Jeff Bridges
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Hi. Today's guest, kind of unimaginable years ago that we would have gotten this gentleman. He's an elusive creature too, right? Ooh, so elusive. Don't you think he has a lot of mystical qualities surrounding him? He does. He almost has like a Bill Murray-esque quality.

And is it because he played the dude? I don't think so. I think he just has it. Yeah. I don't think it's dude specific. Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges is an Academy Award winning actor. The Big Lebowski, Tron, True Grit, Crazy Heart, Against All Odds, and season two, new episode streaming Thursday on Hulu FX, The Old Man. It's back.

It's back, baby. I love watching him beat ass at his age. I know. It's so cool. We learn a lot about like his health stuff. I didn't know a lot about that. He's had a harrowing journey over the last couple of years that I hadn't known about either. What a blessing Jeff Bridges is to this world. Please enjoy Jeff Bridges.

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Suck in the vibe for a second. Yeah, man. It's a real clubhouse. I know. I'm digging it. Can we do it without these? Absolutely. You do whatever you want. I think I saw you in something recently. I tried Googling it and couldn't find it. But you played like a drug addict.

I don't know if I've played a drug addict. Well, in life, he played a drug addict. Yeah, I played a drug addict for a couple decades. They were filming all that. Oh, my God. I would not be here. Cell phones have been a thing. It's amazing what we've survived. I mean, you look back. I know. I don't know how a young actor makes it through their teens.

What do you think? Do you think this generation in their 20s learned a bit, didn't want to do what their parents did? That would be a hopeful outcome, but can you just step over all the craziness? They're evolved a little bit differently.

Are they? I think so. I guess that's the question. I don't know. Are they just better at keeping secrets? Is there an even bigger wall up now? Well, that's what I did when I was growing up. I kept secrets. Of course, my parents were so much more naive. What kind of naughty? You were dualistic? Remember the first drug that I experimented with? I think it was called a rainbow or something. It was some kind of heavy diet pill. So an upper pill?

upper and maybe 16 years old at about three o'clock in the morning and I was chewing gum and I was feeling tremendous love for my parents. Of course. I've got to go in there and let them know. And so I go in there and I'm chewing this gum and it's turning to powder in my mouth and I'm just telling them how much I love them, which is absolutely true. But they had no idea. They were just grateful.

Yeah. You know, I have two daughters. You have three? Yes. They're nine and 11. And yet those days are approaching where there'll be some inexplicable outbursts of love. You will be suspicious. I'm kind of of the opinion they're going to do what they're going to do, as I did. And if ever there's a problem, I'm 20 years in recovery. They know who to ask.

There you go. I was blessed with incredible folks. It was wonderful being their kid. And I'm just thinking as we're talking about those times, I think about this heartbreak that I caused my mother. My mom, she used to have something called time, and she'd do that with each of her kids.

And that was an hour a day where she would do whatever the kid wanted. Hey, let's play spaceman. You're the astronaut. I'm going to make you up like a clown. It was just whatever I wanted to do. And then we continued that for the rest of her life in different ways. But I'm thinking of this heartbreak when I was about 14, where I looked her in the eye and said, don't you get it? I just don't dig you anymore. Oh! Oh! Oh!

And using the 60s vernacular of dick. Exactly. Oh, that's so sad. Oh, man. And that broke her heart. Did you apologize? I grieved that, yeah, over the years. But I could tell you several mom stories that would make you smile. But, you know, you're pointing out kind of one of the sweetest parts of us as humans is you're 74. Yeah.

And I guarantee the feeling of saying to mom, I don't dig this anymore. Still hurts. Don't dig you. Yeah. It wasn't the time. It was all of the stuff that she wanted me to do. For instance, learn how to play the piano. I said, nah, bitch, bitch. She said, all right, you're going to be so sorry. And now here I am saying, should have listened to my mom.

Yeah, but don't you think it's sweet that you're still carrying? That weirdly makes me hopeful about people. I, too, carry around my little bag of things. If I hurt someone, it's still on top of mind. Yeah. Do you mind if I tell one? Please. Popped into my head. Tell a hundred. We'd do this time thing. She wouldn't take any calls. You know, she'd say, no, I'm having my time with Jeff. You know, I could have friends in the time, whatever. So I'd call her up. You know, I'm in my 40s. I'd say, I need some time, Mom. I don't know.

Pick you up and go out for dinner. Do you know the Palomino Club in Westwood? I have a wonderful dinner, and now we're going to pick up the car. And my mom is like in her 90s, and she's hobbling along towards the car. And she looks at me and she says...

be mean to me. And I look at her, what do you mean? And she looks at the car guy. She says, be mean to me. We're from a showbiz family. I know exactly what she has in mind. And we get to get our car. And I say, get in the fucking car, bitch. Oh my God. And she looks at me and says, oh, you're so mean. I said, get in the car. I don't want any flags.

And the guy is our audience. He's looking, what is going on? But she would constantly just love to do pranks. How fun. This is something you also did with Beau, though. He got a flatbed truck and you guys would stage fights in front of places. Yeah, our dad taught us stage fighting. And one of the tough things for an actor is

Where's my audience? So Bo had this brilliant idea to get a flatbed truck, get some scenes together. I was trying to get an agent at the time, and Bo was my teacher. And you got to practice. And he says, we're going to get a flatbed truck. We're going to pull into a supermarket. We're going to do a fake fight until people start to surround us.

And then we'll leap up saying, no, it's our show. And we'd jump up on the back of the flatbed truck and we would do our scenes until the cops would come and we'd made the mistake of trying to do an improv and include them in the thing. They didn't dig that. We said, no, we're going. And we'd go to the next supermarket and we'd play at the supermarket circuit. Yeah, it sounds like something in the 30s. Performance art.

Yeah. How old were you when that was happening? 17. Okay. So Bo is like 25. Yeah, Bo's eight years older. You have a sister as well, right? Yeah, Cindy. So if mom is giving an hour a day to each kid, that's significant. That's three hours a day. Oh, yeah, but she was digging it. No sense of this is a duty or anything like that. Was she just so playful at heart? Or it may be both. Was she also thinking...

Well, I'm going to teach him how to play. I'm going to teach him how this thing works. Acting. Acting.

I think so. You know, my parents met at UCLA. You read about me, pointed at me. Yes, I did, on the way over here. I directed your brother once. Come on! Yes, yes. In what? In a movie called Hit and Run with my wife and I, a car chase movie. Oh, great! And he was kind enough to come be a part of a million-dollar car chase movie. Well, I'm so glad that you got to hit a bow. He's such a wonderful cat, man. He is. I'll never forget. This is the kind of thing I respect in somebody. Well, both of you guys seem really comfortable in your own skin.

He travels with his own chair he sits in. Well, I do, too. He turned me on. The little Puma green chair, man. It's like a zero-gravity chair. Wherever we'd be, we were in shitty locations. We were out in the fields and stuff. And Bo would just be kind of reclined, zero-gravity. I want what you're making me hoarding, man. I want one right now. Not as you say it, I'm adjusting it.

I know, I'm getting anxious. You're acutely aware of gravity right now. Yeah, exactly. We'd have these fancy couches in our TV room, and in front of the couch, we'd have two LaFuma chairs. We got to get one of those. Well, you know, you've experienced. He offered, too, very generously. It's a real move to go like, yeah, I'm going to plop this chair down wherever I'm at and sit in it. Right?

It draws attention, you know? It's really true. It sets a vibe. And I was just like, there's so much happening with this chair. I don't want to be so rude to ask, but I'm dying to take a ride in that. Okay. Anyways, back to mom and dad. So they met at UCLA. They met at UCLA. Gosh, you have trouble with your memory, you know, names and stuff. I'm asking my brain and mind to recall some names from my parents' memories.

who their teachers were listen i'm gonna call on this for you i'm gonna be an outside voice yeah which is i know and we're gonna get to it you had one of the worst cases of covet anyone's ever had but here's the problem with your story you're incredible with names

As you're asking, Kim, was your memory fucked up too? And then you go on to rattle off. I just mentioned it because my mind just flipped me the finger when I asked for something. But here's what I'm going to suggest to you. You had an abnormally great mind for names and stuff. Okay, well, thank you. I like that perspective. Even when you're like out promoting the...

the old man, you're remembering all three names of the producers you sat down with initially. Oh, thank you, Matt. Thanks for the acknowledgement. When you talk about the stunts that you did, you know the stuntman's name, the choreographer's name. You're meticulous about this. Here's the name that I'm forgetting. I'm going to jumble all this up. Bo wrote a play with his daughter, Emily, called Acting, the First Six Lessons. Have you ever read that book? No. This is the first book that we were turned on to from my dad. Not the Stanislaus.

