JEFF BRIDGES

Bridges explains, “The different parts I play, start with yourself and see what kind of lines up with the character. You might magnify those aspects of yourself that work with the character, or keep those parts of you that don’t match to the curve. With [Hell or High Water] a couple of things come to mind. One, my grandfather, Fred Simpson, on my mom’s side, was from Liverpool. He was a terrible teaser. I think my brother [the actor Beau Bridges] inherited that gene, too, because Beau was a great teaser, still is. And that was part of my character. I remember when my brother would tease me and get me crying, and my mother would say, ‘It’s just because he loves you so much,’ you know? That helped me with the stuff I had with Gil Birmingham [his co-star in the film, who plays] my partner who I enjoy working with so much.”

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Bridges has made a career out of playing cowboy-like characters despite his Los Angeles roots. He gives credit to his father, actor Lloyd Bridges, for getting him interested in westerns. He explains:

Well, the first thing that pops into my mind when it comes to playing cowboys is my father, Lloyd Bridges. When I was a little kid I loved to dress up like a cowboy—put on the boots, hat, and walk around. He was in a lot of westerns and my Dad loved to ride. We’ve had a ranch for almost 40 years now in Montana, so I’m around a lot of western guys. And also another thing is my stand-in, Loyd Catlett, we’ve done close to 70 movies together and we met onThe Last Picture Show back in 1970. Since we’ve been working together, we’ve become friends all these years, and he’s from Texas and was hired not only as an actor on that film but also to teach us California kids what it’s like to be a kid from Texas. I owe a lot to him when I do my western characters, especially.

But for me, as I guy who loves to go to movies, I find a movie like ours orStarred Up, that was made for a couple hundred thousand bucks, or Once, which was made for nothing, as far as being entertained, those surpassed many superhero movies that I’ve seen. So I think the fact that we do have these big, multimillion dollar films—there’s a backlash to it, and you also have very inexpensive movies that are pushing the envelope in a different direction. I just saw a movie called Tangerine, a whole movie shot on iPhones. The state of Hollywood is in an interesting place.

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