
[97:03]
Interviewer
Sounds amazing.
[97:04]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. You saw. Did you see this? No.
[97:05]
Interviewer
The idea is amazing. True story.
[97:08]
Jeff Bridges
True story. Amazing story. And in the middle of this, a white squall happened. And I got to talk to the. The real guy, who was. Who I was playing the skipper of the ship. And he said, it's not like the movies. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, it wasn't a storm. It wasn't like that. I said, well, what was it like? He says, it was a calm. And it was like God's hand came down took the main mask and just put it underwater. You know what I mean? You know, like, bunch of kids died, his wife died. You know, it was a terrible tragedy. He went around and spent time with each of the families after the incident but no one connected with each other after that. They didn't want to relive that terrible incident. So they just avoided each other for many, many years. 25, 30 years. I can't remember exactly what. Now we're making the movie and in the end of our movie, there's a courtroom drama kind of. Because it's like, you know they're going to take my license away kind of thing. But in real life, that didn't happen there. It was in international waters. There was no threat of that. But we're shooting this scene and we had two real guys who were on that ship. One of them was actually at the helm. The ship wasn't moving, but he was, you know, had real duty there. We're doing the courtroom scene and this fella, he comes up to me when we're shooting the courtroom scene weeping. And he says, jeff, I got something terrible to ask you. I say, what? He says, I want to do something. I said, what do you want to do? I want to hug myself. You want to hug yourself? What do you mean?
[99:02]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[99:03]
Jeff Bridges
He says, I'm playing my father and my father always blamed me for the ship going down. He says, no wonder the ship went down. You were at the wheel. He says, can I hug myself? I said, well, go ask Ridley, you know. Yes. Ridley said, sure.
[99:20]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[99:22]
Jeff Bridges
So you're acting the effect of not someone you're playing with but just in the space, in the vibe, in the room to have that going on. Reality, the reality of that. Another one comes to mind. A movie called Fearless. Peter Weir directed. This story was loosely based on, I think it was an Iowa plane crashing in the cornfield. And Ridley invited a couple who actually went through. The guy was on the plane and his wife was down, you know. And Ridley invited them to talk to us about it. They came and they talked and it was as if it happened yesterday. It was so fresh and there might have been 10 years before. And they were up there for 45 minutes knowing they were going to crash. You know, can you imagine? And he said, you would think there was panic. He says, not at all. He said, love just was in that fuselage. Everybody was together. We're in this. We're a one here.
[100:31]
Interviewer
That's wild.
[100:32]
Jeff Bridges
He says, I looked across the aisle and there was a woman, an old woman there who was frightened. And I think this is what the guy said. He said, I looked over at her, I said that that woman, that could be my mother, you know. And then he said, no, that is my mother held her hand. Wow.
[100:52]
Interviewer
Beautiful.
[100:52]
Jeff Bridges
They crashed. And you'd think everybody panicking. No panic. It was all just everyone working as one body. What they had to do to get out of there alive. Isn't that wild? Yeah, Love that. Love having its way with us. God, you know, we all affect each other. And then. And then with that actor you're working with. Wow. Of course.
[101:18]
Interviewer
You ever. So in a scene that you forget, it's a movie.
[101:26]
Jeff Bridges
I'm thinking of a shot. This is dinner. It's a movie about the race cars and playing a guy named Junior Jackson, who's based on Junior Johnson, who's a famous stock car racer. We're doing this scene on the racetrack and we rehearsed it, you know, going, you know, five miles an hour. And sped up. We're finally going about 90 miles an hour or something like that, just under 100. And the scene was me in the back of the pack. I work my way up through the pack and I get up to the lead guy and I actually get, you know, metal to metal with him. And I come and go ahead like that. And we rehearsed it for a long time, you know, weeks. And towards the end of the rehearsal period, I realized that there's going to be a camera right in my. Right there, right in my line of side of life. So I've got to not only do this thing, but I got to act like there's not a camera there, that I'm not going, you know, looking. Trying to look around something. Off we go. Action. Going again. Dice through the thing. Now I'm up against the car like this, and I get off the gas just a little bit. And the thing goes crazy, you know, and the 360. After 360, you know, all these cars are going. Coming up behind it, you know, just crazy. All the wives are coming down, you know, giant crash. The director comes up to me at the end of the. You okay? Yeah. Can we do just one more? We're losing. We're losing the light. Can you. Are you. Can you do another one? I said, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, do it again. And now I'm wanting to see what that close up looked like, you know, because that was. That was a moment when I was totally like you say, I wasn't acting. I was just there, you know, beyond there. I didn't know where the fuck I was. And, you know, if you were to act that, you know, you would go, oh, you know what you would. I don't know what you would do. But here's what I did was just, you know, crash. Just nothing, Everything, just. Just my eyes going like this in the background.
[103:46]
Interviewer
Wow, that's wild. So you got to experience a lot of things through making movies.
[103:53]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, God, all the time. Oh, it's so wild. And these books, these photographs, I can relive those times, each one by just.
[104:02]
Interviewer
Have you had to learn any particular things like sword fighting or horseback riding or anything like that?
[104:08]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, I had fighting camp. I learned how to cock fight, how to speak Yugoslavia, how to roller skate, how to ride horses, how to shoot? Yeah, all of those things. Fight, you know, but this is all it gets back to, you know, I keep thinking of being a kid. You know, this is great stuff. Like it to play. Technogram. Technogram.
[104:52]
Narrator/Announcer
Tetragrammaton is a podcast.
[104:54]
Jeff Bridges
Tetragrammaton is a website.
[104:57]
Narrator/Announcer
Tetragrammaton is a whole world of knowledge.
[105:07]
Listener/Interviewer
What may fall within the sphere of Tetragrammaton Counterculture, Tetragrammation Sacred geometry. Tetragrammaton the avant garde. Tetragrammatum Generative art Tetragrammatin the Tarot Tetragrammatin out of print music. Tetragrammatin Biodynamics Tetragrammatin Graphic design Tetragrammatin Mythology and magic. Tetragrammatin Obscure film. Tetragrammatin beach culture Tetragrammatin Esoteric lectures. Tetragrammatin off the grid living Tetragrammatin Alt spirituality Tetragrammatin the canon of fine objects. Tetragrammatin Muscle cars. Tetragrammatin Ancient wisdom for a new age. Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. Take a breath and see where you are drawn.

Summary8 min read

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin
Episode: Jeff Bridges
Date: August 5, 2026
Host: Rick Rubin
Guest: Jeff Bridges

Episode Overview

This episode features a rich, sweeping conversation between legendary producer Rick Rubin and iconic actor Jeff Bridges. Delving into the intertwined threads of family, creativity, personal philosophy, and the evolution of film and music, Jeff reflects on formative experiences, professional highlights, and the deep joys and challenges of a lifelong creative journey. The tone is intimate, meandering, and playful, with Bridges' signature warmth and honesty.

Major Themes and Discussion Points

1. Early Life and Family Influence

Showbiz Roots: Jeff discusses how his father, Lloyd Bridges, unlike many, encouraged his kids to join show business, seeing acting as a natural extension of childhood play.
- "It's like advanced pretend, basically. You get to play with all the cool kids, you get cool gear…" (00:45)
Anxiety in Creativity: Despite his experience, Jeff admits he's always anxious before projects because of the immense unknown inherent in the creative process.
Formative Lesson: At 16, confronted his own fears in a visceral way, learning he could "be afraid of anything I want to be afraid of" (02:11).

Notable Quotes:

"Remember being a kid and pretending? ... it's always, you know, nowadays it's like advanced pretend, basically." — Jeff Bridges [00:34]
"I can be afraid of anything I want to be afraid of." — Jeff Bridges [02:00]

2. Lessons from His Parents

Lloyd Bridges as Mentor: Jeff recounts his father’s wisdom—learn your lines but always listen and respond genuinely in scenes. Lloyd’s intolerance for cruelty on set left a deep moral impression.
- "[Dad] said, excuse me, I'm going to be in my trailer. After you've apologized to the crew ... you can come and get me." — Jeff Bridges [06:34]
Joyful Approach: Lloyd’s infectious joy set a tone on set, helping everyone relax and do better work.
- "When you're joyful, you get relaxed, right? And out of that relaxation comes the good." — Jeff Bridges [08:03]
Mom’s Life Advice: His mother’s mantra was, "Remember, have fun and don't take it too seriously." This helped Jeff navigate crippling performance anxiety in both his career and a recent health scare.
- "The one that gave me the most sucker was, remember, have fun and don't take it too seriously." — Jeff Bridges [19:13]
Unique Parenting: Jeff’s mother introduced "time," dedicating a full hour daily to each child, fueling their imaginations and playfulness.

Notable Quotes:

"It's play. It's like, this is cool, what we're doing. We're playing, man. And he would come in with this attitude, and that would go through the whole casting crew, this sense of joy." — Jeff Bridges [07:45]
"Have fun and don't take it too seriously." — Jeff Bridges (quoting his mother) [16:46]

3. Approaches to Acting and Directors

Varied Technique: Jeff shares acting advice from his dad and mentors, embracing flexibility—doing scenes three different ways: from your own perspective, the character’s, and considering the story’s overall architecture.
Directorial Styles: Insights into working with legendary directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Lumet, and Hal Ashby—each with distinct rehearsal and shooting styles.
Improvisation and “Space Creation”: The importance of directors creating a safe, playful, open space for discovery, echoing his own preference for collaboration and creative risk.

Notable Quotes:

"Acting, you're going to do take after take... So when you're working on a scene, work on it in three different ways: how you would do it, from the character's point of view, and architecturally." — Jeff Bridges [12:06]
"It's space creation. You know, it's just safety, vibe, playfulness, joy, humor, love. Let it do us." — Jeff Bridges [33:44]

Key Segment Timestamps:

[09:00] — Recounting Coppola’s rehearsal process for “Tucker”
[12:06] — Dad’s advice on three ways to approach a scene
[33:40] — On creative “space creation”

4. Photography, Memory & Changing Technology

Wide-Lux Camera: Jeff’s deep affinity for the Wide-Lux panoramic camera, how it changed his way of capturing movie sets and his life, and evolved into 30+ personalized photo books.
Documenting Change: Discusses how photographing sets since the 1970s has created a unique historical archive as the film industry’s technology shifts—especially with AI and digital advances.
AI & Film: Reflections on the evolution from manual editing to AI-driven manipulation, the bittersweet prospect of actors' likenesses being “leased” in the future.
- "Pretty soon I'll be out of gig, man…I mean they can do it already." — Jeff Bridges [39:40]

Key Segment Timestamps:

[23:38] — Introduction to the Wide-Lux and his photo book tradition
[28:26] — On industry changes from film to AI

5. Surviving Illness and Mortality

Cancer and COVID Battle: Candid account of his harrowing recent health ordeal, including a massive tumor, chemo, and severe COVID-19 with zero immunity.
Grace in Crisis: Coming back to his mother’s mantra —focusing on joy, love, and not taking the situation too seriously, was a spiritual anchor.
- "Feel all the love that's coming from all those nurses, from your family, all your friends…" — Jeff Bridges [19:23]

Key Segment Timestamps:

[17:16] — Cancer diagnosis and medical crisis
[19:22] — On the healing power of joy

6. Acting Stories & Collaborators

On-set Memories: Colorful tales of working with icons like John Huston, Burgess Meredith, Anthony Perkins, Clint Eastwood, and more—often learning humility and camaraderie.
The Joy of Failing: The necessity of surrendering control as films are edited and reshaped—"the collage ain’t up to you...you can't protect yourself."
Mentorship and Legacy: Encouragement from older actors, his approach to avoiding typecasting, and striving for artistic diversity.

Key Segment Timestamps:

[29:47] — Story of moving performance lost in editing
[54:33] — John Huston mentoring on set

7. Music and Creative Cross-Pollination

Music Roots: Early influences (Bo Bridges’ record collection), improv jams with high school friends.
Acting & Music Merge: Key moments when acting and music overlap—“Crazy Heart” emerges as a crucial merging point, with T Bone Burnett’s assurance that music would “be the easy part.”
- "It's like, it's not this planet. It's like, looks like here, but it's somewhere else. ... and then my heart started to beat. I said, oh shit, this could actually happen." — Jeff Bridges [82:40]
Recording & Legacy: Making albums in later life, collaborating with friends, using “The Abiders” band (a Lebowski nod), and the deep satisfaction of sharing unfinished work during COVID.
Dream Projects: The delicious danger of riskier ambitions, and how dreams are “safe” in the imagination but risky in reality.