Right around that time when my dad was learning acting, I'm trying to think of the main teacher, and I can't think of his name, but it was the Actors Lab here in L.A. And the approach was love and how important it is to support the other players. And that's how they rode with us acting-wise. We've kind of followed my dad's

He taught me all the basics, but the main thing was that joy hit. Here we are. Will you say that you observed your dad had an enthusiasm and a joy for working that was hugely infectious? It was play, like my mother had. And they met at UCLA, and my dad was the head of the drama department there. Had he moved here from somewhere? From Petaluma. Petaluma.

Oh, okay. So still California. And what about mom? Pasadena. Oh, wow. So you're multiple generation. That's rare. I never thought of it that way, but yeah. Well, there's four of us in this room and only one of us is from California. And that feels pretty normal in California. Right.

And so you grew up in Homby Hills? Homby Hills. That was after my dad scored with Sea Hunt. Yeah, baby. Back in the 60s. We got a big hit, bought a new big fancy house. How close were you to the Playboy Mansion? And as a kid, would you traipse over there and try to peek in? As a young adult, I'd spend some time there.

And it was a five-minute drive. Yeah. So you grew up right in the shadow of UCLA. Well, you know, Shearing Cross, right up by Sunset there, and Loring. Okay, yes. I went to a grammar school there at Warner, you know, Warner Avenue. Yes. That grammar school. And what was childhood like with two parents that were acting? Dad was pretty busy. A lot of showbiz.

parents. They want to protect their kids from the humiliation that you can go through, you know, rejection. But they weren't like that at all. They just loved every aspect of it. This kind of thing, what we're doing now, of course, the actual work, playing with all the different people, all the great artists coming together to do something, who knows what. Don't you think

find it a little peculiar that actors tend to not want their kids? It's like you dedicated your life to this. Why is all of a sudden this is bad for them? Well, because it can be so painful, man. It can break your heart in so many ways. Yeah, it can. But that's life too. You can also tell them not to fall in love. My feeling exactly. Life is just a series of those

Things, right? Those challenges. Yeah, so mom brings you along to set when you're six months old. I've told this story a lot, but as you say that, it pops into my mind. Please tell me. Jane Greer made a movie called Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum.

And I made a remake of that called Against All Odds. Which we're going to spend way too much time on Against All Odds, just to let you know. Okay, well, this is a good precursor for it. Maybe we can trickle into that. So my first scene in a movie was with Jane Greer in a movie called The Company She Keeps. And I think it was John Cromwell, who was a friend of my parents'.

I think he was the guy who was directing. Anyway, they were visiting him. They needed a baby in this scene. And for some reason, the baby they had didn't work or something. And my mom said, oh, take Jeff. Gave me over to Jane. And I was a happy kid. And Jane said, you're supposed to be upset in the scene. And my mom said, oh, just pinch him. So she pinched me. And of course I cry, you know.

And now we cut 35 years later, and I'm doing it against all odds, and Jane Greer is playing her character in the original, her mother. Oh, my Lord. And we have a scene together, you know, and I can't help but say, Gene, I'm having some problems. God.

Can I have a little pinch? I was going to say your first time on set, you had to do the hardest thing, which is cry on cue. Yeah, but I was inspired by the muse in the form of James Greer pinching me. And then dad would put you in bow. Oh, in She-Hunt? Yeah, there's a little kid's

part. You come to work with dad, you get to get out of school. And you were also, and I think this is relevant, and I imagine too from your vantage point, it's weird how they come together at some point. But you're also, you're very interested in music. You're like not sure what order maybe you should attempt this stuff in. Yeah.

What kid wants to do what their parents want them to do? So it was interesting. Yeah, when you got to rebel against parents. Yeah, yeah, like that. You know, I just don't dig you anymore. No more time, mom. But getting back to the drug situation and how I finessed that, you show your parents what,

They want to see, and then you do your thing. That's how I brought it. Did you get into it that way? Terribly. Yeah, yeah. Because my mother adored me, and I like to do naughty stuff as well. Right. Couldn't resist. But you showed her how she saw you. Yeah, and I juggled those. We work it. I know. Did you feel guilt about it? I felt the tension of that.

Oh, yeah. How they look at you. To this day, I do wonder, and I'm very still close with my mother, but I think, man, when she does pass and those eyes aren't on me and in my mind, she's still the regulator. Did she ever show you her feet of clay? Oh, tell me that. Feet of clay. Well, yeah. I mean, that's always sad and wonderful when your parents who have been your role models for decency and ethics and so forth, when they drop the ball.

in such a devastating way, they can never be what they were ever again. And you hope they didn't catch you catching that? Is that the goal? I don't think I ever told them that to their face, saying that you will never be my role model. Well, you had a history of letting them have that. I didn't have to do that. No, but it was interesting. You say, oh, he's human like me. He makes terrible mistakes and he's trying to do his best.

And you see all these other aspects that you would never see. By the way, my mother is super open about her many, many failures. But just the way she looks at me, I want to give her. Right? Right. And what's so beautiful, she knows you're a fuck up. Yeah, she knows I'm naughty. Yeah, she knows that she is too. Everyone is naughty. That's one of the wonderful things about marriage, isn't it? To have another person representing the other living right there. And you can have all those feelings.

feelings. You're right. And maybe it's Freudian or not healthy or healthy, but yeah, you need another mom on the scene or you're probably going to explore the naughty till you're dead. Oh, my partner is remarkable. Susan. Susan. 47, how long? 47 years. Known each other 50 years. Oh my Lord.

So cool. It's one of the great long success stories. What is it? I'll go first. My wife's really hard to impress, and I'm an approval junkie. Interesting. I relate to that. Okay. So she has somehow dangled that carrot, lets me nip at it occasionally. She's not a fan.

She adores me, but she's had a great ability to make me keep working for her endless approval. And so I'm curious what kind of lady has kept you engaged for so long? The mystery is still there after 50 years about who exactly is this person. As we talk about her, she comes to my mind. It's really remarkable how she is fulfilled.

Filled my dreams, man. And I was like a love at first sight. I saw her. And it's grown. They really don't tell you. If you hang in, it can grow into incredible depths of intimacy and love. And certainly you go through those times where you're tested. And then you've got a choice. You can either move on. I'm getting a divorce. Or you can really use it as a takeoff.

Sit down and really give it up to each other. We do this thing sometimes when we hit that spot, that primal battle. The essence of it is you don't get it. You don't understand what it's like to be me dealing with you. And we'd sit close and look at each other's eyes. And one person gives you their perspective and the other guy just receives it. Don't try to take notes about your rebuttal. We do that regularly.

back and forth, and it seems to itch it a little bit. But the basic thing that comes out of it for me is

is that you're so right. I don't get it and you don't get it. We don't get it. And isn't that wonderful? And here we are. And what are we going to do? Then we have to love. Oh, interesting. We have to hold these opposites. We have to choose despite all that. Yeah. And then you make that choice and it grows and you learn from all those missteps. Yeah. And it's weirdly money in the bank, isn't it? It's like you go through that

And then the next time you're like, uh-huh, this is scary. I'm scared.

And also, I know we've done that. Yes, that's right. So, okay. I at least know this mission's accomplishable for some duration until we're here again. Yeah. When you were talking about the moment that your parents become people, what did you call it again? Feet of clay. Yeah, I love that. Did you have a moment as a father where you feel like that happened? I think so, but you have to ask my kids that question. Have they let me know? I think they have.

Well, I would imagine your illness for them, because I got to that point with my father. I resented my father a lot.

But when he was dying of cancer, at some point, he was clearly a little boy. Scared. And I was like, oh, that's right. This man, this thing I've built up in my head is just a little boy like me. And here he is in this hospital bed. How mad can I be at this person? There you go. Yeah. So I would imagine when you got really sick, you in particular, too, you're a force of nature. We all look up to our parents in this way. But then you have on top of it some pretty substantive things that would aid in that.

