Jeff Bridges Interview, The Amateurs

MoviesOnline caught up with Jeff Bridges at the Los Angeles press day to talk about his new film, "The Amateurs,” a comedy written and directed by Michael Traeger, in which citizens of a small town, under the influence of a man in the midst of a mid-life crisis (Bridges), come together to make an adult film. The film also stars Ted Danson and Joe Pantoliano.

Down-and-out divorcee Andy Sargentee (Bridges), with the help of his friends, brainstorms a genius idea to make their dreams come true. They are going to rally their small town to produce an amateur adult film! They think they've found the road to fame and fortune, but their fantasy quickly turns into a hilarious misadventure as they encounter more than a few bumps in the road. Their good natured attempts lead to the creation of the most un-adult, adult film ever.

One of Hollywood’s most successful actors and a four-time Academy Award nominee, Bridges earned his first Oscar nod in 1971 for Best Supporting Actor in Peter Bogdanovich’s "The Last Picture Show." Three years later he received his second Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in Michael Cimino’s "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot." In 1984, he was honored with a Best Actor nomination for John Carpenter’s "Starman" for a performance that also garnered him a Golden Globe nomination.  His performance in Martin Bell’s "American Heart" earned him an IFP/Spirit Award for Best Actor in 1993. In 2001, he received another Golden Globe nod and his fourth Oscar nomination for his role in "The Contender," Rod Lurie’s political thriller.

Bridges’ multi-faceted career has encompassed all genres with directors as varied as Ridley Scott ("White Squall"), Walter Hill ("Wild Bill"), John Huston ("Fat City"), Peter Weir ("Fearless"), Terry Gilliam ("The Fisher King," "Tideland”), Barbara Streisand ("The Mirror Has Two Faces"), the Coen brothers ("The Big Lebowski"), and Gary Ross ("Seabiscuit"). Bridges’ role in "Fearless" is recognized by many critics to be one of his best performances, and the film is widely considered one of the most underrated films of the 1990s. His performance as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski in the cult classic "The Big Lebowski" (1998) is ranked #90 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006). He has co-starred with his brother Beau Bridges in the multi-award-nominated "The Fabulous Baker Boys" and with his late father Lloyd Bridges in "Blown Away."

Bridges is also a first rate character actor in films like "The Vanishing" as a psychopathic college professor, "The Contender" as a standoffish U.S. president, and "The Muse" as a carefree screenwriter buddy of Albert Brooks. Recently, he starred in "Stick It” and provided the voice of The Geek in the animated film "Surf’s Up.” In 2008, he’ll be seen in Robert Weide’s comedy "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” starring opposite Simon Pegg and he’ll play Obadiah Stane in Jon Favreau’s  highly anticipated "Iron Man.”

In addition to being an exceptional actor who brings experience and a very finely honed sense of craft to the film, Bridges is also a talented guitarist and photographer. Between takes, while on the set of his movies, he is known for shooting behind-the-scenes still photographs of the actors, crew and locations. Afterwards, he edits the images into a photo book documenting the production which he gives to everyone involved once the film is completed. His photos have been featured in several magazines, including Premiere and Aperture, as well as in other publications worldwide. His work has also been exhibited in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, and London.

Jeff Bridges is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Dressed casually and still growing his hair out after shaving it for his role in the upcoming "Iron Man,” he shared with us his latest photo book for "The Amateurs.” On the cover, the original title, "The Moguls,” has been crossed out and the new title, "The Amateurs” scrawled over it. Here’s what Jeff had to tell us:

MoviesOnline: The hair has grown back.

Jeff Bridges: It’s growing, it’s growing.

MoviesOnline: Looks good.

Jeff Bridges: Thank you.

MoviesOnline: The movie title changed from "The Moguls” to "The Amateurs.”

Jeff: Well call it amateuristic, you know?

MoviesOnline: Is it because it gave the end of the movie away? Why the change?

Jeff: Some people thought it was a ski film.  No, I don’t know.  The Moguls, I don’t know. There was another film that was called The Moguls or something and they didn’t want to…

MoviesOnline: Was it the Lou Watson documentary The Last Mogul?

Jeff: I’m not sure what it was but for some reason they decided to change it to this title. So I had printed up these books already and I had to cross them all out.

MoviesOnline: What was the attraction for you to this role?