Key Segment Timestamps:

[80:23] — Earliest music memories and improvisational jams
[83:06] — “Crazy Heart” creative backstory
[91:22] — Creating “Sleeping Tapes” for charity
[93:06] — Embracing unfinished projects and sharing art

8. Spirituality, Zen, and “The Dude”

Meeting Bernie Glassman: The Zen master who reveals the Zen/Buddhist subtext of "The Big Lebowski"; inspires their book “The Dude and the Zen Master.”
- "The dude abides. That's very Buddhistic right there." — Bernie Glassman via Jeff Bridges [42:47]
Scriptural Roots: Memories of Christian exploration during boot camp, inspired by a compassionate chaplain and the writings of Nikos Kazantzakis.

Key Segment Timestamps:

[41:42] — Meeting Bernie Glassman
[44:43] — Receiving the Lebowski script
[64:31] — Church in boot camp, spiritual influences

9. Film Industry Evolution & AI

From “Tron” to Today: Insights from starring in “Tron,” the transition from hand-tinted special effects to being “scanned” for digital manipulation in sequels and real-time AI performance recreation.
Pros and Cons: Excitement about new possibilities alongside concerns about authenticity, job security, and the soul of performance.

Key Segment Timestamps:

[36:51] — “Tron” and technological leaps
[40:10] — AI’s impact on acting

10. Personal Life & Fun Anecdotes

Marriage: How he met his wife, Sue, on a Montana film set—the unlikely romantic beginning and decades of partnership both in life and creative projects.
- "She was so gorgeous…she's got two black eyes and a broken nose…this beauty juxtaposed to this disfigurement man, it was just so amazing." — Jeff Bridges [70:10]
Family Filmmaking: Bridging generations of creative play with homemade family projects.
Theater Tales: Hilarious story of being left on stage by his father with an audience and improvising a tap dance.

Key Segment Timestamps:

[69:51] — Meeting his wife on “Rancho Deluxe”
[71:46] — Theatre with his father

11. Learning Through Acting

Constant Learning: Each film a new playground: learning skills from sword fighting to skating, Yugoslavian language to cock fighting, evidence that acting’s “advanced pretend” demands childlike curiosity and lifelong growth.

Key Segment Timestamps:

[104:07] — Random skills acquired for roles

Memorable Quotes

"Your dreams are safe. You can't fail dreams. It's only when you try to do it in life that you can fail. But that's got the most juice, man." — Jeff Bridges [94:57]
"That's my favorite kind of directors…It's space creation. You know, it's just safety, vibe, playfulness, joy, humor, love. Let it do us." — Jeff Bridges [33:44]
"Photography...taking pictures, capturing light and shadows. It's like a magic trick. And then when you look around—miracle, that's kind of a normal thing, man. I mean, this is all miraculous." — Jeff Bridges [20:43]
"Feel all the love that's coming from all those nurses, from your family, all your friends...how much love you feel coursing through your body." — Jeff Bridges [19:23]
"We all affect each other." — Jeff Bridges [101:13]

Additional Notable Moments

On Sense Memory: Jeff abstained from weed while filming "The Big Lebowski" to stay clear-headed, relying on his “sense memory” instead. [46:06]
On Typecasting: Early resolve to avoid repeating roles, inspired by how his father got pigeonholed. [77:39]
Collaboration with Michael McDonald: Serendipitous music collaboration, leading to forming “The Abiders” and living a “Beatle dream” late in life. [93:30]

Conclusion

This episode brims with wisdom, nostalgia, and humor as Jeff Bridges reveals layers of his creative process, family history, ethical compass, and gratitude for everyday miracles. Listeners gain both practical insights and a sense of the deep joy and playfulness that powers a true artist’s journey.

For further exploration:

[42:37] The Zen of "The Dude"
[53:59] On “Winter Kills” and Anthony Perkins’ acting methods
[80:29] Music as improvisational life practice
[104:07] The skills learned for acting as life lessons