So maybe for you to have gotten sick that way might have been maybe mind-blowing for them. I think so. I mean, when I rethink that, the easier gig is being ill as opposed to what they go through. I was in surrender mode. They would say, you got to fight. I said, what are you talking about? This is me dying. People die, and this is me doing that. Sorry you don't like this. Yeah. Not that they were

pissed at me for taking that stance, but just not being able to do anything about it. I could kind of surrender. It was very hard for them to do that. But what was evident was how unique it was to each person, how they met that challenge and how they manifested it. You mean each of your three children and your wife? Yeah, exactly. What were the variations? I don't want to go out in school and mention who

who was who. Yeah, sure, sure. I'll just say, I'll give you, yeah, like you suggested. The archetypes. Yeah. Aren't you upset? I just got to take a break. Just those two poles. You got to do something. You know, my wife and I are like that. Very opposite. I'm a very...

I get these ideas and she will dampen. But it's a wonderful skill she has. She can dampen and inspire at the same time. And the inspiration is go do your thing. I understand supports it that way. But at the same time, adds a little reality. It involves her reality, which often it does. We're

working on a new house now with our youngest daughter and we all have opinions. After you do it for a while, you say, isn't that funny? These strong opinions for this house that didn't exist minutes ago. Yeah. Life or death.

So when you went to New York, which I guess is funny enough is an act of rebellion as well, which is like, well, I'm going to New York. That's the opposite place of L.A. Moving across the country. Did you not move to New York City? No. You never did. Oh, well, I moved with my parents. Oh.

Everyone moved. Yeah, my dad was doing a play there, Cactus Flower. So what age were you when you went there? Probably 16, maybe older. I misread that. I thought you on your own decided to go. And then I whipped up a whole story about why. It's so interesting. I know you were more interested in the why than correct me. Yeah, but with the story, I should have played with you and been telling the whole history.

Yeah, when you were 22 years old, you left in a two-door pickup truck with only $190 to your name. Yeah, exactly. Okay, how did you end up in the Coast Guard? Well, that was around Vietnam. Bo had been in the Coast Guard Reserve, so I thought that would be a good thing to do, and I was in the Coast Guard Reserve for years.

seven years. Being an actor, I would look at it like an acting gig almost. Yeah, pretending you're in the Coast Guard. Yeah, pretending. You know, we'd go out in 10 buoys out there. We'd go all the way up into Seattle. Actually, in the Coast Guard, I had some really remarkable experiences. Have you ever been to boot camp or any of that stuff? No. It's like 10 weeks of stripping you of your identity and replacing it with...

serial number, basically. Learning to work together, but it's very disciplinary. And remember, being there, getting off the bus in your civvies, a guy comes down and he says, what's your name, kid? Lewis. Why are you moving your head like that, Lewis? Keep your head still. Oh!

Sir, yes, sir. I said, keep your head still. In my row, right behind this kid who can't talk when I'm moving his head, some kid's laughing. The drill sergeant comes over to that guy and says, you're laughing? Continue to laugh, asshole, until I tell you to see. Do you understand me? And now we cut to us in our bunks, 3 o'clock in the morning here. Uh-huh.

LAUGHTER

So it was like, you know, performance art. Oh, my God, yes. But in the midst of this, on the first Sunday, we were told, all right, asshole, you have a choice. You can high port around the grinder or you can go to church. How many men want to go to church? Everyone wants to go to church. And this priest says, just want to let you know, when you're here, you're not in the Coast Guard. You're in the house of the Lord.

Oh, wow, what a relief. He'd let me play my guitar. He had groups of sailors there that would meet and have long discussions, spiritual, philosophic discussions. It was great. Then towards the end, when we had honor company, you get to go off. He said, I'm going to break the rules. I'm going to turn you on to someone. I said, okay.

And he gave me some civvies, and we went and saw the Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company. With a holy man? Yeah, with this guy, because he knew I was into music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was just in 67. It was just remarkable.

And then he ended up, maybe 10 years later, marrying me and Sue. Oh, no kidding. You stayed in touch with that person? Yeah, yeah. Wow. He's a wonderful guy, Don Harris. Before The Last Picture Show, you sold two songs to Quincy Jones? One. Okay. Well, maybe two. Maybe you know more than me. Well, you didn't move to New York on your own, but maybe you sold two songs. Even if you sold a song. This is a big brother thing.

Bo's story, he was working with, I think it was Norman Jewison, they were gaily gaily. Quincy was doing the music for it. They hung out a bit. And Quincy was doing a movie called John and Mary with Mia Farrow and Dustin Hoffman. Bo said, listen to some of my kid brother's tunes. Wow, what a mensch. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's my brother.

He's done that my entire life. Quincy heard this tune and dug it. And Quincy, what a guy, man. Yeah. Oh, my God. I took my then eight-year-old to the Hollywood Bowl to see the Philharmonic do a Quincy tribute show. And out of nowhere, I see them helping someone out on stage. And I'm like, who's coming out on stage? Quincy? Yeah.

Stevie. Oh, of course. Do you ever see that thing online of him doing a gig, comes out and introduces him and he plays on an electric piano and it doesn't work? No. Google it. It's a good little trip because they try to fix it and a lot of time is being wasted and it's on top of a standard acoustic piano.

Then he proceeds to write a whole song about broken piano. Something like, it just don't work. Off the cuff. And it's really good. That kind of creative spirit. Inspiring. Did you see this John Batiste documentary by chance? No. Same thing. He's got his first big something at Carnegie Hall.

Whatever you call it. Anyways, in the same thing where the power goes off for symphony and he's in front of a piano and it's getting more and more frustrating. And he just starts letting how he's feeling come out in this madness. And then it grows into this beautiful acceptance. And then the power comes back on.

And he looks at everyone and you're like, holy cow, they caught that on camera. And you can Google that? Well, it's on Netflix, the documentary. It's called American Symphony. It's a whole doc about him that's beautiful. And then that moment is caught. But same thing. It's just like he could walk off stage. He could surrender. And he just is like, I think I'm just going to let everyone hear how it feels in my body right now. To have that facility. Oh, my God. What would you give for that? Yeah, give it up.

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Okay, so now we're going to run through some of your movies in rapid succession because there's so damn many of them. But I guess just first is Last Picture Show, which is kind of a really huge role to land with what you had as a resume at that point. Absolutely. As a director, you must cast people, right? Yeah, I have. This is how I've related to it. I've had to cast people as well. And before you even say, oh, hi, you either say no or yes very quickly. Oh, the characters are...

Walking through the door, I think that's the feeling that Peter had when I walked in. He thought, oh, that's what I want. What a remarkable experience to have gone through and to be a part of that movie. It kind of just sits there by itself. There's nothing like it. Yeah, it's so unique. And you got nominated on your first big role. Mom and dad, were they just elated or were they warning you, like, careful? No, no, no.

Back in the day when there was no campaigning, I was this young kid, maybe 19, 20, waking up 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning with a phone call saying, you've been nominated. I said, what are you talking about? Yeah, that was not at all in your expectations. No, no, no.

That is really wild. That obviously opens up the door to all kinds of stuff. And the ride really begins there based on the success of that movie and your recognition in it. Immediately after that, you do Fat City. And I'm just curious because I know you also acted with them. But John Huston, and for people who don't understand what John Huston is and was, this is a man who wrote and directed 37 movies and was famous.

infamously just tough and nuts too, batshit crazy. And I want to know what was that experience at that age with that man? I was intimidated. I feel like you're holding in a great truth about him. No, I'm trying to conjure the feeling. You know, it triggers a lot of things. I worked with him twice, two very different experiences.

Fat City, he was quite ill. He got very familiar and happy-go-lucky with Stacy Keach. It was so wonderful. And with me, he liked to keep me on my heels. Sure, sure. He would tease me. I'd say, yeah, we're enlisted you in a real fight. We'll see how you do. You know, those kinds of things. Yeah, real masculine stuff. Yeah.

Would it be wrong to guess he probably had a crush on the actress and you were the good-looking young man? No, the actress was Candy Clark, who I fell in love with and we lived with each other for three years. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But John, his direction mainly was even more or even less beautiful.