Jeff: Well, like most of the movies I get involved with, I resist it for as long as possible.  I really try to figure out why I shouldn’t do it and this one had…there were plenty of reasons not to do it.  The reason that attracted me to it in the first place is that it was so unusual.  I hadn’t ever read a script like this and it was tempting to put these—you know the porn aspect and then this heartfelt kind of sweetness of Frank Capra -- put those two things together and I thought that was really interesting—very ambitious, but I didn’t know if this guy who had never directed a film—Mike Traeger who wrote the script  -- would be able to pull it off. And also it seemed odd, you know, I had done movies in the past that have so many characters and I find as an audience it’s very hard to follow all these stories and you end up not caring about any of the people and I thought that would be the case in this one.  And they had these big speeches for each character.  I said God, you’re going to have to cut that down in order to edit the movie.  My representatives kept saying "No, you really ought to check it out.  You know you liked kind of the freshness of it.  Come on try it out.”  I said "Oh God.”  I read it 3 or 4 times and finally I said, "Alright.  I want you guys to organize a reading and I want you to be there to see how terrible this is and it’s not going to work at all.”  So we sat at a big table like this and read the script and it just flew.  It was great.  Then that kind of swept me up and I figured well maybe Mike can hit this very small target because it could have gone…it could have not worked and I think it works very well.

MoviesOnline: When the release started to get delayed, did any of that old skepticism start coming back?  Like ooh, maybe something did go wrong?

Jeff: No, I didn’t really get into all the ins and outs of why it didn’t get released.  It was kind of very convoluted and I’m sure there are a lot of sides to all the stories but it wasn’t because of the nature of the film or anything like that.  I think it was more business type stuff. 

MoviesOnline: What is it about your character which you hope will reach out to people?

Jeff: One of the themes that kind of runs through things is about how important friendship is and I think one of the cool things about this movie is that Mike Traeger and the producer Aaron Ryder are best friends.  So that initial relationship and friendship kind of permeated the whole shooting of it, so I hope that people come away appreciating their own friendships.

MoviesOnline: It’s such a great cast. How much did you have to do with the casting?

Jeff: Isn’t it a wonderful cast?  I really spent a lot of time with them casting the film and I was encouraged to give all my input and everything and the guys listened to me and that was the case for all of us.  It was a very inclusive feeling for the whole project.  You know Mike was always interested in what everyone kind of thought and probably the coolest surprise casting-wise was that Mary Steenburgen came in to read for a part and she said it’s a wonderful script and I like the part and all that but the real reason I am here is to agent my husband Ted Danson because he must play Moose.  That was out of the blue.  We had no idea—we had never considered him and we said really?  Well, he’s a great actor, we’ll try him out and he just, of course, knocked it out of the park.  He was wonderful.  But the cast—it was just so fortunate that we got such a great cast and as you can see from this book that you guys got, we assembled before we started shooting at my parent’s beach house, to kind of establish that deep old friendship that we’d all have and it was a lot of fun and it kind of worked too, I think.

MoviesOnline: When you did the read-through, did a lot of the dialogue change or was there a lot of ad libbing throughout this movie?

Jeff: No it’s kind of like, you know, other good movies where you feel that the dialogue could be improvised but very little was. The Big Lebowski was like that where people say that sounds so…and we’d always go back and get every ‘man’ and every ellipsis in there the way those guys write it and because not only is it saying what Michael wants the character to say but the way they all speak creates this tone because it’s not exactly real.  You know you have that Frank Capra kind of aside to it and the characters are really well drawn, so I think everybody tried their best to stay faithful to the script.

MoviesOnline: Where did you film this?

Jeff: In a little town called Fillmore outside of L.A.  They shoot a lot of movies there.

MoviesOnline: Oh, you shot in California?

Jeff: Yeah. 

MoviesOnline: How much are you like your character, Andy?

Jeff: Well, I love to get ideas like that.  I’m kind of an idea guy. I have a small group of dear friends that go back to high school.  One of my oldest friends, John Goodwin, we go back to the 4th grade together probably.  He wrote quite a few songs in the movie.  I don’t know if I go through those deep depressions like that.  Not lately anyway.

[Laughter]

MoviesOnline: You’ve taken a lot of photos on a lot of your movie sets.  Did you take any on "Tron” and did you ever put out a photo book from "Tron”?

Jeff: I started doing these books around… I think "Starman” was kind of the first.  I think "Tron” was after "Starman”.  I’m trying to think.  I didn’t do a book for "Tron” but a few years ago I made a compilation of these books that I made for different films and I put a few photographs I did take in "Tron” are in that book.  I hear they’re going to make a sequel too.

MoviesOnline: There’s always rumors about that.

Jeff: I know it.  I’m always curious as to what they’re going to say.  I haven’t heard about but I heard they’re going to pitch me one pretty soon so...

[Laughter]

MoviesOnline: They showed it as part of a double bill at the New Beverly a little while ago and it holds up kind of well.

Jeff: Oh yeah?  Gosh.  And we were so excited when that came out with the technology and everything and then in about 2 seconds almost every commercial on the TV you could see all that stuff for free.