Summary by Tetragrammaton Podcast Summarizer

Loading summary

Transcript343 lines

[00:02]
Jeff Bridges
Tetragrammaton. Unlike a lot of entertainers, my dad encouraged all his kids to go into showbiz. And so when I was about 8 years old, he'd say, hey, come on, you got to come to work with dad. You know, you get to get out of school, make some bucks, you know, buy some toys or whatever you want. Come on, you know. I said, oh, okay. And so I looked at it as basically pretend. Remember being a kid and pretending? And so, you know, it's always, you know, nowadays it's like advanced pretend, basically. You know, you get into play with all the cool kids, you get the cool gear, you know, that's basically what it is. And something else that hasn't changed is my anxiety about it all. You know, I'm always quite anxious.
[01:13]
Interviewer
You know, what do you attribute that to?
[01:16]
Jeff Bridges
Just the unknown, you know, you don't know what's going to happen. You know, it's. And we never know. You never know, man. And you know, but we have this imagination that we can jam, man. We can ruminate our asses off, man. And so. And that's what, you know, acting is all about. That a story just popped into my head. We go string of consciousness in this. Yeah, yeah. So I'm about 16 years old and I go with a bunch of my dear friends and we go to my parents beach house down here. And now it's time to leave. I'm turning out the lights, right, to leave them lock up. And that little feeling of fear of the dark, Remember that feeling, the fear of the dark. I said, what happens if I invite that in and let it engulf me? And boom. Drove me to my knees. I went fetal, man. I just was shaking like, when was this? Just like what, 16, you know, so how many years? I don't know, you know, I'm 76 now, you know, so I don't know what year it was. And my friends came in and said, what's wrong? What's wrong? You okay? I said, yeah, man, there's something amazing just happened. I said, what? I said, I can be afraid of anything I want to be afraid of. Yeah, it was really quite remarkable and so that you carry that into. Into the acting too. But, you know, remember pretending, you know, when you were a kid, you're. Yeah, the better you can, you know, the more real you can take the shot or the more real you can do anything, the better, you know, there's a lot of different approaches to acting, but that's kind of my approach.
[03:08]
Interviewer
Tell me about your dad.
[03:10]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, well, like I said, my dad loved acting, man. You know, his father didn't want him to be in acting at all. You know, wanted to study law or something like that, but my dad wanted to act. He became the. The head of the drama department in UCLA. This is. You know, I'm in the 20s or early 30s. That's where he met my mom. And he just, you know, loved acting and struggled his ass off. Went to New York. You know, here's an interesting little tidbit. So this is, like, I don't know what year, maybe 60. Meredith Wilson wanted my dad to be the music man, because my dad sings, and I. One of my earliest memories is Meredith Wilson and Rene Wilson, his wife, coming over to our house and playing the whole score. The music. What a score.
[04:14]
Interviewer
Yeah. Amazing.
[04:15]
Jeff Bridges
One of my earliest memories is Meredith Wilson coming up to me as a kid and say, you got trouble right here in River City, you know, doing that whole song to me as a kid.
[04:24]
Sponsor Voice
Wow.
[04:26]
Interviewer
So cool.
[04:26]
Jeff Bridges
And then Teague Dacosta, the director, wanted Robert Preston, who just kicked ass in that role. I mean, he was remarkable. And my dad got Sea Hunt that same year, so it worked out well for him. And then my acting career kind of, you know, took off. I was doing stuff in high school, you know, different things. I had an agent and all of that, but I resisted acting quite a bit, really, because I had other things I wanted to do. Music, painting, art. I had a bunch of other stuff. And I didn't want to compete with my brother, who was all bo, who was also an actor. And my dad and I didn't like that whole. What's the word?
[05:10]
Interviewer
Nepotism.
[05:11]
Jeff Bridges
Nepotism. Thanks, man. You know, that whole thing. So I said, dad, you know, I don't know. He said, jeff, don't be ridiculous. That's the wonderful thing about acting is that you're going to be called upon to do all of these things that you're interested in. You know, look at Crazy Heart. You know, when that award that came out of listening to my dad and the music, you know, came around, you know, amazing. So that gives a hit of my dad. Then when I were doing Sea Hunt, he would teach me all the basics. You know, he. I remember sitting on his bed and running lines. So he's got, you know, learn your line so you're not thinking about it. Thinking about what you got to say, but also listen to what the other guy is saying. You don't just say your line when that guy stops talking. You got to let what he said inform what you're there. So that kind of basically. Now go out of the room, come back in. Now do it completely different. I don't care how you do it, just do it completely different.
[06:10]
Interviewer
Great advice.
[06:11]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, yeah.
[06:11]
Interviewer
And do it different each time. Yeah, Just try new ways.
[06:15]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, yeah, new ways. And mess around like that. So he taught me all the basics, but the amazing.
[06:21]
Interviewer
As a little kid.
[06:22]
Jeff Bridges
As a little kid, the main thing doing Sea Hunt, Now I'm about 8 years old, and I remember the time this kind of embarrassed me. But looking back, I say, oh, I'm so proud of my dad. You know, that's another thing I love about making movies. It's all kinds of people, different points of view, philosophies, politics, all of that, you know, so you're working with all different kinds of people. And there's some directors there, many different approaches, and a lot of them work a lot of different ways. One way that my dad did not abide by was cruelty or meanness. And there was some director that was being sharp with a PA and embarrassing this young woman. And my dad, who was the star of the show and Sea Hunt, he said, excuse me, I'm going to be in my trailer. And after you've apologized to the crew in front of, you know, what you did to this woman, you can come and get me. But until that time, I'm just going to be in my trailer. So let me know, you know, as a kid, I said, oh, you know, but looking back, you know, I said, yeah, that's. That's the kind of guy he was.
[07:36]
Interviewer
That's great.
[07:37]
Jeff Bridges
And then another example of what he was like was probably the most important thing I ever learned from him. Although it wasn't in the form of words. It was just his behavior was the joy in which he approached the work. You know, they call it a play. You know, it's play. It's like, this is cool, what we're doing. We're playing, man. And he would come in with this attitude, and that would go through the whole casting crew, this sense of joy. And of course, when you're joyful, you get relaxed, right? And out of that relaxation comes the good, right? Or that's what I find.
[08:17]
Interviewer
No, for sure.
[08:17]
Jeff Bridges
And so as then, as an adult, I got to work with him twice. First time was in Tucker with Francis Coppola and talk about pretending and, you know, like, he's got a great child quality to him, as well as being a, you know, incredible artist on many levels. And one of the things Francis would do is that he Storyboarded quite heavily. And then he would shoot with the film camera, his storyboard. And then we had a two week rehearsal. The first week was just hanging out, getting to know each other. And the second week he got the cast and crew together and he said, all right, guys, now this week we are going to shoot the entire movie. Vittorio Storaro here, he's going to use this little new fancy digital camera and that wheelchair that's going to be his dolly. And you wardrobe people, look at these curtains. These would make good wedding dress. And you actors get off book if you can, because we're only going to do each scene one time. And we're going to do it in order. It was like Little Rascals, you know, come on, let's make a movie, you know, we're having fun, you know. And he shot the entire thing, filmed it like this. And then what we didn't know was to and fro from work, he sat in the back of his black Citroen and edited this thing. At the end of that week, he gave each of us the movie. He said, look here, you just gotta polish it up.
[09:56]
Interviewer
Amazing.
[09:57]
Jeff Bridges
And then what he would do, he had that storyboard. As he completed those scenes, he replaced the storyboard with those scenes. And then as we shot the movie, he replaced it. He replaced that. So the movie was always in existence.
[10:13]
Interviewer
That's unbelievable.
[10:14]
Jeff Bridges
Isn't that a wild take?
[10:15]
Interviewer
I've never heard of anything like that.
[10:17]
Jeff Bridges
No. It's so incredible. And then for an actor, because you shoot out a sequence to have the whole story there was really.
[10:25]
Interviewer
Yeah. You can understand the emotional arc in a way that you never could.
[10:30]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. And that brings to mind Sydney Lamed, who my dad worked with in Transunion Temporary Town. I worked with him in a movie called the Morning after with James Fonda and Sidney, who was an actor.
[10:48]
Interviewer
I didn't know he was an actor.
[10:49]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, yeah, yeah. He knew about rehearsing and what that's all about. And so we rehearsed our ass off in that movie. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie, but we would run the whole movie twice. He taped out a gym, like a play, basically taped out a gymnasium. All the. The right size of the sets that had been chosen. And his main direction is. I don't want any indication here when we do this. Every time you do the scene, I want full blown performance level shit and get off the book as soon as you can. But it's interesting, all these different approaches. You know, some directors say no we don't want to rehearse. You're going to leave it. But acting, you're going to do take after take. And, you know, this thing. I didn't read all the books that my dad read, so I got a lot of it from just him talking to me and my mom. He said, when you're working on a scene, work on it in three different ways. One way is how you would do it. It was happening to you. So really look into yourself, you know, and use how you would be a viewer of the character, and then do it from the character's point of view and work on the scene in that way. In other words, if the guy's got a limp or an accent or, you know, a twitch or whatever, start to work on it that way. And then the third way, and I remember him saying, probably the most important way is architecturally, in a way. Like, think of each scene as a building blocks. You're building a building, you know, this story that you're telling. And each scene has a purpose in this story, you know, and you can do it very many ways. You can hold back. How does that story look? How does that brick in that building look? That's why it was so helpful to bathe in the story that way, you know, get familiar with what are we telling, what are we saying here? You know, some of the actors that I. I admire, I'm just watching Philip Seymour Hoffman in a Sidney Lumet movie. Wow. What is it? Before the Devil Knows yous Dead. Have you seen that? Oh, God. You get the Criterion Channel.
[13:05]
Interviewer
Yeah, yeah.
[13:06]
Jeff Bridges
It's on that Ethan Hawke, who's, you know, another. What? And those guys cooked, man. Tommy Lee Jones is another guy. Like. So there's an opaqueness. You're not. He's not showing you. He's just. It's not indicating.
[13:19]
Interviewer
Yeah. And it also lets you get more involved as a viewer because it's like there's more to discover.
[13:30]
Jeff Bridges
That's right.
[13:30]
Interviewer
They feel they're not telling you what to think.
[13:32]
Jeff Bridges
It's like, musically, it'd be violins, you know, that.
[13:36]
Interviewer
Like, it's open to interpretation. And all the best is open to a new.
[13:40]
Jeff Bridges
Think of radio.
[13:41]
Sponsor Voice
What?
[13:41]
Jeff Bridges
Radio is like, my dad, I remember he did radio before tv.
[13:45]
Narrator/Announcer
Really?
[13:45]
Interviewer
I didn't know that.
[13:46]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, and I think that might be coming back. And T Bone and I are doing a. I guess they're called podcasts.
[13:52]
Interviewer
Yeah, great.
[13:53]
Jeff Bridges
We're doing something, you know, a movie
[13:56]
Interviewer
like that, A recorded story.
[13:58]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. Because then the audience supplies all of the special effects. All of the sets, everything. And there's a technique on how you draw that out just the right amount. You know, both my mom and my dad. My mom is probably the best actor of the whole family. And I could tell you stories about her. You know, she would have this thing that she did with all her kids called time. And that was every day, each kid would get an hour with mom doing whatever that kid wanted to do. Could be. I want to go into your makeup. I want to make you up like a clown, and I want to, you know, make me up like a clown. Yeah, you know, okay, now, this is the spaceship. You get under there, you're the astronaut, and I'm going to be a Martian coming after you like that. The phone would ring, no, I'm having my time with Jeff. I'll call Betty back.
[14:55]
Interviewer
Amazing.
[14:55]
Jeff Bridges
You know, an hour a day, and there was no sense of duty. It was. She was getting off. I mean, she was playing with her kid. You just love. So now we cut. Thirty years later, I'd call her up, I'd say, mom, need some time. What are you doing for dinner? You know, be great. You know, now she's about, you know, 90 years old or something. Do you ever eat at a restaurant called the Palomino in Westwood? It's a nice restaurant. And we'd finish our dinner, and now we'd be walking back to get our car. The valet would be there, and my mom would say, be mean to me.
[15:38]
Interviewer
Be mean to.
[15:39]
Jeff Bridges
Be mean to me. And I said, oh. And I knew. And I didn't have to. I didn't have to ask her, what are you doing? I just knew exactly what she was doing. And I say, get to the car. And I say, get in the fucking car. And she goes. She looks at me, she goes, why are you. So I said, don't talk back to me, bitch. Get in the car. This is funny, man. And we never, you know, and we just never broke character. And we just enjoyed the guy's face, you know.
[16:06]
Interviewer
Unbelievable.
[16:07]
Jeff Bridges
That was her sense of humor. And she would just love to do that kind of thing, you know.
[16:12]
Interviewer
So funny.
[16:15]
Jeff Bridges
I just thought of another. Something my mother. Talk about my mother. And this is such a deep mantra, really, that she gave me as a young kid, you know, acting being, you know, in high school, going off to a gig. And my mom could tell me, oh, yeah, he's anxious, you know, and she would say, jeff, Jeff, remember, have fun and don't take it too seriously. Yeah,
[16:46]
Interviewer
great advice.
[16:47]
Jeff Bridges
And now my wife, when I. Because I. You'd think you would learn that lesson. No, I never learned it, man. My wife.
[16:53]
Interviewer
How did your mom know it?
[16:55]
Jeff Bridges
Well, she's married to my dad, man. I mean, the actor. And she, you know, she knows it herself. She was an actress. Isn't act. She knows the anxiety. Performance anxiety, man. That's a tough thing, you know. So a few years ago, three years ago now, it goes fast. But I was at death's door. I had terrible health problems.