I like those. That's about it, isn't it? It is. That's even refined it. What I heard I loved is someone told me some director would only say slower, faster, louder, quieter. Those are good. You interpret what that means as the actor, and I found that great. I like that even more, even less. But when I got to work with him as an actor in this movie called Winter Kill,

that Quentin Tarantino has really championed and has kind of re-released, directed by this guy Bill Richard, who is a fascinating filmmaker. He assembled this cast of John Huston, Elizabeth Taylor, Tashira Mifune,

Eli Wallach, Sterling Hayden. See, it's happening, the names. Yeah, you've said a lot of good names. I just let it go. It kind of came through me. Well, I tried. But when I got to Winter Kills, which was quite a bit after, he was feeling much better. It was this director's first movie. He assembled these cast. He was so charismatic. And John was like, how was it, Bill?

You have many ideas. It's all about the director. Would you like even more or even less? Exactly. There you go. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot comes in 74. You get nominated for that, and you really tried to talk yourself out of being in it.

Yeah, Michael Cimino. Clint Eastwood gave him the shot of directing his first film. He had written, I think, one of the Dirty Harry movies before that. He's going to let him write this script and direct it. God, it was great. Think about those times. You're riding a Harley up in Montana. Great place to have a motorcycle. Yes.

Clint, too, you're kind of going back to back with some real alphas. Oh, right. And how do you respond to that? You strike me as someone who's self-assured and noncompliant if you don't want to be and also not walking into a room super alpha. It's fascinating because with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Clint being the captain of the ship, really, he would like to do one or two, three takes at the very, very most. And I was the young punk kid. Right.

who would go up to Cimino and say, "I got an idea." And he would say, "Well, I have to talk to the boss." You know, and Clint would look at us and he goes, "All right." He'd always give me another shot. - Let him do another. - And it was great jamming with him. Now, doing "Heaven's Gate" with Mike, he would do like 60 takes.

completely different approach. That's an interesting one because Heaven's Gate, if you don't know the legend of it, it went way over budget. It was kind of panned. They took it from the theaters and they recut it and re-released it. And it's this kind of cautionary tale. But now...

There's a whole swell of people that actually love that movie. Oh, have you ever seen it? I haven't seen it. Oh, man. I only know the legend. When he came out, MTV was coming out. I mean, it's that fast cutting, that pace. And Heaven's Gate was much slower. And that was Cimino's thing. So if you get in with his rhythm, every time I see it, I end up enjoying it more because I just let it do me. And it's a wonderful story about our history.

Pulled off brilliantly. Oh, it's on many of the top 100 films list. Oh, really? Yes. I was just reading today. They got the right edit out in the world at some point. Cimino, he wanted to make the movie, which is hard enough. He didn't want the suits coming around and giving him notes and stuff. Yeah.

And he banned all those people and the press from visiting the set. And that created this animosity. So when it came out and he raced through the edit and we're looking at the premiere in New York, we're all in tuxedos and we're watching it.

And then comes the end of the movie, and there's that terrible popcorn sound, you know. And we say, are they stunned? Is it going to erupt? No, it does not erupt. It continues. And then we go to Toronto the next day, and we're at the airport. I'm riding with Mike. Get the paper, you know, on the way to the airport. If they shaved Jaminho's head, they would find three sixes.

You know, it's like, oh my God. He's the Antichrist. Yeah, yeah. And then you get some bad reviews like that, then people don't take the thing seriously. Yeah, I think much more than. You were really relying on that review in a much bigger way back then. Oh, yeah. I think it's a remarkable film. Of course, it brings all kinds of terrific memories back.

Meeting my old buddy T-Bone Burnett, Steven Bruton, and Ronnie Hawkins, and Christofferson. It was a great bunch of guys. That's what interests me most about that movie, selfishly. Christofferson. I'm a huge Highwayman fan. Waylon Jennings is my deity. Yeah.

The notion that you were around him and could hear his stories, I have to imagine there were many. Actually, not that many. He kind of stayed to himself. He really wanted to concentrate on the part. It was a lot of cocaine, booze. It was like at that time. Yeah, 80. And he didn't participate at all.

That's interesting. That shatters my country western fantasy. Well, he brought a lot of guys to the party. Probably T-Bone, David Mansfield, who did the score for it. There's infamous stories from that period where, like, yeah, the grip truck would have a couple ounces, the prop truck would have a couple ounces.

In that period, what was everyone just kind of treating it like? Oh, this is like Red Bull. There was a lot of time in between shots. You know, Cimino didn't let anybody go home. We'd have these things called Camp Cimino. You have to practice roller skating, practice cockfighting. Uh-huh.

You know, how to work with the guns. And we would do that. But we had quite a bit of downtime. We got in trouble. You were partaking in all the fun. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. I'm glad you didn't miss out on that. But how we survived that cocaine shit. Oh, yeah.

Did it get out of hand? Did it ever get away from you? In the form of just, ooh, I don't like this. You know, the sham quality. All these heightened feelings. Well, right. So we already touched on it. You take the diet pill as a kid, it makes you feel this explosion of love. That's the thing you end up chasing. But then if you overindulge in that, then everything's bullshit. Yeah. And the hangover. The guys who were really in danger of it were the guys that didn't have the hangover.

But that hangover turned me off. Yeah, the pros that were built to do it. Yeah, how about you? That was my job. You could take it then. That hangover didn't disturb you to the degree that it stopped you from getting high. It killed me, which is why I wouldn't let go. Once I started that, I went till the body collapsed.

And then did a full 18 hour reset and then went back at it. But trying to do it moderately is almost worse. To try to do it till three in the morning, then go to sleep and then work. Did you go through years of that? Yeah, mostly booze from the get.

And then Coke the last, like, maybe five years of the booze. Saved by the fact that I didn't have enough money to do it in a way that I wanted to. I had been a working actor during that time. And I had access. Who knows? So you were blessed with a bad hangover. And you have some sense of what's real and what's not. And you felt grody about how much.

Yeah. Loving everyone. Because you wake up the next day and you're like, I don't love that guy. That guy's a terrible guy I was saying I loved. Everyone's the worst side of themselves. Yeah, it's not a real feeling.

No. It's a make-believe feeling. There you go. You finally get hip to the authenticity of the whole thing. Yeah. Okay. I just only want to bring up Against All Odds because this is when you enter my life. This is coinciding perfectly with on TV being a thing. You could see movies at home. VHS was a thing we recorded Against All Odds. I watched that movie over and over and over and over again at nine years old. I loved it so much. The

The car chase scene between the 9-11 and the 308, I've rewritten that scene many times, different iterations. We did that right out here on Sunset Boulevard. You're cruising through Westwood at times, right? Oh, right by my house. Yeah. The street I grew up on.

We've got the street blocked off going east and the traffic is piled up on the other side. People go into the beach. We would get people hanging UIs and get in our shot. And we're going like 90 miles an hour. It's a great car chase. But it is a good car chase. You're in the 911. James Woods is in the 308. Did you get to do a lot of that driving? Yeah, quite a bit. It's kind of obvious.

Did you care at all about cars? A little bit. Not much. I wasn't a car guy. Bo was more of a car guy. He, you know, Frenched his headlights and pinstriping. And, you know, he had 57 Chevys. My favorite car was a DS21 Citroen. You know what that is? Yes. It's like driving your living room. Just so smooth. Huge air suspension. Yeah. Ooh, I love that kind of thing. Yeah, they let it all out when you'd park them. They would just sit low. Yeah.

Okay, the other one I have to say before the obvious one is 92 American Heart. I am walking through Blockbuster Video Store. I'm 17, and this VHS keeps just calling to me, and you're on the cover shirtless, and you are fucking ripped. I rented that movie just to look at your body. Oh!

100%. I'm like, I know this guy from all these movies. Look at this fucking body. What's happening here? How did you get in that shape? A trainer. That was after Against All Odds. Yeah, this is 92. Because Against All Odds was, I think, the place I met this trainer. Because you were playing a football player. Yeah, I got in love with the chin-ups. It feels good. Do you feel like you're actually strong when you can do pull-ups?

Yeah. So you do a bunch of those. And this trainer worked me and I was in the mindset of giving it up to him pushing me harder than I wanted to go. And so I got in shape for that. And then it kind of carried over to American Heart. That's peak Bridges body for me right there. Oh, yeah, I think it is. How did you not fall in love with that physique and get obsessed with maintaining it? Because I gotta be me.