MoviesOnline: Is that a film that you think you’d have to come up with some reasons why not to do a sequel to it?

Jeff: Why not to do it?  I don’t know—you know the dance belt—wearing a dance belt.  I know you ladies wear thongs.  Guys, a dance belt is kind of like our version of the thong and it’s a terrible thing, man.  You can’t sit down.  And then I’ve got tights on and I don’t know, there are a lot of reasons not to do it.  But the reasons to do it and the reason I did that one was because it was so innovative and I understand they’ve got a whole new batch of stuff like that that they want—you know innovations that they want to use on that, so that could be kind of fun.

MoviesOnline: Can you talk about "Iron Man” at all?

Jeff: What would you like to know about it?  Well, it’s based on a comic book.  [Laughter]  What drew me to that was the cast that they had and the director—Jon Favreau’s directing it, and I’ve admired his acting and his writing and his directing for a while so they were very fortunate to have him at the helm and Robert Downey, Jr. is Iron Man and he’s wonderful to work with and he’s very talented. Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow—great cast and I got to shave my head which is a big plus, and I looked through the comic book and I said, "Oh, the guy’s bald.”  It was a big plus.

MoviesOnline: Was it scary to do?

Jeff: What’s that?

MoviesOnline: To shave your head?

Jeff: Kind of scary but kind of cool.  I enjoyed it.  I really liked it. 

MoviesOnline: In the trailer they show you looking at the armor very menacingly. 

Jeff: For about half a second.

MoviesOnline: Have you seen the trailer?

Jeff: Yeah, I think if that’s when you’re talking about.

MoviesOnline: Have you seen any of the footage?  Has Jon shown you anything?

Jeff: No. I’m going to see it in a couple of weeks I think but just from the trailer one of the things I liked about the trailer is you get a taste of the tone of the thing which I think is really good.  I enjoyed that and that’s Jon Favreau and Robert who really are the ones responsible for setting that tone.  I think its going to be good that way.

MoviesOnline: What’s more challenging for you—to do a small movie like this or a big budget summer movie like "Iron Man”?

Jeff: Each one is sort of the same and different.  You know part of the challenge is making it seem real and creating the world that you’re in and making interesting choices.  That kind of goes across on all the movies.  With each movie it’s almost like you’re sitting down and playing a different game of cards with a bunch of different people and you don’t know what kind of cards you’re going to get or what the game is going to be.  Each one is very different.  Generally speaking, I would say I enjoy the smaller films more because there’s less sense of pressure and often the material is more unusual.  But in "Iron Man” it was kind of like both worlds colliding because there was a lot of improvisation, not that we improv-ed in the scenes, but to discover the actual scenes themselves, we did a lot of improvisation together.  And so in a way it had almost a student kind of film side you know where you get him sitting there with you know Robert Downey and Jon Favreau and we’re playing around.  We’re jamming around and we’re writing those pages and the next couple of days that’s what we do, so it was a good experience. Kind of frightening at first because you didn’t know quite how it was all going to work out, but they had some very talented people there so it worked out well—I’m hoping, I haven’t seen it yet.

MoviesOnline: Are you doing a book for it because that would be interesting?

Jeff: Yeah, I wasn’t in "Iron Man” enough to really—I felt it wouldn’t really have shown the whole scope of making the movie.  I took some photographs.  I wasn’t that knocked out by them actually.

MoviesOnline: Are you in any betting pools about how long the writers’ strike will last?

Jeff: I’m not. What do you guys think?

MoviesOnline: I keep hearing at least as early as March.

Jeff: Then they’ve got the actors’ strike.

MoviesOnline: Do you expect this might set a precedent for what kind of deal the actors will get or will it prevent the actors from striking?

Jeff: Yeah, I mean they’re all connected. I think that’s one of the points of the studios you know why this writers’ strike they’re trying to figure out kind of an unknown.  They don’t know what the internet is all about so they’re kind of reticent to set the writers’ deal is because they know they’re going to have to double that with the actors and then the directors, so they’re kind of frightened on both sides and the writers don’t want to give up this great thing but nobody knows what this thing is exactly, so it’s—I don’t know how it’s going to go down.

MoviesOnline: Have you filmed anything since "Iron Man”?

Jeff: After "Iron Man” I did a movie with Simon Pegg.  Yeah, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.”  And that was a fun one and I got to go to England for that and work with my friend Bob Weide.  It was his first directorial job.  One of the things that he’s done that I like very much is "Curb Your Enthusiasm.”  He’s one of the producers and directors of that.

MoviesOnline: Are you getting ready to film anything right now?

Jeff: A couple of things but they’re in the works here.  They’re not locked in yet, so I can’t really let those cats out.

MoviesOnline: You play the boss in the movie?