[17:16]
Interviewer
Really.
[17:17]
Jeff Bridges
I had cancer, had a tumor in my body.
[17:20]
Listener/Interviewer
Wow.
[17:21]
Jeff Bridges
9 by 12 inches in my stomach. I had no idea was there. And, you know, I was doing some sit ups and I talked to sue, my wife. I said, something feels funny there. It just feels like it's a bone where a bone shouldn't be. I said, feel it? Yeah. When you ought to see a doctor. I said, no, no, it doesn't hurt. We're going to Montana, you know. So I went to Montana for two or three months and had a great time. My shins itched and I had night sweats, but I think it's summer, you know. Those are all symptoms of lymphoma, man.
[17:57]
Interviewer
Wow.
[17:58]
Jeff Bridges
So I had this giant thing in my stomach and I was just about to go back to do the second season of the old man, this TV show, and I said, I better get it checked out. So I go there and, yeah, you, you have lymphoma. That's a giant lymphoma there. So they put me in the hospital and they did all these tests and stuff. And it was an unusual form of lymphoma. They finally found the right cocktail for it. Now I'm in chemo, doing the chemo sessions, and it seemed to be working. I said, oh, that's great. And then I get a letter from the chemo place you may have been exposed to Covid. And that proved to be true. And the COVID made the cancer look like nothing because I had no immune system. You know, the chemo stripped my immune system and the COVID just kicked my ass, man. So I was on death door.
[19:00]
Narrator/Announcer
Yeah.
[19:02]
Jeff Bridges
And what I found sitting at the doorstep there where you pull out all your tricks, man, all your spiritual, philosophic, you know, tools that you can. And the one that gave me the most sucker was, remember, have fun and don't take it too seriously.
[19:23]
Interviewer
Amazing.
[19:24]
Jeff Bridges
I just said, that's right. Everybody's dying. This is me doing that. Feel all the love that's coming from all those nurses, from your family, all your friends, how much love you feel coursing through your body.
[19:36]
Interviewer
Yeah. That attitude probably had as much to do with you being well now as anything other doctors did.
[19:42]
Jeff Bridges
Maybe.
[19:43]
Interviewer
So that sounds like healing medicine.
[19:45]
Jeff Bridges
Oh God, isn't that wild? So my mom, I mean, I could go on and on about both my parents. They were quite remarkable.
[19:54]
Interviewer
Did going through that health trauma change anything in your life after it?
[20:01]
Jeff Bridges
When you go through something like that, it's a big hit, like a hit of, you know, some kind of drug. It takes you to a certain place.
[20:09]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[20:09]
Jeff Bridges
And that lasts for a while and then it starts to dissipate and you kind of get back to so called
[20:14]
Interviewer
normal, you know, and you feel like yourself. Now
[20:19]
Jeff Bridges
you say that? Of course not. You know, it's like, yeah, it's like take. You know, I'm developing this camera with my wife now and I take these wide lux pictures and you know, photography was a big thing for me growing up. That's the thing about photography, you know, this miracle, taking pictures, capturing light and shadows.
[20:44]
Interviewer
Like a magic trick.
[20:45]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, like a magic trick. It's funny making movies. I always thought there's magic tricks and then there's real magic. Or I guess you could call them miracles. Then when you look around. Miracle. That's kind of a normal thing, man. I mean, this is off, miraculous.
[21:02]
Interviewer
Every day.
[21:02]
Jeff Bridges
Every day. And photography, whether it's through the lens or just realizing that each moment, just these little ordinary moments are extraordinary.
[21:22]
Sponsor Voice
As nutrition science advanced through the mid 20th century, researchers began to understand that modern eating patterns, limited variety processed foods and time constraints could leave small but meaningful gaps in daily micronutrient intake. Today, large population studies confirm that approximately 90% of adults fall short on one or more essential vitamins or minerals. AG1 was formulated in response to those findings. Each daily serving provides more than 75 vitamins, minerals and whole food source nutrients, including vitamins A, C, E, B6, B12, magnesium, zinc, selenium and iodine. A scientifically developed formula backed by nutrition research and delivered in forms the body can readily access because utilization depends on absorption. AG1 also contains probiotics to support gut health and digestive function, helping the body make effective use of what it receives. AG1 contains no gluten or dairy, uses no genetically modified ingredients or artificial sweeteners, and is suitable for a wide range of dietary approaches, including plant based paleo, keto and low carbohydrate diets. Available in single serving packets for when you're on the go. Manufactured under strict quality controls, every batch of AG1 is tested to confirm its composition, nutrient levels and the absence of contaminants. Ensuring reliability from one serving to the next. It's no wonder AG1 is trusted by the world's top athletes and experts. What was once a futuristic concept, daily nutritional support in a glass is now the result of applied science. Learn more@drinkag1.com Petra do it today.
[23:36]
Interviewer
Tell me how the camera came to be.
[23:39]
Jeff Bridges
Well, I first came in contact with the wide locks. Maybe you had this experience too. In high school there was a rumor going around that the guy was gonna take the class picture, had this camera that panned and if you ran around real quick, you could be in the picture twice. Do you remember anything?
[23:57]
Interviewer
No, I don't. I don't remember this at all.
[23:59]
Jeff Bridges
And that rumor proved to be true.
[24:02]
Interviewer
It's a still camera.
[24:03]
Jeff Bridges
It's a still camera that pans. That pans.
[24:06]
Interviewer
So it's like inside.
[24:07]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, it doesn't move. The shutter is a slit that pans across and exposes the film.
[24:15]
Interviewer
I see.
[24:16]
Jeff Bridges
And then when I got married in 77, this guy Mark Hanauer came to our wedding, you hear, just in the Malibu hills up here of Las Flores and Ramblo Pacifica, you know. And he took these pictures with this wide length camera. I saw those pictures. I said, oh my God, what is this? This is remarkable. And then my wife gave me one and that's the only camera I used from then on.
[24:48]
Sponsor Voice
Wow.
[24:49]
Jeff Bridges
And you know, back in high school I had a dark room, you know, turn my bathroom. You then put tinfoil and got the red light. And the tunes, you know, you'd listen, you know, all the Beatles and Dylan and all, and Bach and all the miles, all the great jets, you know. Music was a big part of the dark room experience. You'd be in there what you thought was an hour, but it turned out to be six hours because you're so deep, you know, so focused. My wife became a professional photographer and we had this built a dark room up in Malibu. Really into it. And then I started making these little books for the cast and crew. Karen Allen was her idea when we were doing Starman and she said, let's make it book. So Charlie, Martin, Smith and Karen and I made this book for the cast and crew with my photographs. And also Sid Baldwin, who was the still photographer on the show. And everybody seemed to like it and I loved it because I was talking about that miracle. You know, I look at these pictures and I'm transported right back to those times, you know. So as much as it was a gift to them, it was a gift to my so. And I Started making these books. I think I made about 30 of these books now.
[26:07]
Interviewer
Wow.
[26:09]
Jeff Bridges
I just had a. Did an exhibit of. Of my photographs up in Santa Barbara, the Tamson Gallery. And my daughter Jesse was the host. So we jammed on that. And one of her questions, she says, yeah, Dan. And there's a guy who shows up in every book. I said, it's not me. I would take some selfies with it. It was a great camera for selfies because. Well, you know, I like to take selfies where I'm not looking at the camera. So, you know, I mean, if we took one here, it'd be. Position it so you can't even see my arm, you know, like that. This is before selfies kind of became a thing. She says, it's not you, dad. Who is it? And of course I know who it is. It's Lloyd Catlett.
[26:50]
Interviewer
Who's that?
[26:51]
Jeff Bridges
Lloyd Catlett is this guy. We've made over 70 films together. I met him in 1969. He was this young 16 year old kid who was in the Last Picture show and he was hired as an actor. He had a good part in the movie, but also to teach us California kids how to be Texas, you know, how to be Texans. And he fell in love with the circus. You know, when we left town, he was right on our heels.
[27:23]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[27:23]
Jeff Bridges
And then he became my stand in and acted in movies with me and standing. But I have this thread through all of the movies.
[27:32]
Sponsor Voice
All.
[27:32]
Jeff Bridges
Can you imagine that?
[27:34]
Interviewer
So cool.
[27:35]
Jeff Bridges
And you know, like we were talking about our memory, how shitty our memory is. He's got a much better memory than I have. So he. Can I say, what's that guy's name? Boom, he's got it. You know, I say, remember that? Yeah, we laugh, you know, together. So that has been just a real gift.
[27:51]
Interviewer
Do you photograph out in the world as well?
[27:54]
Jeff Bridges
I've got quite a few photographs, you know, that aren't on movie sets. But I. That's kind of my specialty, you know, I. One of the things I think is valuable about my photographs, that I'm in a unique position right in the center of making movies.
[28:10]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[28:11]
Jeff Bridges
The latter part of the 20th century, early part of the 21st century, with this weird camera, this unique camera. So that's kind of makes the. And there's a historical aspect to it because everything is changing so fast, man, with all this.
[28:26]
Interviewer
AI, walk me through from the beginning to now all of the changes that you saw happen in making films.
[28:36]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, man. Well, so my first movie is a movie called Halls of Anger. It might have been Rob Reiner's first movie too. He was in an actor.
[28:48]
Interviewer
How old were you at the time?
[28:50]
Jeff Bridges
Maybe 19. And it was all about busing white kids into a black school, which was pretty interesting subject, you know, so white people could kind of feel what prejudice feels like. That was the idea. And I played the white kid who was trying to integrate. And the black kids kept beating the shit out of me. And there was a scene where I've been trying to do it and the kids keep beating me up. And then the boys vice principal, who was played by Calvin Lockhart, he says, you've got to go back, you know, you got to keep going on this. And I. It was in a very emotional scene, you know, for me, I had just ended a love affair. Do you remember your first? What that feels like? Your heart breaking? It was terrible feeling. It lasted for years. And I was able to do some thespian judo with that feeling.
[29:47]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[29:48]
Jeff Bridges
And take it for this thing. And I. I kicked ass in the sea. I remember they shot everyone's else's pipe. And then they got to my thing and it made me think. I told you about talking to my dad, saying, I'm not sure if I'm cut out for. Then I said, finally I said, I think I could do this, man, this is pretty wild. I got very emotional and cried and all this stuff. Get an applaud from the crew, you know, that's always hot. And now we're the premiere of the show in Watts. I think my dad's on my right, Bo's on my left. And I'm sitting back. I said, okay, now wait till you see this scene. And here it comes. And the way they cut it, they cut to my face and I'm like, you know, some. And I didn't see the build up. There was no. The audience burst out laughing. I think I might have a little bit, you know, So I just, you know, it laid a little. I was so, you know, it was just so terrible.
[30:54]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[30:55]
Jeff Bridges
And that was a. Interesting lesson, man. That was like, so what do you do about that?
[30:59]
Interviewer
How do you.
[31:00]
Jeff Bridges
Do you protect yourself? Do you give it up? You know, what do you do? And my choice was, you got to give it up. And you gotta. You can't be worried about it. That's one of the elements of making movies. It's a collage. And the collage ain't up to you. It's up to who's ever cutting the film. Hopefully it's the director. And every once in a while you had high expectations going in, and now it's even better. What they do, you know, that happens. And sometimes it don't, man. And so you can't. But you can't protect yourself, you know, you can't.
[31:34]
Listener/Interviewer
It's.
[31:35]
Interviewer
How do you control.
[31:36]
Jeff Bridges
You can control it in certain ways, but it. It's self defeating because it dampens the whole energy of creativity, you know? So that was a big thing for me, that really about editing, you know. Now I'm getting off track a little bit more, but I'm gonna go with the editing aspect. Bo's first movie was with Hal Ashby.
[31:58]
Interviewer
Wow.
[31:59]
Jeff Bridges
Hal's last movie was my movie.
[32:01]
Interviewer
Incredible.
[32:02]
Jeff Bridges
Million Ways to Die. Hal was an editor. Think of his films being there, Coming Home, Last Detail, man, these masterpieces. And he worked through improvisation. It's interesting where the directors come from. You know, some are actors like Sidney Lumet, some are, you know, writers. Some are editors. So Hal said, just bring it up, you know, Give me all your, you know, And.
[32:29]
Interviewer
And then he'd figure out how to make it into something.
[32:32]
Jeff Bridges
He would make it into something.
[32:33]
Interviewer
That's great.
[32:34]
Jeff Bridges
I remember asking him, I said, are we gonna have to do much looping, you know, much ADR stuff? And he goes, no. I said, what do you mean? I'm an editor, Jim. I said, what do you mean? He says, man, I get in there with a little razor blade and I can. On the. This is on the T. Old school shit, you know. And he, you know, he.
[32:52]
Interviewer
Physical.
[32:52]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, he was a master at this stuff. I remember him saying, the key to editing is just bathing in the film. He would sleep in the editing room, you know, and just look at it over and over and over again. But you think of, like, that monologue that Jon Voight gives in Coming Home, you know, that's improv, man. That's. And I think I have a feeling that you might work the same way T bone does as well. Creating the space, it's hard for people to understand what that is. But that's my favorite kind of directors. And you guys are directors, too.
[33:30]
Interviewer
We have no idea when we're going in what it's going to be. No clue. And there's a lot of different versions of good, you know.
[33:36]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah.
[33:37]
Interviewer
And you don't know until you're discovering it.
[33:40]
Jeff Bridges
It's a funny talent. When you have a visitor come in and watch you at work, they say, well, he's not doing anything. What is he doing? It's space creation. You know, it's just safety, vibe, playfulness, joy, humor, love. It let it do us.
[33:56]
Interviewer
Yeah. Watch it unfold.