I don't know. It's not in the cards for me to do that. Although I must say, I do enjoy being in shape. I'm in the process now. I've been ill at different reasons I couldn't do it. And I don't mean since my big illness. I've been in shape since then. But then you can't work out. You go in cycles, right? There you go. So I'm in a cycle now. And you just feel better. And that's eating. And you know what to do. It's just a matter of

doing it. Well, it's almost false advertising. It has the express goal of the physical body, but really it's how your brain feels while you're doing all those things. Yeah. Some of the other health things I'm into, are you into Wim Hof at all? The breathing technique? The breathing and the cold.

I cold plunge every day. Yeah, see, now that's a good high, right? Yes. Wow. You do it every day in the morning. I do it at night. At night? I sauna for 20 minutes. That's a good habit, man. I like it. We have some similar. I meditate as well and...

I think I believe in like some period of suffering multiple times a day so that I can feel happiness. There's something meditative about it because you have to get in a place mentally. It's so fascinating because we're kind of wired to not dig cold. It's death. And then just to give yourself that assignment. It's just a sensation. Just relax. Yeah. Fascinating. This is when I was learning a lot about you today. The thing I've connected to you on is I think we both have this

sense of, okay, now here we go. This is something new. Even when terrible shit's happened to me, I kind of have some perspective where I'm like, well, here we go. I'm going to remember this almost like observing it. Yeah. I really thought when I was hearing your experience with COVID, so you had found this mass nine inches by 12 inches. Yeah, like a child. How you would not know. In my stomach, nine by 12. It's scary. That's a plate. Yeah. Yeah.

And you just didn't know it for clearly a while. And then you start chemo for that. And then so your immune system is zero and you get COVID. And that's what really fucks you up. You're in the hospital for five weeks. But at least you're retelling of it, which is just be like, oh, wow, we're dying. I kind of want to observe this. I don't want to miss this. I'm not really going to try to fight it as much as I want to.

try to wring out as much of this I can be present for. And that popped in without any effort to do that. Like, oh, this is what I'm doing. There wasn't too much trying to it. It was just, oh, here it is. You had peace around it. And you have all these epiphanies. And then a dear friend of mine who's quite spiritually bent, been involved in these sort of practices, says, yes, and you were on drugs. Ha ha ha!

That's true. You have all these epiphanies, but it still doesn't take away the epiphany. Right. But being on these heavy medications might have had something to do with the laissez-faire attitude. Your take it or leave it approach to life. Exactly.

Exactly. You know, you have these moments on airplanes. There's turbulence. There's this or that. You just start pondering, am I going to die on this airplane? I did that movie, Fearless. Did you ever see that movie? Yeah, it's an incredible movie. With Peter Weir, great director. It was during the Iowa big plane crash in the cornfield. It was similar. And we had a guy who survived and his wife who was telling about that experience that happened about 10 years before we did it.

And in their telling, it was like it just happened yesterday. It was amazing what the guy had to say because they knew they were going down for 45 minutes. They knew they were going to crash. No panic at all.

This just wave of love and peace shot through the cabin. And the guy, as they were going down, he looked across the aisle and saw this old woman there, you know, and he said, she could be my mother. No, she is my mother. Just the closeness. As an actor, one of the things that's fascinating to me is how available intimacy is.

and closeness. I kind of feel that way what we're doing here. I'm opening to you, you're opening to me. You are practiced in doing that. I am too. And it's right there. It's quite easy. And so in this thing, the feeling of the oneness crashed and you would think panic. No, it was very polite. Everybody understood. Talk about feet of clay. We're imperfect. We're all doing the best we can. Let's get out of this plane. It's interesting that it's different than I thought. What you see in movies, screaming and...

People acting belligerent and selfish. Yeah, it's almost the most human moment is at the very end, I guess. Or when you think it's at the very end is when you can be the most...

human to one another. That's so true. That's one of the lessons or the gifts that I got when I was sick was a big dose of love, man. How much you love your family, your loved ones, and how much they love you. And that just exacerbates all those feelings and really is strong. That lingers. Well, you know what happens on that airplane too is

The guy sitting there, he's a lawyer. I'm a lawyer and I live in this house and I do this stuff and that's who I am. And then in that moment where everyone's going to die in 45 minutes, you're like, oh, I'm none of those things. I am a human being about to die on this plane with all these other human beings. I think it can snap you out of your quote identity in a hurry.

in a neat way. This quote pops into my mind. The truth is oneness. Everything else is facts. Isn't that a nice spin on it? It's a good wordplay. I remember I got into that when I was a fan of, what's the, not the Hubble telescope, but the next one, what is it called? The James Webb space? Yeah, the Webb telescope.

And they were taking photographs of these galaxies, not stars, that are seen in the darkest part of the universe. And I'm looking at that and I say, some of those galaxies are spinning clockwise and some are counterclockwise. What's going on there? So I Google that and it says very simply, it depends on where you are looking at it, your perspective.

Isn't that kind of interesting? But it's a fact. I'm looking at this photograph. That's going counterclockwise. That's going, it's a fact, but it ain't the truth.

Yeah, you're on the backside of one of them and the front side of another one or something. That is wild. Oh, my God. Well, that brings us perfectly to Lebowski, which no interview with you would be complete if we didn't talk about Lebowski. It's such a special movie. I know you've been in so many movies. And Lebowski, although worked for sure, it wasn't a failure by any stretch.

It certainly had this life that just kept inflating and inflating. Fascinating. Isn't that a fun experience? In so many ways, it inflated. You just bring that title up and my brain is firing, but I'll take one of these vlogs off the fire.

Bernie Glassman was a Zen master. He had this organization called the Zen Peacemakers. Oh, you guys did a book together. We did a book together. So I'm sitting at a dinner party and Bernie says, I'm a big fan of Lebowski. I'm all about bringing Buddhism into life.

modern times and you know it's full of koans one hand clapping you know these kind of questions that you've got to use your mind to figure out but you have to kind of surrender to it it's not a concrete answer that everybody would understand necessarily and i said what do you mean he says well like that's just your opinion man total koan or shut the fuck up donnie

The dude abides. That's very Buddhistic. So he says, hey, let's write a book. So we write a book out of it, The Dude and the Zen Master. Then he visited me on the set. We're doing True Grit in Paris.

Lebowski, we never talked about spiritual understories or anything. That popped out at the Lebowski festivals. I had my Beatle moment when my band, The Abiders, played the Lebowski festival. That's so great. The audience are all dressed up like the dude in bowling pins and moths.

That's so great. That was pretty fun. Isn't it interesting you can make something and tell an exact story that you're not even aware you're telling? How do you mean? Get into that. Like, I find that fascinating that the movie reflects this Buddhism parallel. Your performance does.

And you're doing it all unwittingly. Oh, yeah. It's sort of comforting, isn't it? I mean, kind of asking these questions these days. This guy Sapolsky. Yeah, we interviewed him. Robert Sapolsky. It's an illusion. There's no free will. There's something comforting about that.

When anything is so adamant, it seems for me to create its opposite. And it's kind of like this wave and particle thing. Both are going on at the same time. That's what surfaces in my belief about willpower. As an artist, there's nothing greater than that feeling of

where it's doing you and you're not doing it. That's the sweet spot, man. Yeah. And that, again, has to do with this surrender, in a sense. You know, take me. I have a knee jerk, for better or worse. The second it's definitive...

I'm out. My first impulse is like, probably not. Yeah, or not entirely. Maybe it's kind of like a hologram. It's one shard of the thing. It's almost like this is making you feel too safe. And that feels precarious to me. And that's a house of cards. Well, that's the object of the game is how do we feel comfortable in all this uncertainty? It's so wild.

What comes to mind is what the stranger said in Lebowski. Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar eats you. We all want to get on top of it. Yeah. And sometimes you're out there and sometimes you're not. I was wondering how you personally feel about it because you played that character so perfectly. People would be inclined to think there's some part of you that's very Lebowski-esque.

Now, Lebowski, what I love about it is it's a fantasy for me and my disposition, which is I aspire to be able to just drink some white Russians throughout the day, wear my robe, go bowling, stumble through life, not be too ambitious, ambitious.

