Caffeinated Clint
“Starman”. “The Fisher King”. “The Last Picture Show Man”. “The Fabulous Baker Boys”. “Fearless”. “The Big Lebowski”. “The Contender”. “Iron Man”. Surely there’s no room on Jeff Bridges’ CV for another cinematic masterpiece? Well, someone better make some – because “Crazy Heart” is about as good as it gets. But as Ashley Hillard discovers, the veteran actor doesn’t set out to make masterpieces, or to only do films that have half-a-shot at being successful, he just follows the good stories.
What did it take to get you to sing in this film?
When I first got the script, there wasn’t any music attached to it, so I took a passer on it. And then, when I found out from my good buddy, T-Bone Burnett, that he was going to do it if I was going to do it, then that filled in that empty, missing piece. So, when he got involved, I knew the music was going to be top notch, and that got me to the party really quick.
Is the life of an actor just as hard as the life of a musician on the road?
Yeah. My wife told me that we’ve been apart 11 months this year. That’s tough. That’s the hardest part, for me. But, we’ve been married for 33 years and we’ve done this a lot together, so we know the routine and how much we depend on each other. It’s great to have a partner like that. But, there is a similarity to acting and singing.
One of the things that’s appealing about country music, in general, is that it’s dealing with human emotions that people can relate to. We can all relate to not only the fear of failure, but the fear of success and what we do to ourselves when we get successful. Once you get to the top of the mountain, there’s only one place to go. You roll down. So, how do you deal with that? A lot of us deal with it by numbing ourselves. That’s our strategy. We slow ourselves down. So, I can relate to that, just as a human being. Just being alive, you struggle with that.
What was it like to work and sing with Colin Farrell?
He was great to work with. With movies, you only have a certain time to pull it all together. For this one, we just had 24 days to do it, so you’re really looking for comrades that can get the fire going, as quickly as possible. I think Colin worked maybe four or five days, but we hit it off, right off the bat. We approach the work in a similar way and got along great. It was a joy working with him.
I’ve admired him. The first time I saw him was in Tigerland, and I’ve been keeping up with his career. I loved In Bruges. I thought that was a great movie. And then, singing together is a great way to strike up a relationship with your fellow actors, when you harmonize. That all fell into place really well.
In this film, your character, Bad Blake, is a mentor to Colin Farrell’s character, Tommy Sweet. Who have you been a mentor to, and who have been your mentors?
Well, my dad was my mentor. Unlike a lot of actors, he really encouraged all of his kids to go into show business. He loved it so much. I remember, when I was a little kid, he came up to me and said, “Hey, you wanna be in Sea Hunt? There’s a little part.” That was a TV series my dad had in the ‘60s. And, I said, “I don’t know.” And, he said, “Well, you get to get out of school. You can make some money and busy some toys.” So, I said, “Okay.” And then, I remember him sitting me on his bed and giving me the basics of acting and teaching me how to do it. And, of course, my brother is my mentor. He took up where my dad left off. We worked on scenes to get my agent.
And then, I remember a big turning point in my career was doing a movie version of The Iceman Cometh, and I got to work with all these masters, like Robert Ryan, Fredric March and Lee Marvin. Most of my scenes were with Robert Ryan and I learned a lot from working with him, about fear and insecurity. I remember doing a scene with him, across the table in a bar, and we were waiting for the scene. He took his hands off the table and there were two big puddles of sweat on the table and I said, “Bob, gee, after all these years, you’re still frightened, nervous and scared?” And, he said, “Oh, yeah. I’d be really scared if I wasn’t scared.” That let me know that fear is always going to be with you. It’s how you deal with that. It’s hopeless to think you’re going to get rid of that.
What was it like to play Kevin Flynn again for ”Tron Legacy”, since the last time you played that character was 1982?
Wow, it was great. Getting back with my old buddy, Steven Lisberger, and Bruce Boxleitner. I guess the same thing appealed to me about the sequel that appealed to me about the original, which was this idea that there’s a kid aspect to what I do, pretending and all that stuff. I used to love to pretend when I was a kid, and here’s a movie where I get to play a guy who gets sucked inside a computer and gets to use all the modern technology that’s available today.
The same goes with the sequel, except that all the technology that we’re using in that makes the old one look like an old black and white TV show or something. Gosh, it’s amazing what they’ve got going on this. I can’t wait to see it all pasted together.
That teaser you shot was wonderful. When you actually shot the movie, how much had changed from that whole concept?
That teaser was something they do kind of often with movies, and I think it’s a good idea. The Cohen brothers told me they did it when making Blood Simple. Before they even shoot the movie at all, they shoot the trailer of the movie, as if it was already made, and then they use that to entice the financiers.
So, even though it was a Disney property, Disney wanted them to shoot this pretty expensive trailer. I don’t know how much it cost, but it was pretty expensive. And, all that technology that we were going to use in the movie itself is used in the trailer. It wasn’t as highly polished as the movie is going to be, but it gives you a little peak into what you might find.
Was it hard to step back into that role, after so many years?
It was challenging, in that I got a little taste of this new technology of acting in the volume and making movies without cameras. That was hard.