[33:57]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. It's a miracle, man.
[34:00]
Interviewer
It is.
[34:00]
Jeff Bridges
I mean, is it. You know, my task as a creative person is getting out of the way. Right. How do you practice doing that? How do you get in that spot? You know, that's a. An interesting, you know, practice to mess with. But how? So Bo did his first movie, Landlord. I did his second. Eight, Nine Ways to Die. I think it was Andy Garcia's first film. We had a ball working together. There was a guy, Mark Damon was the producer, and Hal had a bad rep right around that time, you know, doing coke. And it was, you know, I think he had done that Stone documentary or something. I was. He just, you know, had a bad reputation. And so the script was just a basic outline. We would never shoot the script. We would just jam on the essence of the scene. And this guy had no faith in Hal's process. I mean, look at the pudding that's coming out of House oven. You know, these are masterpieces. So he bitched and bitched. I can understand how it would frustrate the financiers to say, that's not. That's not the script, man. You know, where are you going to go with this thing? You know, so he comes in. We've got, you know, about two weeks to go. Shoot. He comes in and he says, we're pulling the plug today. This is your last day. House is. What are you talking about? We've got major stuff. Hal went into his trailer, burned a dupe, I think came out and said, all right, I've got. Here's how we're gonna. We're gonna do a phone call. Andy, you're gonna have this big, long phone call. You know, he didn't let it crush him, you know, I mean, you know, he didn't say, oh, you know, oh,
[35:41]
Interviewer
he solved the problem.
[35:42]
Jeff Bridges
He just. Yeah, because that's basically what movies. It's all about. These little, you know, trying to figure out how we navigate these challenges, you know, so there is a challenge. So he came up with this long monologue, and he created the kind of space of such safety and inclusion that I saw Andy doing the scene, and I had an idea about what would make it better for Andy. And I went up to her, I said, hell, we wonder if Andy, you know, did this instead of that. And he goes, that, that's a really good idea, but let Andy cross the bridge. Let him find that out. My idea came from the idea we're. We go time. We got a time crunch here. We got a lot of stuff. And he said we got all the time in the, you know. God, the vibe he created. So we actually shot the movie with all that hindrance. We shot the movie hell in mind. Then the guy fired. Hal didn't let him edit the film, man. And just cut it against the grain.
[36:43]
Interviewer
Unbelievable.
[36:44]
Jeff Bridges
And then Hal died. I mean, he broke his heart, man. God,
[36:51]
Interviewer
crazy story.
[36:51]
Jeff Bridges
I remember your. Your question was how is. How has it changed over the years? That kind of has remained the same. These stories that, you know, it's a communal art form. You know, you're working with other guys that can shut you down. So it's up for grabs. You know how it's going to turn out. I love this thing. This is what keeps me coming back. Is that when it transcends your high expectations and it does that every once in a while, isn't it a great feeling? I was going in with and God, look what happened. That is so amazing. So that kind of stuff, those first editing stories, that still happens, the good and the bad of that. But when, when you ask me what's changed, a great example of that is Tron. I've had great luck with first time directors. Just wonderful. You know, some of my best movies have been first time guys. But this was Stephen Lisberger who came up with this idea of Tron. Yeah, we shot it in Black and white, 70 millimeter black and white, all hand tinted by these Korean women. All our costumes were in black and white. We would go into this black and white box, you know, this soundstage, the special effect, everything was black duvetyne with white adhesive tape. That was our. That was our special effects, you know. Then they did it all in post, you know, coloring stuff and made it glow and shit. And then you'd go outside after being that black and white and color. Oh my God. Color would be. Hit you like a ton of bricks. So now we down the second one. I'm scanned. You know, they. They do a scan so I can. They can jack with me, you know, digitally. And they did that. And so I was. That's basically what the first movie was all about. Getting scanned into a computer. Now it's happening in real time. And so I could be a play, a younger version of myself. But it was kind of primitive. I thought I looked more like Bill Maher than I did myself. You know, it was just. It didn't matter that much. Now the whole AI stuff is so much more advanced. In the sequel to Toronto, he had all these dots on our faces and now they don't do any of that. Now it's scary. So just that it's leaps and bounds, you know, what that AI does. And it's amazing how just the whole AI idea because in movies, you know, remember seeing Jurassic park for the first time, you see, look what they can do or, or see in the Hobbit movies, you look at all the people and then finally it loses its vanity. Yeah, yeah, because it's just, you know, and you say, oh, still it's an interesting tool that, you know, you can use, but it loses something, you know, I mean, pretty soon I'll be out of gig, man. I mean that. You know what? I'll probably lease my image, you know, Say we want to combo De Niro Bridges and let's put some Andy Garcia in there, see what happens, you know, A little more Garcia. A little more, you know, you know, I mean that's, you know, not too far off. I mean, they can do it already, you know.
[40:16]
Sponsor Voice
LMNT Element electrolytes
[40:23]
Jeff Bridges
have you ever felt
[40:24]
Sponsor Voice
dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? Do you want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add element electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper. Improve your cognitive function. Experience an increase in steady energy with fewer headaches and fewer muscle cramps. Element electrolytes Drink it in the sauna. Refreshing flavors include grapefruit, citrus, watermelon and chocolate salt. Formulated with the perfect balance of sodium, potassium and magnesium to keep you hydrated and energized throughout the day. These minerals help conduct the electricity that powers your nervous system so you can perform at your very best. Element electrolytes are sugar free keto friendly and great tasting. Minerals are the stuff of life. So visit drinklmnt.com tetra and stay salty with element electrolyte. LMNT.
[41:43]
Interviewer
How did you meet Bernie Glassman?
[41:47]
Jeff Bridges
I met Ram Dass's birthday party. I make these little ceramic heads, you know, and I do this thing where, you know, I'll make a pot or a vase or something and then I'll have a hunk of clay left over and I'll let my hands make a head out of it. And they're like aspects of myself. This is something I, I do and I've got, you know, hundreds of these. So I went up to Rom Das and I said, I always wanted to give you a little head. You know, happy birthday. You know, I give it away and then we sit down there and I just kind of tubby Jewish guy over on the Left he doesn't look like. I said, what is he doing here in this spirit? And he turns out to be the real thing. This guy's a Zen master, big time.
[42:37]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[42:38]
Jeff Bridges
And he says, hey, I really dig Lebowski, man. And Lebowski is just chock full of all these modern day coons. I said, what are you talking about? He says, well, look who wrote and directed Lebowski. The Cohen Brothers. Very good, okay. He says, the dude abides. That's very Buddhistic right there. I say, yeah. He says, my favorite co on in Big Lebowski is. Well, that's just like your opinion, man. I said, oh, I'm getting it now, you know. Well, you know, what a coin. What's the sound of one hand clapping these questions that really don't have traditional answers to them. I said, give me another one. He says, well, shut the up, Donnie. There's another call on. So he starts to list these things, and he says, hey, let's write a book. I say, what do you mean? Yeah, let's write a book about Lebowski and how it, you know, might have some of these ideas, these Buddhist ideas into them. And I'm, you know, kind of Buddhistly bent myself, you know. I'm a big fan of Alan Watts, you know. You must be. Yeah. He is probably the best, isn't he? So good.
[43:54]
Listener/Interviewer
Love it.
[43:54]
Jeff Bridges
I mean, God, you know, he's my wife's favorite, too, because he's got a sense of humor about the whole thing. He says, yeah, let's do this. I said, well, I've got a ranch up in Montana. Let's go up there for a couple of weeks and just hang, you know. You know how you hit it off with somebody very quickly and you say, wow. And so I hit it off with him just immediately. So we went up there and we just had a two weeks of conversation, and then his wife Eve Marco edited it, and Bernie was, you know, my dear friend and teacher and. God, what a guy, man. I mean.
[44:37]
Interviewer
Do you remember when you first read the script for Lebowski? Tell me what you remember.
[44:43]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, I remember bumping into the Coen brothers. Maybe it was at a party or something, I can't remember. And the. Theo, we've written something for you. I said, oh, you're kidding. Great. No, I was a big fan.
[44:55]
Interviewer
I know they wrote it for you.
[44:56]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, I was a big fan of Blood Simple.
[44:58]
Narrator/Announcer
Yeah.
[44:59]
Jeff Bridges
And then I read the script and I said, wow, this is not like anything I've ever done before. Why did you think of Me, you know, it's like something from my past, kind of weird vibe.
[45:11]
Interviewer
Did you laugh out loud when you read the script?
[45:13]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I thought it was. I was. I was amazed that when it first came out, it didn't do anything. You know, it was not successful when it came out. It had to get, you know, came back from Europe and, you know, was successful over there and then splash back here.
[45:30]
Interviewer
How much of what you read in the script is what the movie is and how much did it evolve through making it?
[45:38]
Jeff Bridges
Well, they write so well that it feels like improvisation, but it's not. And Walter, John Goodman and I, you know, we were very precise, you know, about where each was. Each man was. I love pot. I'm a, you know, was a pothead. I'm not doing it these days, but I didn't smoke any pot on that movie. I really wanted to be as clear and not, you know. You know. You know, what are they? What's the acting term? Sense memory. I had done a lot of pot. I knew what that, you know, I could get there without, you know, having to smoke it. Now, we would do improvisation. John and I remember doing this to feel the vibe of the. The scene. And then we would always go back and descript. It was almost like, mute, you know, like music.
[46:31]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[46:32]
Jeff Bridges
You know, you want the right melody, you want the notes. And each man was there for.
[46:37]
Interviewer
But you would jam to better get into the script.
[46:41]
Jeff Bridges
Yes. Right. Right.
[46:43]
Sponsor Voice
And.
[46:43]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, man. It was. Oh, man, I want to. You know, I was talking about my photography, and I made a book for Lebowski, you know, and I look through that book, and I get. Boom. I get right back to each of those scenes. You know, the day Turturro comes, you know, he's gonna do this one little scene kissing the ball, you know. Oh, God, he was just so incredible.
[47:07]
Interviewer
When you were young, in addition to working with your dad, you got to work with a lot of the great actors. Do you remember any things that they directly told you that were helpful going forward?
[47:21]
Jeff Bridges
Well, don't you love it when you've got these heroes of yours, you know, and you put them on a pedestal, and when you meet him, they let you know, I'm just one of you guys. I love that. I just love that, man. So my second film was a movie called the Yin and Yang of Mr. Go, written by Burgess Meredith.
[47:44]
Interviewer
Had he ever directed or written before?
[47:46]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, he was. You know, people are most familiar with him playing the penguin in the original Batman TV series. Yeah, but he Was a classical. You know, I just watched.
[47:57]
Interviewer
And then in Rocky as well.
[47:58]
Jeff Bridges
And Rocky, that's another. Yeah. But, yeah, he was a wonderful actor. And James Mason was also in that film. And he was, you know, so down to earth. And I, you know, Lolita, you know, I just remember, you know, all his great movies. And another story with James just popped into my mind working with John Euston. And I worked with him as an actor and as a director. I was in a movie that he directed called Fat City. My big brother Bo did some agenting for me. He went up for the part, and he was a little too old. He's eight years older than me. He says, but you ought to check out my brother. So I went in to see the casting guy, and they liked me. And then they got a call from my agent that John Houston wanted to meet me. Oh, great. Where? Madrid. Madrid? Yeah. So I get on a plane, and where he wants to. Where the meeting used to be, is it the Prado? So I get there and I'm Again, I'm about, you know, early 20s, and I'm checking into the hotel and there's this beautiful girl there. You can start to talk. And she says, take you out to dinner. Let's go have beautiful food, fish. So I said, well, I gotta get home fairly early because I got this interview. So I go out with this beautiful girl and have a wonderful meal. I get home, get into bed, and I wake up with food poisoning, man. It's just puking and shitting and just the worst. And I've got to meet John Houston at the Prado. So there I were, looking at the Goyas and the, you know, all of these great painters, Velasquez and something like this. Trying my best not to puke on the paintings, man. I mean, I'm literally puking in my mouth and swallowing my, you know.
[50:00]
Interviewer
Yeah, it's the worst feeling.
[50:01]
Jeff Bridges
And John doesn't talk about the movie at all. He's just pointing out art to me. And I'm saying, well, that I've lost that part. Oh, God, help me. I hope I don't die. I was just feeling just terrible. And I'm in bed and I don't speak Spanish and I can't talk on the phone to the desk and everything. I said, what am I going to do? And I get a knock on the door, and I crawl my hands and knees at the door and open the door. Who's standing there? James Mason. What are you doing on the floor? And he saved my life. He, you know, he Got me, you know, a doctor. Got the right shot and stuff.
[50:47]
Interviewer
Cast you for the movie after the food poisoning.
[50:49]
Jeff Bridges
I got the part. Yeah, I got the part, man. And it was with Stacy Keats, a wonderful actor.
[50:59]
Interviewer
Yeah, great.
[51:00]
Jeff Bridges