And that seems so lovely. But me as a person, when I give myself to that for four days straight, I hate myself. I'm so uncomfortable. Where are you at on that spectrum? I relate to what you say. I think you used the term earlier,

Not seasons, but was an S word. What did you say? Cycling. Cycling. Or is this a C word? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it sounds like an S. It should be an S word. The I before E except after C. That drives me crazy, man. It's like it's a joke. It's insane and it's broken nonstop.

Anyway, what were we talking about? Get us back on track. Cycling. Yeah, tightness, looseness. I'm enjoying starting to get out and giving myself that discipline, getting in the cold. This is just a feeling. No sense to run away from this feeling for protection. This is it. Dig it. There's something wonderful about that. But then you build up the routine for so long. I start then fantasizing about like, oh, I'm going somewhere for a week. And there I'm going to do nothing. That's going to be great.

Great. I'm going to do nothing. I'm going to take off the shackles of this routine. And I like it for like 36 hours. You're addicted to the way you think you are, man. I am too. What I'm addicted to is going cycling, going back and forth. I'm trying to get nonjudgmental about the pattern. That's a good idea, man. Dig your pattern. Think the more you fight it, that becomes part of your pattern too. Yeah. Oh, God. My brother, who's also an addict, he called me one day and he goes...

you know what our real addiction is? And I said, what's that? And he said, quitting things. Or comfort. I feel I'm addicted to comfort. I love being comfortable. We want to get on top to understand, to not have it have effect over me. Control. It's all control. Control. And given up control, we're not wired that way to want to do that entirely either. It's just

funny thing man that's going on yeah i feel like i'm just zigzagging along the line i like that image yeah okay last thing before the old man is just i just wanted to single out one moment i'm sure it's been singled out a million times but my life is cars that's my main passion right so you start this movie you're in a suburban it's a very cool old chevy what show crazy heart

I'm crazy. How am I going to get there? Okay. You got your pee jug. I got there. That's infamous. That was your idea. That's great. I love that. Steven Bruton's idea. It's always great to have a real guy on the set. And he says, oh, yeah, when I go to these things, I take a thing and I just pee in it while I'm driving. I said, oh, good. And then I pour it out in the parking lot. Which I do all the time. I drive a huge bus around and I can't pull that fucker over all the time. Big 32-ounce Gatorade bottles. The way to go.

But the moment I can name the times I've been really inspired watching an actor. This is one of them. When you go around to the back of the suburban and before you initiate the window to come down, you know, you're going to have to help it. You start helping the window down of this car. And as someone who has collected a million old shitty cars, I'm like, this is the exact relationship you have with a car and you just know it. And

99.9999% of actors show up. You wouldn't even think, oh, I'm driving this. This is your thing. Somehow you got to that part where you help the window up and down. I like that. I like that as a metaphor for the whole thing. I don't remember seeing it, but I'm glad you got into that. I'm surprised being a car guy, we're not talking about Tucker. Loved Tucker. You saw that? Francis Ford Coppola. So inspirational. I can remember almost virtually that entire movie. All those cars.

He got helicopter motors. Like, he sourced his motors from a helicopter factory in the tracking headlights. I think safety belts, you know, all kinds of things.

And the big boys shut him down. Yeah. No, that was a great, great movie. Did you enjoy working with Coppola? Oh, yeah. We had two weeks rehearsal. First week was getting to know everybody. Second week, he gathered the troops and he said, okay, this week we're going to shoot the entire movie. Vittorio Storaro will be using this wheelchair here as a dolly. There's a wedding coming up. You costume people. Look at these drapes. They could be a good wedding dress. You actors...

Get your lines down as best you can. You need to carry the book, but you don't need to. We're going to do each scene once. Oh, my God. And Victoria will shoot it. And while we're doing it, it's like, you know, our gang comedy, The Little Rascals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, come on, let's make a movie. Totally into play mode. And we shot the whole thing from beginning to end. And I got to do it with my dad. He was in the thing. So that added a whole wonderful aspect to it.

We shot the whole movie in two days. And he was cooking, doing all these low-tech special effects and getting ideas and stuff. Then what we didn't know is to and from work, he was editing the whole thing. And at the end of that week, he gave us...

the video version of the movie. You shoot out a sequence. You could see where my character had been. It's just a wonderful idea. Do you still have that? Of course not. No. Oh, I don't know where that would be. I've got earthquakes, fires, floods. This is the dude side of you. Oh, man. Oh, no, you can't hang on to stuff, man. Oh, no, you're right.

Josh. I think we had every Tucker. We had about 27. Then they made a bunch of cardboard things after those. You're so Buddhist, you weren't tempted? If I were you, I would have had to have owned a Tucker after that movie. No. Citroën, man. Give me Citroën or nothing. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

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During congestion, customers on this plan may notice speeds lower than other customers and further reductions using greater than 1.2 terabytes per month due to data prioritization. After $20 bill credit plus $5 per month without autopay, debit or bank account required. Regulatory fees included for qualifying accounts. $35 connection charge applies. Okay, well, anyways, those are the ones I had to talk to you about. Now, the old man I watched the entire thing last season and loved it. You're so radical in it. It's so fun to see you in that role. I don't want to call it a trope.

But I love when an older man has to come and kick some ass again. We love this story. All those takings with Liam Neeson, we're like, that's right. There's something wishfulfilly about it. Like, I might still have it too. That's right. Yeah. What's crazy to me, I didn't know, so all this health stuff that we talked about, that happened four episodes in. Really?

While you go away for COVID, you discover this 9 by 12 inch mask. It's incredible. Did you save that? Save it? Oh, yeah. I put the hat on. Oh, God. I never thought of that. Tell the surgeon I've got a great freezer at home. I can be trusted with this.

But you guys are down for two years virtually. Yeah. That's wild to me. So amazing. And then, of course, you come back and it's like a long weekend because there's all the familiar faces and you're just an immediate reset. I would think that would be a trippy aspect of everything you had just gone through. Almost like, did that even happen? I have that still now. Still haven't figured it out entirely.

Yeah, we never got to the, we're talking about the passengers who had gone down. But my question to you was going to be when you're in that situation, by the way, your toenails are beautiful. I'm just now noticing that. Oh, my wife, he gives me these mani pedis. Oh my God, they're working. I can't believe I just now noticed that. They're so youthful. The toes of a 21 year old. When you're feeling that turbulence in real life and you're contemplating whether this will go down or not, what is your thought?

in those moments. We're not the only one. So many guys have gone on this trail of being alive and have written about their strategies. So there's a wealth of information. I like Pema. Do you dig her? You don't know Pema Chodron? No. Oh, she's so great. You know Pema.

I don't. You don't? We got to get in there. This is humiliating. Alan Watts? Yeah, Alan Watts, yes. You found one we knew. And then, you know, just being such a close friend of Bernie's, he's written some incredible books. Like we've been talking about, Saddle Up, this, here it goes. This is what this is. Okay.

Okay, so you come back, you resume, but before that, there's kind of an auspicious beginning in that you had been given the book by a friend. Yeah, Tim Stack. Yeah, who's Tim Stack? He's a dear friend, very gentle and wonderful actor, comedian. He plays the head of the FBI in The Old Man, actually. Oh, he does? Oh, okay, he's great. Yeah, he's very good. I read the script and I said, wow, this is pretty good. I'm calling out to Sue, my wife, and

She says, yeah, Tim gave you that book about four years ago. I said, are you kidding me? I didn't realize it. So then I backed up, read the book, read the script again, met with John Steinberg and Warren Littlefield. I had a project with Warren. I particularly loved him. Oh, isn't he

cool man what a great guy to hold the whole thing almost an impossible show business person in that he's truly creative and was an executive and all these things yes and John Landgrat is the same way it's great to have the suits in this case be so functally cool

Yeah. And you grew up in an era where you just didn't do TV. Once you got to do movies, you were very careful not to go do TV. Yeah, well, my dad, Lloyd Bridges, did Sea Hunt and then several other TV series after that. He busted his ass, really worked hard because it was all about the quality. But he was disappointed in the attention to detail. He couldn't do it. It was too expensive. And so movies had it over TV. But then you've got to look at what comes out of TV and it

took those biases, and I said, well, look at the product they're getting in a succession. Oh, yeah. The best stuff is truly on TV. And then doing it, oh, man, there's no difference in the shooting of it. The big difference in a movie, you know what the end is. Most movies, beginning, middle, end. But the series, it's like life. You don't know...

where it's going to go. And have you come to embrace that and like that? Yeah. It's in the hands of John Steinberg. He's good. He writes great dialogue. He's such an open person, definitely has a strong point of view, but he's open to other ones. And so I feel really connected and heard.

