Interview: Jeff Bridges saddles up for new take on Western hero

At 62, Jeff Bridges is suddenly the hottest property in Hollywood.

He’s just resurrected a character he last played 20 years ago. He yearns for the third act in a hoped-for trilogy that began four long decades ago. And he has been gleefully reunited with directors Joel and Ethan Coen 13 years after creating the memorably indolent Dude in The Big Lebowski.

Of course there’s the small matter of the Oscar, awarded last year for his over-the-hill country singer in Crazy Heart. Winning an Academy Award is often said to be a passport to the best roles in the business, but Bridges claims not to be fending off hordes of script-waving producers.

Instead he’s done the unthinkable by donning mighty John Wayne’s cowboy boots in the Coens’ new version of True Grit.

Wayne was 62 in 1970 when he carried off the Academy Award as best actor for the original True Grit. Now Bridges is nominated at the same age for the same character but in a very different film. Just like The Duke, he’s wearing an eye-patch and toting a six-gun. That’s where the comparisons finish.

“One of the first things that the Coen Brothers told me was that they weren’t doing a remake of the movie True Grit,” says Bridges.

“They were making a movie of the book by Charles Portis with no reference to the original. That was a relief to me because I didn’t want to jump into the Duke’s boots. So, y’know, I could do it fresh.”

It had to be that way. True Grit is not a classic in the mould of Casablanca, which handed Humphrey Bogart the persona he would play on film for the rest of his life. Instead True Grit and Rooster Cogburn were tailored to fit Wayne.

The Coens steered away from that. Wayne made Rooster in his own image: an ornery drunk with a mean temper. Bridges, via the Coens, took him far away from the traditional gun-slinging Western hero of yesteryear.

“One of the things I enjoy – and this was in the book – is that most Western characters in movies, like Rooster, are the strong, silent type –like Clint, y’know?” says Bridges.

“But this guy is the antithesis of that: verbose and boorish and yack-yack-yack about his life and stories.

“He had this captive audience with this young girl and he could talk!”

The girl to whom he refers is teenager Mattie Ross, the feisty daughter of a murdered rancher who hires the irascible saddle-tramp to hunt down the killer and then joins him in his quest.

Mattie is the core of True Grit and the wrong casting would have fundamentally undermined the movie. Bridges was understandably nervous.

“I was very concerned about that going in,” admits Bridges with disarming frankness.

“The whole story is told from her point of view. They wanted someone who didn’t have that much experience, a fresh presence in that role. I was concerned right up to the day when we had our first, big scene.

“But the first day we did, when she comes in to wake me up, I was thrilled and relieved that we had somebody on board who could carry the whole picture. She did such a wonderful job. “

Bridges is referring to newcomer Hailee Steinfeld. Still only 14-years-old, she is Oscar-nominated alongside Melissa Leo, Jackie Weaver, Amy Adams and Helena Bonham Carter as Best Supporting Actress.

Casting her was a masterstroke and, in a male-dominated movie with an ensemble that also includes Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper alongside Bridges, Steinfeld not only holds her own, she leaps off the screen.

It’s too simplistic to claim that Bridges, the father of daughters aged 29, 27 and 25, felt a paternal responsibility to Steinfeld on set. Nevertheless, theirs was a relationship that extended beyond work.

“Some actors only want you to call them by their character’s name and don’t want too much engagement except on the screen,” reveals Bridges.

“I like to get to know the other actors. You can bring some of that intimacy to the screen. I think there are some parental elements in this movie – some themes that underline the story. The Coens were really smart about not talking about that stuff too much.

“It was very hard for me to not fall into that father relationship with Hailee. But she really appreciates being 14. She’s not one of those people chomping to be 35.”

Our conversation took place before it was revealed that Bridges had received his second consecutive Oscar nomination as Best Actor. Up against Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Javier Bardem (Biutiful), James Franco (127 Hours) and current runaway favourite Colin Firth for the much lauded The King’s Speech, I suspect he’s unlikely to win again this year.

However, I doubt he’ll care. He’s got other irons in the fire. The re-boot of Tron (for which he did re-shoots just a week after completing True Grit) brought him to a new youth audience and the laurels that he carried off for Crazy Heart led to him making an album with producer T-Bone Burnett.

He appears to have no regrets about life and movies. He does, however, harbour ambitions. One of them goes back to his beginnings in the film industry and his breakthrough role as a young kid in a run-down Texas town.

“One thing I’d love to do is continue the saga of The Last Picture Show. Larry McMurtry, one of our greatest writers in America, wrote several books exploring the same characters. We made Texasville, the next in the sequence, 20 years after we made The Last Picture Show [in 1971].

“Now it’s been 20 years since Texasville. I think it’s about time to pick up some of the other books.”

FROM THE DUDE TO THE DUKE

• Jeff Bridges was born on December 1949 in Los Angels to actors Dorothy Simpson and Lloyd Bridges.

• His first major role was the 1971 movie The Last Picture Show, which earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination at that year’s Oscars.

• As well as acting, Bridges is also a keen photographer, cartoonist and singer.

• He is married to Susan Geston who was working as a maid when they met on the set of Rancho Deluxe in 1977 and the couple have three daughters.

• Bridges has been known to meditate for half an hour before beginning filming and has previously described himself as a “Buddhistly bent kind of guy.”