Susan Terrell and. And Candy Clark, who I fell in love with. And we became a. You know, we lived together for many years. And John, you know, he was kind of, you know, not feeling well, actually. He was with, you know, would have these, you know, on oxygen all the time. There was a scene, it was my favorite scene in the movie, where I'm having a dream, and I wake up in the middle of the dream, having dreamt that my wife, Candy, was holding the hand of my best friend. And so I said, don't touch. You know, I'm pissed off. I'm still in the dream, but I'm awake. And there was a certain comedic element to this whole thing. And my approach was the more serious I could play it, the funnier it would be. And John had some other ideas, and I was trying to do it with him and saw dailies the next day. And Ray Stark, who the producer, is in there, and after the dailies, he's walking with me. So what'd you think? I said, no, I. I didn't really like it. He goes, yeah, I know. He says, but don't worry. When we truth shooting, I'm gonna have you and Candy take acting lessons, and then we'll come back and reshoot the scene. And that kind of hit me weird because I had already been nominated for an Academy Award. Yeah. But I said, okay. So that's what happened. And we. Jeff Corey was an acting teacher. Pretty tough acting teacher, you know, having to, you know, really get the emotion out of you. I was living with Candy at the time, and we would go like twice a week to this acting teacher, and Candy would say, you know, she had to cry in the skin. I don't want to go. Yeah, I don't. I don't want to cry. I said, come on, Ken. You know, this is what acting's all about. You gotta do the hard. So he would go and he'd make her cry every time, you know, and now. Now we're kind of come back to reshoot the thing. We were instructed by Ray, don't tell anything to John about taking any lessons or anything. The kit Candy goes to John says, I'm not supposed to say this, but we've been taking these acting lessons, and I don't know how to play the part. I don't know how to do It John said, just do it the way you did it before. Just do it the way he did it before.
[53:29]
Interviewer
Great.
[53:29]
Jeff Bridges
Knowing full well that would never be in the movie anyway.
[53:33]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[53:33]
Jeff Bridges
And we shot the scene and it was, you know, never in the movie. But now, years later, I'm doing a movie called Winter Kills and John Houston's playing my father. Directed. Again, I mentioned having great luck with first time directors. This was Bill, Richard, the cast of this movie. John Houston, Elizabeth Taylor, Toshiro Mifune.
[53:59]
Listener/Interviewer
Wow.
[54:00]
Jeff Bridges
Sterling Hayden, Richard Boone. It's amazing. And he, and he just, he got this cast together just through his, his sheer charisma. He was a wonderful guy. John Houston was playing my father and John, when we were doing Fat City, you know, I was always jealous of Stacy because John and Stacy were playing backgammon and so forth. And I kind of felt left out. I think, you know, that was where he wanted to direct me, keep me on my heels.
[54:33]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[54:33]
Jeff Bridges
And then doing this Winter Kills, he not only was very open and gregarious with me, but he was also this first time director. He was like showing how an actor should behave to a director. He would say, how was it, Bill? How was it for you? Should I give him the ideas? What would you like me to do differently?
[54:55]
Interviewer
Yeah, you know, amazing.
[54:57]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. So that was, you know, great.
[54:59]
Interviewer
Wasn't Winter Kills band or something. Something happened with Winter Kills.
[55:03]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, God.
[55:04]
Listener/Interviewer
Oh.
[55:04]
Jeff Bridges
Another actor that was, was who played in Psycho, you know, Anthony Perkins. Yeah, he was in it. He played the bad guy in it. And this is such a weird, weird story. So Bo had done a movie with Anthony Perkins, a Larry McMurtry story called Love and Molly directed by Sidney Lumet. Tony did acid every day,
[55:35]
Interviewer
you know,
[55:36]
Jeff Bridges
and one of his acting techniques was what drug would be appropriate for this thing. So we're doing this scene at the climax of the movie where he's kidnapped my girlfriend and I take his arm. I have a blackjack in my eye. I break his arm. I tell me where she is. I'm going to break your other arm. Tell me where she is. So he says for this scene, I think amyl nitrate. So the director goes out and gets a box of Amy's and you know, rolling. First time, you know. Are you ready? Okay, action. Yeah. And he's got this long two page monologue and he hits it and he does it beautifully. He just does the whole thing. Now it gets to my side and I said, I think I'll do a naming. And I hit that poor guy so hard with that fake blackjack that, you know, shut down the day's work. You know, that's crazy. Oh God, it was terrible. And I don't know if it was the same day or maybe it was the reshot of that thing. The stage doors, these big doors open to the sound stage and income. The union guys and shut us down because all the cast and crew wasn't being paid their union dues. And they were all just there because of the love of this guy Bill Richard had.
[57:08]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[57:08]
Jeff Bridges
And so they shut us down.
[57:10]
Narrator/Announcer
Wow.
[57:11]
Jeff Bridges
And we had major scenes to shoot. And, you know, it kind of again broke all our hearts. And a few weeks later, I get a call from Bill. I got this idea, man. I said, what? He says, what we're gonna do. I've written this script. It's a great script and you'll be just so perfect in it. We're gonna shoot it in Germany. I've got the money. And then we're gonna. That's gonna come out. And then we'll get the money to finish Winter Kills. And it's a great scene with Sterling Hayden that you're gonna. And I said, okay. And off we go to Germany, shoot this other movie. And his prophecy proved true. We came in, finished Winter Kills.
[57:55]
Interviewer
Amazing.
[57:56]
Jeff Bridges
I mean, just all these adventures, you know, crazy.
[57:59]
Interviewer
So when Anthony Perkins does the amyl nitrate, you didn't think, this is crazy? You think, good idea, I'll do it too.
[58:07]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, well, this is back in the day, man, you know, much younger and the things like that. You know, I thought of another. I thought of another drug story. I'm going to tell you. Doing Thunderbolt and Lightfoot with Clint Eastwood. This is again another great example of first time directors. This was Mike Cimino's first time directing. This is the guy who directed the Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate and so forth. And Clint is famous for only wanting one or two takes.
[58:40]
Listener/Interviewer
Really?
[58:40]
Interviewer
I didn't know that.
[58:41]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, yeah. And I was the young punk kid who said, you know, I'd go up to Mike. I say, I got an idea in line. And he said, well, you gotta ask the boss. You know, he would go over there and talk to Clint and Clint would say, yeah, give the cat a shot. So I really appreciate that, what Clint did. And then we're doing the scene. You ever see that movie?
[59:05]
Interviewer
Not in a long time.
[59:07]
Jeff Bridges
But you've seen it, I believe at the end of the movie I get kicked in the head by George Kennedy and I'm having a stroke and I die. Basically. It's a death Scene I had this idea. I said, if get a dentist, get some Novocaine and shoot novocaine in my mouth and just, you know, go up there and I'll be right off. And he said, okay. So we did. It worked great. Lost the film. We had to do it all over again and did the same thing.
[59:38]
Interviewer
Lost the film. Physically lost the film.
[59:41]
Jeff Bridges
Just, you know, like, I can't remember. It was either lost or was no good. We just had to reshoot it again. Now, years later, we're doing Heaven's Gate. He had just won the Academy Award for Deer Hunter. He was the darling of Hollywood. They said, do whatever you want, Mike. He said, well, I've got this epic Western I'm going to do. But he said, but I don't want any of the suits or any press to come because it's going to be a challenging thing to do it. And everybody who was in it, I can't remember. I think it was maybe six months shooting. That's where I met T Bone on here. T Bone played my maid in the thing. And Willem Defoe was his first movie. He played my two. My. Those were my housekeeping guys. Willem, I think, got fired for laughing inappropriately in a scene. In one. What? You're just hanging out when Mike was directing, and it was a very interesting experience because unlike what it was with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot was, you know, one or two takes. Mike would do 60 takes.
[60:49]
Listener/Interviewer
Wow.
[60:49]
Jeff Bridges
I mean, it was like, let's show up. We'll be in costume. If we get it, we get it. We don't. We'll just come back and we'll do it again. So they never knew when it counted. And I guess from his point of view, he's looking for that happy accident, you know, that one little thing. But from the acting thing, it was kind of tough because you don't know when does it count?
[61:10]
Interviewer
And it's hard to make it count 60 times.
[61:13]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And everybody gonna do it together. You know, it was, you know, challenging that way. Now we're doing this battle scene when I supposed to get shot, and then I give a big speech, and I go up to Mike and I say, mike, you know, I'm being shot here, and there's a medic there. You know, what if the medic shoots me up with some morphine? And then I give my speech? And he goes, yeah, yeah. And I said, but I. I know he's got some morphine, but I want. Before we do it on film, I want to see if I can do that. So how do you feel about him shooting me up with the morphine? Then I'll try the, do the scene. And he said, you just want to get high on the morphine. I say, yeah, but I think, no, I really think it might be effective, you know, for the movie as well. And so I get the, you know, I get the real doctor there and he shoots me up with morphine and I do this thing and I, I say, oh, this is great, you know, this, I can do this. It's a good effect.
[62:21]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[62:22]
Jeff Bridges
Now we're going to shoot it on film and now we're doing with the actor and he's got the, you know, he's talked to the medic and he's gonna do it and we practiced it and, and he does it and it's just terrible, man. It's not morphine, it's some other, some like methadone. I don't know what he was shooting at me. These are back in the days when we experimented with drugs, you know,
[62:52]
Listener/Interviewer
So much of today's life happens on the web. Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world. Designing a website is easy using one of Squarespace's best in class templates. With the built in style kit, you can change fonts, imagery, margins and menu so your design will be perfectly tailored to your needs. Discover unbreakable creativity with Fluid Engine, a highly intuitive drag and drop editor. No coding or technical experience is required. Understand your site's performance with in depth website analytics tools. Squarespace has everything you need to succeed online. 3to4blog monetize a newsletter Make a marketing portfolio Launch an online store. The Squarespace app helps you run your business from anywhere. Track inventory and connect with customers while you're on the go. Whether you're just starting out or already managing a successful brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create, create and customize a beautiful website. Visit squarespace.com tetra and get started today.
[64:20]
Interviewer
I remember reading a story you told about if it's in church, you're not in the service. Oh yeah, tell me about that.
[64:31]
Jeff Bridges
19 years old, you know, really ripe for Vietnam. And I followed my brother's footsteps. He enlisted in the Coast Guard reserve. And in the Coast Guard Reserve you go to, you know, regular old boot camp. Boot camp is 10 weeks. Wow. I can remember going there in your civilian clothes on a bus. Arriving there, we all get lined up and the, the guy who is in charge of us, he's walking up and down the lines questioning us. You know, what's your name? He goes up to one kid saying, what's your name? My name is Joe Samuel, sir. Quit moving your head. Why are you moving your head like that? I don't know, sir. Don't move your head. Yes, sir. Now there's a guy in the line behind him who starts to laugh. You know, like this drill guy goes over to that guy and says, you like laughing? I want you to continue to laugh until I tell you to stop. You understand? Yes, sir. Start laughing. Now we're. This is now hours later and we're up in our racks, you know, two o' clock in the morning.
[65:56]
Narrator/Announcer
Still.
[65:57]
Jeff Bridges
Still, you know, wow. I mean, it was torture, basically. They strip you of your. They give you a number, strip you from your identity. You know, I guess that's effective for fighting battles and shit, you know, working for the team, you know, get rid of your individuality. And now where it's about the second week and we're all, you know, stripped down, we're kind of being bashed around. And the guy says to us all, today's Sunday. You have a choice to make. You can go to church or you can high point rifles on the Grounder. How many people want to go to church? So we often go to church. And the guy in there, Don Harris, was the chaplain, and he said, I want to start today by telling you guys that when you're in here, you're not in the military. You're in the house of the Lord. Praise God. How can Louie, you know, all his sermons were all about dealing with tough times and, you know, and in love and all these things. He had me play my guitar and sing to the troops and he would have discussions with all the guys and everything. Remarkable guy. Turned me on to an incredible book. Are you into Kazan, Zakis at all? Do you know who he is? His most famous book is Zorba the Greek. But he also wrote the Last Temptation of Christ. He would write, rewrite, like the New Testament, you know, his version, you know, why not? Why. Why can't I be tapped in like that? And they're remarkable stories. The Last Temptation of Christ, it's a big, thick book. The last half of it is a dream that Jesus has on the cross.
[67:48]
Interviewer
Wow.
[67:49]
Jeff Bridges
Of being a normal person, having two wives, all these kids, and then he wakes up. Yeah. I mean, it's a great book. Marty Scorsese made a movie about it. And he turned me onto a wonderful book that I can't recommend high enough, called the Saviors of God. That if anybody's going to Save anybody. We've got to save God. And it's quite an amazing book. And during that time, I got into a Christian phase in my spiritual journey. And so I really appreciated all of that.
[68:24]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[68:25]
Jeff Bridges
Especially, you know, when you're in tough times, you pull out all your. All your trick. What am I. What's going to help me, man?
[68:31]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[68:32]
Jeff Bridges
And that's, you know, what helped me, that kind of stuff. So I really appreciated that. Then we got Honor Company about in the ninth week we were there. All the companies get it. At some point we got honor company, and that means we could. We're on leave and going to San Francisco. And he said, I'm going to break the rules, Jeff. I said, what? He says, I want to take you somewhere. I said, where? He says, I'm just kind of. I'm going to break the rules. I'm going to give you some civvies so you won't pop out. And they gave me civilian clothes. And he took me to the Carousel Ballroom to see Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother.
[69:15]
Sponsor Voice
Right.
[69:16]
Jeff Bridges
And I just, you know, that was all fresh. That was all fresh music at the time. I just went, holy. And then he ended up, you know, many, many years later, ended up marrying me and Sue. So Don Harris, wonderful, wonderful guy. My wife, you know, I've been. I'm going on 50 years, man. And the love thing just gets stronger and stronger. And we've been doing these movies together for so long, so she knows what it takes and how to.