How's fighting a lot at your age? That's pretty wild. I enjoy it in that it's kind of like a dance and has aspects of any other scene where you're trying to do something kind of interesting, but also authentic, real, like it's happening for the first time. So to work with Tim Connolly and Tommy DuPont

my stunt guys and work on that illusion. Is it painful? It looks painful. Yeah, one of those bumps and stuff like that, sure. But I look at the first season, those fights, I had this 9x12 mass in my stomach! Getting hit and stuff, but it didn't hurt, it didn't feel it. Yeah, he found out

Well, first he felt it. Like a bone in my stomach. This is so textbook, dude. You're like, it doesn't hurt. My wife said, you gotta go get that check. I go, no, it doesn't hurt. We went to Montana, hiked around months. Went on an adventure. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild. So also, we love Allie Shaw cats. Mm-hmm.

Isn't she great? Just what an interesting human being. And Lithgow's so radical. Oh, man. Yeah, great cast. Amy Brenneman, great team. Season two, you got to get your daughter back, basically. Yeah, so it's just the end. It's just upped on all fronts. Stakes. We're international now.

Are you traveling a lot in real life for them? No, it's all AI. They can make it so well you can be anywhere in the universe. Yeah. My last question was just, how did you and Susan handle, what was your strategy? Oh, two questions. Strategy. Did she travel with you during all the movies over the years? Did you guys have like a policy? Try to connect at night, FaceTime. I love to do that. Yeah, yeah. But she doesn't like, and I don't like,

visiting movie sets that I'm not on. She'll come visit, but that's probably the worst part of the gig is being away from my kids and my family. It's easier when you're younger and then it's less and less fun. What's going on lately? Oh, well, I've got several things, but I don't want to pimp all this. I do. Please do. Okay. This is a place for safe pimping. Okay. I'd love to take...

Okay, five minutes. Interesting. My wife channels Gene. So speaking of my wife, who is also a professional photographer, gave me a WideLux camera for a wedding gift 47 years ago. A WideLux is a panning still camera, very much like a 70 millimeter movie frame. Mark Hanauer took some WideLux of our wedding. I fell in love with it.

And I use that camera exclusively. And over the years, starting with Starman...

I started making books for the cast and crew. And then I put out two volumes of condensed versions of these books that were available to the public. I think they're out of print now. Anyway, the camera is out of print. The factory burned down 30 years ago. Oh, no. So Sue and I have got in cahoots with a couple in Germany who have this magazine, Silver Grain, and we are recreating this.

the wide lux camera no way a film camera people should go to jeffbridges.com i did today and i looked at all these photos there's incredible photos there's also like tons of your drawings and sketches it's a really fun place to get lost for a minute yeah jeffbridges.com if you go to wide lux two x's at the end.com just before i came here i think they put the sign up

to get another idea of what this is all about. So you're going to manufacture these things? Yeah. In Germany, parts will be available. It's a big thing. Oh, that's very cool. So that's an exciting thing. I'm trying to think of another thing. Yeah, tell me another thing to pimp. Mm-hmm.

Before Gene pulls the power. Is there a real rush or is it a sham? What's the rush involved? The groomers are coming over. You got to get out. Let me just, let me, I'm in the middle of pimping. But he's pimping. He pimps so good. Okay, I'm going to go quick with the pimp. Emergent behavior.

Tell me about emergent behavior. I was inspired at some of these down times we had, strikes, COVID, what to do creatively. And I went back in my mind to see what songs were half done. And I started to say, you know, I'm not going to wait around until these are perfected. I'm 74. I'm just going to make my offering, man, you know. And then if somebody wants to polish them off down the line, they can do that. So I started to take these songs and put them juxtaposed

to things I would shoot with my iPhone, things I would get from the internet, all kinds of different sources. And I just had a ball and I would get a kick out of that. And then I put out five volumes of that. Each volume has about three or four songs on it. How do I consume those? If you go to Emergent Behavior, Jeff Bridges. Oh, I'm in. You've got a lot.

You visited my website. They should be on my website. There's little babies in different colored squares. Oh, yeah, I saw those. Yeah. See, that's one of the things I'm learning is how to promote online. I know. And it's very creative, the website. It's all your sketches and it's all handwritten. It was a habit that I discontinued. I don't do as much, but I want to get back to that. One other thing has to do with the music as well. I got in cahoots with an organization called Breedlove.

They wanted to know if I wanted to have a signature guitar made, and I found out more about them, and they are all about building their instruments out of sustainable wood. So this guitar is out of myrtle wood and spruce and stuff, but it's all sustainable acoustic guitar, and it says, all in this case.

together on the neck, and the proceeds are going to the Amazon Conservation Team, which is all about protecting the Amazon and the trees that we got there. And it's basically talking about how important trees are to us, you know, our lungs. Yeah. And to not only inspire musicians who are going in to buy a guitar saying, where does that wood come from? But also people who are using flooring and furniture and all these things to be just sensitive to

about where that stuff comes from. Right. And I'll just throw for you No Kid Hungry as well, which we've done a lot of stuff. Yeah, I could go on about No Kid Hungry. That's been so successful. Now that you mention it, I'm going to go into it a little bit. Yeah. Fuck Jean. She's got a cold breath right now. No, no, no. She's just the messenger. I'm teasing Jean. I've been involved in ending hunger for many years.

years, I had an organization called the End Hunger Network, and we did a lot of lobbying in Washington. We got quite a bit of stuff done, but it was frustrating to talk to senators, and they would listen to you, and they would nod, and you thought, did you really get me? They'd say, let's take a picture. How about a picture? And I'd walk out of that hall and say, what, you know?

But this fellow, Billy Shore, I don't know how many years ago, 25 years ago, said, I'd like you to be a campaign man for this organization called Share Our Strength and their No Kid Hungry campaign. And basically, it's not working with the Fed so much, although it does do quite a bit of Fed work, but it concentrates on mayors and governors and business people in the town to make local, to make the difference.

just done some great work concentrating on the school meals and summer meals for kids. Is this in general a great thing to remind yourself? It's so tempting to want to start at the top, but really so many of these things are successful. You're so much better off walk out your door and look around at what you can do on a community level. I'd like that. And I've got several other projects. Next time, next encounter. Next time, it'll be called the pimping episode. The pimping session. The pimping session.

Well, Jeff, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. This was fun. All right. Everybody watch season two of The Old Man on FX or Hulu. It's tremendous. And season two is upon us. So enjoy. He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's got to let him have the facts. Do you notice anything different? Big, big pants. Rob, do you notice?

No. Oh, God. These tests are scary. I know. I love them. Do you get tattoo eyeliner? It's not. Visual? It is visual, but it's not me. That's a big clue. It's visual, but it's not you. Oh, really smart. But that wouldn't be visual. In your eyeline. A new cup? There is a new cup, but that is not it. You're drinking wine during the fact check? Yeah. What is it?

I'm using my new computer for both of you. Oh, I'm so sad. And you didn't even notice. I'm really sad that I failed that. I transitioned to the new laptop. How's it going? It's good.

It's going okay. Just okay? Yeah, I'm not ready to say great yet. Did you plug the old one into the new one? Like, did you just put a cable between them? Or did it all happen on Bluetooth? No, there's nothing. You haven't transferred all your stuff over? No, I'm just going to leave it on the old one. Wait. Start fresh.

How come? I don't have time for that. When you opened it up, didn't it ask you if you wanted to transfer your old stuff? Well, no. Rob set this up for me a long time ago. He put like— In the 80s? Yeah.

The thing from the 80s? He put like the editing software and the Dropbox and everything on here. Yeah. I don't need the other stuff. And if I need it, I can go to that computer. It's a good excuse to go to that laptop. Do you think there'll be any moment where you have two laptops, dueling laptops for this? How are you? Are you going to tell your story or not? I don't think so. Okay. I don't know. I can't wait to hear it. I don't think I'm ready to tell it.