Jeff: Yeah.

MoviesOnline: Could you talk a little bit about your character in the film and your relationship with Simon in the film?

Jeff: Yeah.  I play—let’s start with Simon.  Simon plays the editor of a magazine that’s very cutting edge and doesn’t pull any punches kind of thing.  Very small magazine and I play the editor-in-chief of a magazine that’s big like "Esquire” or "Vanity Fair”.  It’s based on a book (by Toby Young) and in that, I play—all of a sudden my brain is failing me but "Vanity Fair” you know…

MoviesOnline: Graydon Carter?

Jeff: Graydon Carter, right.  I’m not impersonating Graydon Carter or anything like that but that’s the kind of guy that I am in the story and I want to bring Simon on board to add a little more cutting edge.  In my character’s past, I too had a small magazine like Simon that was a no holds barred kind of thing.

MoviesOnline: The book by Toby Young was a memoir.  Is this more of a fictionalized account of it?

Jeff: Yeah. 

MoviesOnline: Inspired by?

Jeff: Yeah, right.

MoviesOnline: Was there a lot of improv and how was it working with Simon?

Jeff: There wasn’t any improv.  Simon was great.  A lovely guy and wonderful to work with.  There really wasn’t much improv.  There might have been an occasional idea that pops up now and then but I don’t remember doing a lot of improv there.

MoviesOnline: Jeff, for this film Andy has to review a lot of tape in the name of research.  Did that require you to watch take after take of porn?

Jeff: You know, I’ve done all my research already before I came to the movie.  It was well researched. [Laughter]

MoviesOnline: You’ve played this part is what you’re saying?

Jeff: There you go. There you go. [Laughter]

MoviesOnline: Jeff, the holidays are coming up.  Do you have any family Christmas or Thanksgiving traditions you’re looking forward to celebrating again?

Jeff: Well, Thanksgiving we’ll all gather at my house.  A big thanksgiving dinner and who’s got Christmas this year?  I think we usually do it at Beau’s house, so we’ll probably do that.  My mom’s still feisty and kicking.  She’s 92.  I saw her last night.  I don’t know if any of you guys knew that she published a book—her first book at 90.  It’s a wonderful, wonderful book called "You Caught Me Kissing” and it’s basically love poems that she wrote for my dad but it’s more than that. It’s a wonderful book.

MoviesOnline: What’s your favorite memory of those Bridge’s family Christmases?

Jeff: Well, the bike. Getting that bike. That was a cool thing.  Did you ever get a bike?

MoviesOnline: I don’t think for Christmas but I certainly had bikes.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, but getting that bike for Christmas I remember that was a big one for me.

MoviesOnline: How old were you and what kind of bike?

Jeff: I don’t how old…I want to say 8 somehow pops in my…but my brother Beau you know, he’s 8 years older than I am so he had the really cool bike and my bike was kind of like a smaller version—like the gooseneck with the butterfly things and you can put the cards on the things. [makes sound of cards flapping against the bicycle wheels]

MoviesOnline: Do you have plans for releasing any more albums in the future?

Jeff: I hope so.  Yeah, I’d like to.  Music is still very close to my heart.  Like I was saying, my buddy John Goodwin wrote some tunes in this and I’m writing with him all the time.  The last album I made had a lot of his songs.  So music is still a big part of my life and I hope I do that.

MoviesOnline: Are you and Beau looking at doing any projects together in the near future?

Jeff: We always look for…for a while Beau was going to be in this.  It was going to be wonderful to work with him again but then it didn’t work out.  He had some other obligations that he had to do and he couldn’t do it but we’re always looking for something to do.  It’s hard to find something that kind of transcends the gimmick of a brother thing.  You know with "The Fabulous Baker Boys” that script was so great and that was one that just fit us like a glove so to come up to find something as good as that.  Somebody was saying they were talking to Michelle Pfeiffer and she was saying there was going to be a sequel.  I thought, "Oh, that’s good.” [Laughter]

MoviesOnline: You have all these opportunities for sequels.

Jeff: Yeah!  I didn’t know about it.  It’s great.

MoviesOnline: What part was Beau going to play in this?

Jeff: They were going to switch it and make Tim Blake Nelson’s character my brother. 

MoviesOnline: Did you do any music on this?

Jeff: No, but as I say my buddy did and also my daughter.  Jessie’s got a tune in it too.  She’s going to be doing some good music I’m hoping.  I’m rooting for her.

MoviesOnline: Ted mentioned that he had been friends with you and your family for quite some time.  Do you remember meeting him for the first time?

Jeff: Gosh, I had the feeling of knowing him for a long time but I can’t remember that first time, but it’s always great. It’s great to see him today.

"The Amateurs” opens in theaters on December 7th.