[69:50]
Interviewer
How'd you guys meet?
[69:51]
Jeff Bridges
Me, we met on a movie. Met on a movie called Rancho Deluxe up in Montana. I'm doing a scene in this dude ranch called Chico Hot Springs. I'm in this big hot tub, natural hot spring. Sam Waterston on one side, Harry Dean Stanton on the other. And we're doing the same. And I look over and I see this girl. I cannot take my eyes off her. She is so gorgeous. And she's got two black eyes and a broken nose. So this beauty juxtaposed to this disfigurement math, it was just so amazing. Am I finally get the nerve to ask her out? And I don't know about you, but asking girls out, man, that was always tough.
[70:40]
Interviewer
Terrifying.
[70:40]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's. Yeah. So I was so attracted, I couldn't help it. And I said, you know, after we were shooting that, I said, would you like to go out with me? She says, no, it's a small town. Maybe I'll see around. I say, okay. And then her prophecy proved true. And we had the wrap party, and she was there, and we danced and felt, boom. It was it. Got married and, you know, had a bunch of kids. Now we cut 30 years later, and I'm going through my mail, and I get a letter from the makeup man on that show, and he says, I was going through my files, and I found a picture of you asking a local girl out. It's two pictures, a close up and a two shot of the first words we ever spoke.
[71:33]
Interviewer
Unbelievable.
[71:34]
Jeff Bridges
Me asking her out and her saying no. Click.
[71:37]
Interviewer
Unbelievable.
[71:38]
Jeff Bridges
Isn't that wild, man?
[71:39]
Interviewer
That's great.
[71:41]
Jeff Bridges
And so that's my prized possession after this thing. I can show you that picture. You made me remember?
[71:47]
Interviewer
Have you ever done theater?
[71:49]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[71:50]
Jeff Bridges
What's that like with my dad?
[71:51]
Interviewer
Oh, really?
[71:52]
Jeff Bridges
He did summer stock. He did Guys and Dolls. That was one of, you know, thing he would do in round. He do a lot. Remember, I was on stage with this other woman. My dad's entering the stage, and I see him walking down the aisle, and he's with his zipper, you know, he comes on, and I see his zipper is just totally off the track, and it's just open like this, you know, and the people start laughing and shit. And my dad, you know, breaks the fourth wall, says, okay, okay, okay. I'm gonna go up and change my pants, Jeff. Entertain the people. And so I'm up there, you know, all alone, and I said, well, I took some tap lessons. I'm gonna do a little tap routine for you now, you know? You know, I mean, it was just. It gets, you know, just so bizarre sometimes.
[72:46]
Interviewer
It's an unbelievable story.
[72:47]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah.
[72:48]
Interviewer
Do you think your dad felt like you can handle this?
[72:52]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, I mean, I don't. Yeah, I don't. I mean, I just had to, you
[72:55]
Interviewer
know, is it like, the show must go on?
[72:58]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, that's exactly. The show must go on. Yeah. Working with him on these two movies as an adult with Blown Away, I got to work with him. It was quite a big part. We had so much fun pretending, you know, with your dad on that level.
[73:17]
Interviewer
Did it tap into things from childhood? Did you feel like you were reliving your childhood doing that with him?
[73:22]
Narrator/Announcer
Huh?
[73:23]
Jeff Bridges
It started like an extension. It's not because it wasn't even reliving. It was just like an extension. Because I'm thinking of a couple of things, you know, coming from a showbiz family, you know, we were encouraged as kids to perform do, you know, shows and plays and stuff. I remember I just saw this recently, so wild. I did a movie called The Giver, based on this book. And I tried to get it made for, oh, easy 20 years. And I just saw this, a whole movie where I cast my dad as the giver. I ended up playing the part 20 years later, but I cast my dad as the giver. Bo's kid was playing the. The lead in it. And it was shot in our house. Bud Court was narrating, reading the book, the whole book. And we did the whole book. And Casey both saw, you know, shot it then. Another example is my folks had a place in Bear Valley up in central Northern California, Ski place. And we were up there, and my dad was pretty old, you know, in his 80s. He didn't like getting old, man. It pissed him off. He was such a vital guy. And to have his body breaking down like that, really annoying. And he's locked himself in his room, and we're saying, dad, come on, are you okay? He says, leave me alone. I'm in here. I'm working. What are you working on? Leave me alone. Now hours pass, and he finally comes out and he says, bo's son Dylan gathered us all around a table, and I have wide Lux shots of this whole story. I'm going to tell you, he says, dylan has asked me to write a script based on Robin Hood. I've called the story the Robin of Bear since we were in Bear Valley. I want you all to participate in it. I've casted it certain ways. I'm going to direct this, and I. I want you to do this in a very professional way. You know, he's very serious about Casey. I want you to shoot it. And so we have this document with special effects. I'm just Robin Hood, you know, he was, like, pulled behind a snow machine. Just, you know, I mean, it's, you know, fake fights, very elaborate and funny. And, oh, we had such a great time. I was. Wife sue got so pissed off at my dad because he had my daughters. They were playing peasants out in the snow, you know, and they didn't have proper clothes on. And sue would say, can't you put jacket? No. This is a period piece, you know. No, no. And she. So real fights, you know, happen. Real family fights. I'm trying to do something, you know, and then Beau and I, you know, would come in there and have ideas and try to direct. So it was just hysterical. The combination of, you know, humor and seriousness.
[76:31]
Interviewer
And I love the fact that your dad took it serious.
[76:34]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, yeah.
[76:35]
Interviewer
Beautiful.
[76:36]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. But he was also. I mean, this is the guy who did Airplane. You've Seen the movie Airplane, you know, so he's an incredible. I mentioned that movie Blown Away, talking to the producers about the casting, and I said, you know, who could play my uncle in this thing? He's a great actor. And he looks a bit like me, you know, in a way, is Lloyd Bridges. Do you know Lloyd Bridges? And the guy says, oh, your dad? That's funny. But he's really more of a comedic actor. What the are you talking about?
[77:08]
Interviewer
He saw Airplane.
[77:10]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, he was. Then this was coming out.
[77:12]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[77:12]
Jeff Bridges
I say, my dad is a. Some actor, man. That was an act. Yeah. That's really why I said, you want him to come in and read, or would he do that?
[77:23]
Narrator/Announcer
Oh, shit.
[77:24]
Jeff Bridges
Okay. So my dad came in, of course.
[77:26]
Interviewer
Blew him away.
[77:27]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, blew him away. That's something I learned from my dad too, is these Personas that you can develop, you know, like he did Si Hunt. He was so good in Si Hunt playing this.
[77:40]
Interviewer
You think that's him?
[77:41]
Jeff Bridges
You think that's him? And he got hype casting, hypecasting, and he got those kinds of parts over and over. And so I thought when I started my acting career, I said, I'm gonna really go about trying to shake up my characters and not duplicate.
[77:58]
Interviewer
Because you didn't want to just do one thing.
[77:59]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, yeah. And that served. That served me well.
[78:03]
Interviewer
That's great.
[78:03]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah.
[78:09]
Narrator/Announcer
There's a long tradition of reading sacred text slowly, allowing each word to settle, echo, and reveal meaning over time. Rather than rushing to conclusions, this practice invites reflection, listening, and attention. For centuries, this repetition has been used to stay close to wisdom, not by studying words as information, but but by receiving them as something lived and experienced over and over again. This tradition is known as lectio divina. Emerging in early monastic life, it engages scripture through four gentle reading, reflection, repetition, and rest. A short passage is read, a single phrase is held. Silence becomes part of the practice, creating space for insight to surface naturally. Lectio 365 brings that ancient rhythm into the present moment. Designed for modern life, it offers brief, guided scriptural reflections throughout the day. To begin with intention, pause at midday, and wind down at night. The readings are less about information gathering and more for returning to wisdom again and again, letting familiar words meet new moments. A modern way to keep biblical wisdom close, quietly present, steady, and alive within everyday life. Lectio 365 is a free resource. Find inspiration there now and always. Learn more at lectio365.com.
[80:24]
Interviewer
So tell me about your relationship to music from your earliest memory of Music.
[80:30]
Jeff Bridges
So Bo, he's eight years older than I am. Coming out of his bedroom was Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, the Platters, you know, all the bird groups. I mean, that's what I was hearing. The Everly Brothers, I'm thinking. And that was probably the first record that I real was, you know, Wake Up Little Susie, Wake. God, they were so great, weren't they? Incredible harmony and the guitar sound like Claudette, that guitar God, so good. And then he had a Dan Electro, a white dan electro that I kind of adopted and started to write tunes on. And then in high school, I was never in a band, but I had these friends that were in bands and were all good musicians. And the senior year of high school, my friend Steve Bain, the drummer, started to have these jams over at his house. No songs allowed, but singing was encouraged and writing on the spot was encouraged.
[81:36]
Interviewer
So all improv.
[81:37]
Jeff Bridges
It was a jam, all improv. And he recorded every session. And that's the only music he listened to. And we did that for maybe 20 years. Meeting over his house with these jam sessions and they were, you know, parties and they would turn, you know, there. Each one had its own flavor, but he recorded everything. You know, talking to my. About my dad and acting and sometimes I thought, I'm not sure if I wanted to do this acting thing. Maybe the music thing, you know, that kind of thing. And I then I thought, oh, you know, as I started, the acting started to take over. I said, oh, well, maybe I can combine the two. Wouldn't it be wonderful to play a musician and to play music? Yeah, that would be great. And I'd think about it. And sure enough, the universe supplied this script by this young guy, Scott Cooper, first time director, first time screenwriter, called Crazy Hard. And I read the script. It was good. I said, oh, that's good. But there's no music in it. If there's music is like it's about
[82:46]
Interviewer
a musician, but it's. There's no music.
[82:48]
Jeff Bridges
And I said, oh. I said, well, that, you know. So I turned it down. And he would keep coming at me. Years. I'm talking two or three years. Bob Duvall was his champion. So I'm walking down the street one day and I bump into my old buddy T Bone, who's walking down the street. He says, what do you think about this script? Crazy Heart. I say, well, there's no music to it, man. And he says, oh, that's the easy part. Don't worry about that. I say, easy part? What are you talking. He said, oh, yeah, we can figure that out. And then he made a beautiful direction. He said, you know, it's like, you know, you're one of the outlaws, you know, like what, Johnny Cash, Willie and Chris and Waylon, you know, but you don't have to copy those guys. We're making a movie about an ulterior universe. Isn't that a beautiful thought? You know, it's like, it's not this planet. It's like, looks like here, but it's somewhere else. I said, oh, that's interesting. And then my heart started to beat. I said, oh, shit, this could actually happen. And then I got in touch with the safety dreams have. And when you bring your dream into real life, you can fail dreams. You can't fail. It's dream. I said, how can I? Can I pull this off? I was panicky, but the universe dealt me cards. I say, here's my dear friend who's gonna, you know, who's so talented. He says, it's easy. How can I turn this down? And you say, yeah, but you're afraid. Yeah, but what else is there to do? How can I live with myself? And so I went in with that spirit and I got my dear friend John Goodwin, who is. We go back to the fourth grade, making music and painting and doing all kinds of art together. And I said, can I bring John on? And people said, yeah, sure, you know. So he came on, he ended up writing A Hold on you, which was the opening song for that movie. And then T Bone brought Steven Bruton. Did you ever meet Steven or know about him at all, who was T Bone's best friend? They go back as teenagers and Stephen was my guide through the whole thing. Every day he went to. To work with us the whole time. T Bone wasn't on the set so much, but Stephen was there teaching me, you know, more advanced guitar. What it was like being a traveling musician. You know that opening scene where I pull into the bowling lane to play a gig? Stephen said, now when I'm traveling around like this, I don't pull off to the side of the road to piss. I carry a sparkless bottle. I just pee in the sparkless bottle. So why don't you do that? And then, you know, so he was. Kept the authenticity. He was our touch base. Yeah, we rewrite scenes, all kinds of things to get it.
[85:59]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[86:00]
Jeff Bridges
Real as possible. You know, it's interesting that there are many different kinds of directors, but two major schools are hot directors and cool directors. Both are very effective. Scott is a hot director in that he's very passionate and excited and enthusiastic. Great, man. Oh, you know, you nailed it, man. You want one more? You want to do it again? Okay, let's see what you can do.
[86:28]
Sponsor Voice
Come on.
[86:28]
Jeff Bridges
Come on. You know, it's like that example of the cooler directors would be the Coen brothers, which is no big deal, you know. Oh, yeah, that was. You made me laugh. Yeah, that's good. Okay, now we go over here and do, you know, no big deal, which is another powerful statement, you know, Takes
[86:48]
Interviewer
all the pressure off.
[86:49]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, this is no big deal. And both of them are very, very effective. So Crazy Heart was great. And it was one of those examples where you have high expectations going in and then they get transcendent. Scott just did such an incredible job putting that film together. Yeah. And Bobby Duvall, you know, being that young guy's champion, you know. Yeah, that's so important. You know, you think about, you know, people say, what do executive producers really do? You know, what are they? And there's all different kinds, you know, but to have a. A. A real producer behind you, creating the space and the support, you know, Mark Rosenberg, who championed Steve Clovis in the Fabulous Baker Boys. Steve wrote that script, I think, when he was 24, 25, you know, it's a very, very good script. A lot of the major directors at the time wanted to direct that, and Mark Rosenberg said, no, this is the kids, you know, and he was there just doing that, you know. And I said to Steve, I said, you know, let's. Let's jam a bit so you can get your directing chops, and I'll get my acting chop. So we met at my house for about a month, where we would meet with my brother Bo, who's, you know, playing my brother, which was so, you know, God, what a dream. You know, if it was another actor, you'd figure out, how do we create this illusion? Yeah, no, that's the handle, man. You didn't have to do any of that, you know, so. To jam with my brother. Oh, God, what a. What a blessing it was. And so much fun. So we'd meet over at my house, and Steve would get to, you know, direct us, you know, and he would come up with different improvs. And I remember one improv that was said, oh, this guy, he's good. He said, okay, here's the deal. Here's our improv, Jeff. It's four, three o' clock in the morning. You've climbed out of your bedroom window. You've gone to see Bill Evans, who's playing at this club. I'll play Bill Evans. I'll come out of the bathroom here. I'll just shot up in the bathroom. I'm going to come to the bar and I'm going to bum a cigarette off you. And Bo, when I put my hand through my hair like this, you're the big brother. You're going to come and get Jeff out. And we did that improv for long, you know, 15, 20 minutes. And Steve was so good, you know, committing to what the assignment was, you know, I said, oh, he gets the whole thing. You know, what this advanced pretend is all about. And he did such a great job, man. And Michelle, you know, I was disappointed that my favorite song of Michelle's, which was more than, you know, do you know that song? It wasn't on the soundtrack album. I don't know why, but she sang her ass off in that movie, so. Great. So just finishing the music saga, you know. Okay. So then after Crazy Heart, I was fired up on the music thing, and I called up T. Bond. I said, hey, man, I got some tunes. You want to go in and make an album? You know? He said, sure, man. Come on, you know. So we went into an. Into a studio in the Village there, and we made an album with a lot of John Goodwin's songs. Some of my songs had a great time. And then a few years later, I got a call from Squarespace website design company, and they wanted me to do a commercial for Super Bowl. And they didn't want to hide Jeff Bridges for Squarespace. They wanted me to come up with a bizarre product with the idea that no product was too weird to not make a website out. And they gave me a list of things, and one of the things on that list was sleeping tapes. Said, what are sleeping tapes? You know, this tapes. That's such an archaic word. And they said, we don't know. It can be whatever you want. Whatever I want? Yeah.
[91:22]
Narrator/Announcer
Huh.
[91:23]
Jeff Bridges
And then also, we're going to make this product, we're going to release it, and all the proceeds can go to share our strength in your no Kid Hungry campaign, which is something I've been very involved with for, you know, 30 years. So that was the clincher. I said, okay, I'm in. How do we do? He says, however you want to. You know, it's like, yo. So. So I said, okay, I'm gonna go into a studio with Keith and we're just gonna jam, see what happens. So we go in there for a week, I think. I don't know. It was More than a week. And we just start to come up with ideas. And we have no idea what this album. But I figure sleep, that implies being awake, that implies dreams. So it's very broad subject. And during that time, Kiefus says, why don't you bring all of your, you know, any other old songs that we might work with. So Kivas and I did this album called Sleeping Tapes. It went to number two in the ambient music charts. Raised a quarter of a million bucks.
[92:34]
Interviewer
Love it.
[92:36]
Jeff Bridges
And it was just so wonderful. Then Kiefus and I would go into the studio from time to time and just jam and do things.
[92:44]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[92:45]
Jeff Bridges
And then during the COVID thing, I thought, God, I've got all of these half done songs, songs that aren't polished. I'm 76 years old, man. I don't know if I got the poop to go into a studio and polish all these things up. I'm just gonna put these things out now. This is what I got.
[93:05]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[93:06]
Jeff Bridges
And I'm gonna put a visual thing to them. So I, you know, shot stuff on my iPhone and looked at the Internet and just built that. And I started to release these. I called it Emergent Behavior. These volumes. I think I made five volumes with about, you know, three or four songs on each. Moi. I enjoyed the shit out of that.
[93:31]
Interviewer
You know, it's so much fun to make stuff and share it.
[93:34]
Jeff Bridges
It's the best feeling, you know, and rather than be tight about it. And then also after Crazy Heart, I've always tried to have a little. Some kind of. Little studio wherever I. Wherever house I'm in. So when I moved up to Santa Barbara, you know, 35 years ago, whatever, I wanted to build a studio and I looked around for a guy who could help me with that. And this guy, Chris Paulonis, you know, he's an acoustician, you know, Bill's studios and stuff. And I broke out my tunes and we played a little bit and he said, oh, this is good. You got some good tunes here, man. Do you know Michael McDonnell? I said, are you kidding me? Sure. He says, well, I'm friends with Michael. I'd like to play him some of your songs. So Michael listens to him, starts to dig these songs, and the next thing I know, we're in the studio making an album and I've got a band called the Abiders, you know, based on. And we start to tour the music dream, you know, the Beatle music dream is being realized at, you know, 65 years old or something. You know, play the Lebowski fest. You know, have my Beetle moment. You know, you get an imagine. Ah, you can look. Play into a sea of dudes, man. Come on.
[94:51]
Interviewer
So funny.
[94:52]
Jeff Bridges
You know, it was really wild.
[94:54]
Interviewer
You said something earlier about dreams are safe.
[94:57]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah.
[94:58]
Interviewer
It makes me question, do you tend towards projects that are not dream projects? Because whatever happens is okay, whereas the dream projects are too dangerous to try because they could fail.
[95:15]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, but they're the. That's got the most juice, man. It's wild. I just bowed out of a movie that I went quite far down in development of it, and I just said, God, I don't have the. The acting juice to do it, man. I'm having other desires are being built into me that I want to do.
[95:37]
Listener/Interviewer
Yeah.
[95:38]
Interviewer
You're listening to what's going on in.
[95:39]
Jeff Bridges
You started to listen to that. And it's so different than my Persona or how I'm conceived, not only from the outside, but how I conceive myself. But it was like. It made me think of, you know, Richard Dreyfuss with what is the. What's the movie where he's building the big.
[95:58]
Listener/Interviewer
Close.
[95:58]
Interviewer
Close Encounters.
[95:59]
Jeff Bridges
Encounters. And he's building that thing. I don't know why. You know, it kind of has me like that.
[96:04]
Interviewer
You're driven towards something and I don't
[96:06]
Jeff Bridges
know what it is. And so I'm following that and I'm getting off.
[96:11]
Interviewer
That's great.
[96:11]
Jeff Bridges
I mean, it's wild.
[96:14]
Interviewer
In acting, when you're playing against another character, does the other character's performance influence what you do?
[96:23]
Jeff Bridges
Of course. Yeah. Big time.
[96:24]
Interviewer
Is it like a dance?
[96:26]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. That's a very good way to put it. I'll give you an example. Just popped into my head. Every once in a while you'll get a real guy on the set. Either a guy who has actually lived the story you're telling or a person who knows what that story is about. Yeah. So I made this movie called White Squall with Ridley Scott. And it was about this wonderful floating university that this guy had in this ship, you know, a sailing ship, where he would take a bunch of students out and.
[97:03]
Interviewer
Sounds amazing.
[97:04]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah. You saw. Did you see this? No.
[97:05]
Interviewer
The idea is amazing. True story.
[97:08]
Jeff Bridges
True story. Amazing story. And in the middle of this, a white squall happened. And I got to talk to the. The real guy, who was. Who I was playing the skipper of the ship. And he said, it's not like the movies. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, it wasn't a storm. It wasn't like that. I said, well, what was it like? He says, it was a calm. And it was like God's hand came down took the main mask and just put it underwater. You know what I mean? You know, like, bunch of kids died, his wife died. You know, it was a terrible tragedy. He went around and spent time with each of the families after the incident but no one connected with each other after that. They didn't want to relive that terrible incident. So they just avoided each other for many, many years. 25, 30 years. I can't remember exactly what. Now we're making the movie and in the end of our movie, there's a courtroom drama kind of. Because it's like, you know they're going to take my license away kind of thing. But in real life, that didn't happen there. It was in international waters. There was no threat of that. But we're shooting this scene and we had two real guys who were on that ship. One of them was actually at the helm. The ship wasn't moving, but he was, you know, had real duty there. We're doing the courtroom scene and this fella, he comes up to me when we're shooting the courtroom scene weeping. And he says, jeff, I got something terrible to ask you. I say, what? He says, I want to do something. I said, what do you want to do? I want to hug myself. You want to hug yourself? What do you mean?
[99:02]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[99:03]
Jeff Bridges
He says, I'm playing my father and my father always blamed me for the ship going down. He says, no wonder the ship went down. You were at the wheel. He says, can I hug myself? I said, well, go ask Ridley, you know. Yes. Ridley said, sure.
[99:20]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[99:22]
Jeff Bridges
So you're acting the effect of not someone you're playing with but just in the space, in the vibe, in the room to have that going on. Reality, the reality of that. Another one comes to mind. A movie called Fearless. Peter Weir directed. This story was loosely based on, I think it was an Iowa plane crashing in the cornfield. And Ridley invited a couple who actually went through. The guy was on the plane and his wife was down, you know. And Ridley invited them to talk to us about it. They came and they talked and it was as if it happened yesterday. It was so fresh and there might have been 10 years before. And they were up there for 45 minutes knowing they were going to crash. You know, can you imagine? And he said, you would think there was panic. He says, not at all. He said, love just was in that fuselage. Everybody was together. We're in this. We're a one here.
[100:31]
Interviewer
That's wild.
[100:32]
Jeff Bridges
He says, I looked across the aisle and there was a woman, an old woman there who was frightened. And I think this is what the guy said. He said, I looked over at her, I said that that woman, that could be my mother, you know. And then he said, no, that is my mother held her hand. Wow.
[100:52]
Interviewer
Beautiful.
[100:52]
Jeff Bridges
They crashed. And you'd think everybody panicking. No panic. It was all just everyone working as one body. What they had to do to get out of there alive. Isn't that wild? Yeah, Love that. Love having its way with us. God, you know, we all affect each other. And then. And then with that actor you're working with. Wow. Of course.
[101:18]
Interviewer
You ever. So in a scene that you forget, it's a movie.
[101:26]
Jeff Bridges
I'm thinking of a shot. This is dinner. It's a movie about the race cars and playing a guy named Junior Jackson, who's based on Junior Johnson, who's a famous stock car racer. We're doing this scene on the racetrack and we rehearsed it, you know, going, you know, five miles an hour. And sped up. We're finally going about 90 miles an hour or something like that, just under 100. And the scene was me in the back of the pack. I work my way up through the pack and I get up to the lead guy and I actually get, you know, metal to metal with him. And I come and go ahead like that. And we rehearsed it for a long time, you know, weeks. And towards the end of the rehearsal period, I realized that there's going to be a camera right in my. Right there, right in my line of side of life. So I've got to not only do this thing, but I got to act like there's not a camera there, that I'm not going, you know, looking. Trying to look around something. Off we go. Action. Going again. Dice through the thing. Now I'm up against the car like this, and I get off the gas just a little bit. And the thing goes crazy, you know, and the 360. After 360, you know, all these cars are going. Coming up behind it, you know, just crazy. All the wives are coming down, you know, giant crash. The director comes up to me at the end of the. You okay? Yeah. Can we do just one more? We're losing. We're losing the light. Can you. Are you. Can you do another one? I said, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, do it again. And now I'm wanting to see what that close up looked like, you know, because that was. That was a moment when I was totally like you say, I wasn't acting. I was just there, you know, beyond there. I didn't know where the fuck I was. And, you know, if you were to act that, you know, you would go, oh, you know what you would. I don't know what you would do. But here's what I did was just, you know, crash. Just nothing, Everything, just. Just my eyes going like this in the background.
[103:46]
Interviewer
Wow, that's wild. So you got to experience a lot of things through making movies.
[103:53]
Jeff Bridges
Oh, God, all the time. Oh, it's so wild. And these books, these photographs, I can relive those times, each one by just.
[104:02]
Interviewer
Have you had to learn any particular things like sword fighting or horseback riding or anything like that?
[104:08]
Jeff Bridges
Yeah, I had fighting camp. I learned how to cock fight, how to speak Yugoslavia, how to roller skate, how to ride horses, how to shoot? Yeah, all of those things. Fight, you know, but this is all it gets back to, you know, I keep thinking of being a kid. You know, this is great stuff. Like it to play. Technogram. Technogram.
[104:52]
Narrator/Announcer
Tetragrammaton is a podcast.
[104:54]
Jeff Bridges
Tetragrammaton is a website.
[104:57]
Narrator/Announcer
Tetragrammaton is a whole world of knowledge.
[105:07]
Listener/Interviewer
What may fall within the sphere of Tetragrammaton Counterculture, Tetragrammation Sacred geometry. Tetragrammaton the avant garde. Tetragrammatum Generative art Tetragrammatin the Tarot Tetragrammatin out of print music. Tetragrammatin Biodynamics Tetragrammatin Graphic design Tetragrammatin Mythology and magic. Tetragrammatin Obscure film. Tetragrammatin beach culture Tetragrammatin Esoteric lectures. Tetragrammatin off the grid living Tetragrammatin Alt spirituality Tetragrammatin the canon of fine objects. Tetragrammatin Muscle cars. Tetragrammatin Ancient wisdom for a new age. Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. Take a breath and see where you are drawn.