You still feel really sensitive. I understand. I had an event that I won't talk about yet. Maybe I will eventually. I can relate. I don't know if you remember the time. I really struggled one time with telling a story. And it was like in the morning getting the kids ready. I want to say Delta jumped at me and I got up to catch her. And as I did, I farted. I farted.

Have I told that story on here before? I don't think you told this. So I guess you struggled, but you went with no. Well, I told this story for sure. I'm wondering if I told the I fought it story before, which was Delta when she was a little kid. Oh. Real little. I don't know. Two or three. Yeah, you have told this, but tell it again. Yeah, I was by myself. Delta had a humongous offering, like the biggest I've ever seen. Sure. That was right before bed. Then I put her in her diaper.

Actually, she put herself in. It was when she had pull-ups. Okay. Got into bed. I put them to bed. I go into the living room. I start to watch TV and I just hear from the room yelling,

Daddy, I thought it is diarrhea. And I thought, there's no way she has diarrhea. She just took the biggest evacuation of her life. And then I took her into the bathroom and she is one of the biggest ones of all time where I had to clean her back and her butt cheeks. She was probably a little sick. Something was happening. It was probably telling that the first one. So she probably was

Constipated, not consummated. Constipated. A lot of people confuse consummation and constipation. But it's just the funny delivery of daddy, I fought it. She's like happy about it. Well, she knows her audience. She certainly does. She also notoriously wrote a song called Oobie.

I farted. That's true. She had a hit single for a while. Yeah. But anyway. But in that moment, I stood up to catch her and farted. And it was diarrhea. Uh-oh. Yeah. And it was like right before I take him to school. I was like, oh, my God. This is out of nowhere. No warning. No nothing. I didn't do anything wrong. It made me really wrongly. It does.

It does make you lonely. It does make you feel like a little child. Okay, so I'm not going to tell the story, but I did have an unauthorized evacuation. I'll just say that. That's all I'll say. The transformation's almost complete. And I thought that. I was like, I can't believe I'm 37 years old and here's where I'm at. It's so humbling. It is so humbling. And I was lonely after. I did.

Lonely. But also I felt happy that I was single. Oh. Like dealing with all this. I was happy that I was alone. Okay. But then I was immediately sad that I was alone. It was bouncing back and forth. Yeah. And I texted you, but you were out of town.

And so you didn't respond. And I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm disgusting. I'm Tonka. I really felt like I was Tonka. I've never felt more like I understood the shared DNA portion to a chimp more than that moment. Yeah, we are 94 or 7 percent chimp. Yeah. Yeah.

We're animals. I was like dressed up. I'm not going to say anything more. Okay. Okay. I can't wait to hear the details. But as it turns out, so all last week you were complaining of tummy trouble. For like two weeks. I don't know what's going on. And we thought it was flies related. Yeah. But now I don't think so. Well, definitely not because then I was having some issues this weekend and then other members of my family were having it. So I think there's a bug.

I think there's a Tonka bug going around. Do you think they'll ever name a hurricane Tonka? Or Travis would be.

There's probably been a Hurricane Travis. Yeah, I could see that. It'll be a while because don't they go, we just had Helene. Yeah, when I saw it was Helene, I was like, I wished I could remember why they, when they named them women or men. Right. I thought it was every other and I thought it was alternating letters. Like next one will be I. Uh-huh. I thought. Azalea.

Is that an I? Yeah, cookie. Iggy. Hurricane Iggy sounds fun. Isaac. Isaac. That's biblical. You better batten down the hatches. My friend Sally, creator of Argent, shout out.

Her family lives in North Carolina. And so she had she texted me on Saturday, I guess it was asking if I was in touch with my family because she couldn't get in touch with hers. Oh, really? Yeah. All the power was out. Oh, and the cells were out. Yeah. Whoa. I know. Scary. But then she did get in touch with them. They're OK. Well, I was a little misled because I have a friend. Yeah. A close friend who got hit. I'm imagining as hard as anyone got hit, like his house flooded. Then there was a cracked roof.

lithium ion battery in the house then caught fire so there's a fire and a flooding and all this stuff and I was like well I know a person that this is getting hit this hard it must just be completely flattening the state yeah but I think he was well you know in the very bad blast zone right on the water it's such a bummer he sent me videos of like you just come downstairs and everything you own is floating in your house what could be more devastating

So awful. Is there been a Monica? I don't think so. That seems like a missed opportunity. Oh,

How dare you? They'll never be at Axe. Why? No one has that name. Well, a hurricane. They're not picking like, they're not making up names, stupid names. Helene isn't that common. You're absolutely right. That's a great counterpoint. I've never met a Helene. Yeah. Although I think I had a friend who wanted to name their kid Helene. Good thing they didn't. Yeah. Very good thing. There's been a tropical storm, Monica. Oh, Monica Monsoon. Oh my God.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. And an episode of Shameless called Hurricane Monica. Hurricane Monica. But no real hurricane. Speaking of names, do you know, I haven't watched this show yet, but I really want to watch it. I've heard it's great. It's called English Teacher. Have you heard of it? We got a shout out. I have.

I heard of it because of that. People in the comments. So cool. Very cool. It's the second show that I'm aware of now. High School Musical, the musical, the musical, the musical, the show, the musical. Sure. And then now this. Oh, by the way, you know who's delivering the line? Langston, who was on Bless This Mess, who I loved, delivered the line. Oh, my God. Then I wondered if it was an improv. Right. But it's also very Sim because I guess the joke in it was... His son...

It was like play some music or something and all he did was play armchair expert. Yes. And then the other actor, he's supposed to be like, oh God, that's terrible. That would be the natural reaction. He's like, oh, what one? Oh, that's funny. Or which episode? Which leads you to believe he's listened. Yes. Oh.

I liked it. I love it. But it's very sim because we were just on an Armchair Anonymous discussing who we thought our youngest listener was. And we were making jokes. And I made the joke that like at the dinner table, they're like, I...

I did my ACE score test. Yes, yes, yes. And then this happened. Yes. That's crazy. It is crazy. I watched something incredible this weekend. What did you, before I monopolized the conversation, you were on your back all of Saturday. Yeah, I've been sick. I had watched Elbow Roars Prada three times. And then.

There needs to be a study about your adaptive maladaptive viewing habits when you're not well. I don't know if it's maladaptive because it didn't cause any harm. You were here with a smile on your face, so it worked. That's right.

But it's so, you watch it three times this weekend? Okay. Watch, I say loosely. Right. I had it on three times. Okay. You know? Yep. I also watched Will and Harper. Oh, how was that? The trailer looks very good. It was very heartening and lovely. It was lovely. Life affirming? Yeah. I mean, it's sad. Like there's sad parts. Yeah. It's good. I really like it.

For people who don't know, it's Will Ferrell and his friend Harper, who is 61 and is a trans woman. She used to write for SNL. She was the head writer at SNL. Yeah, they started at the exact same time, I guess. Exactly. Will came in as a cast member. Yeah. They go on this cross-country trip.

where they're kind of revisiting the places that Harper used to go, like dive bars and kind of really random. For a trans person, like a scary place to be. Yeah, they're at like a rodeo or something. They go to something that's very rural, whatever it was. Yeah, it's sweet. It's really sweet. Yeah. What else did I do? Did you order any fun food on that day on your back? Soup. Soup.

Oh, wow. You really were low. When people order soup, it's almost just like saying help. It is. Like if I was a delivery person and I picked up a big order of soup, I would leave it on their porch whether they wanted a handoff or not. I would just leave it, knock. I wouldn't want to be exposed. You know, contactless delivery. Whether you ask for it or not, you'd be getting it from me.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Self-preservation. No one loves soup this much. I know. Fucking evening soup. I know. For dinner. It was bad. Cut the shit. Yeah. And then coming off my experience. Yeah. That my experience was on Thursday. Just kind of ruined your weekend. Yeah. Just ruined my whole life. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I started to talk about it on Synced and I said, actually, I don't think I can talk about this because I do think I owe it to Dax.

Oh, that was really nice of you. But now I'm not sure I'm going to do it. So it's a whole lot of back and forths. I'm just not in a good head space. Sure. We'll see if I get there. You're a little unmoored. It was a destabilizing event. It really was.

I just didn't know I had it in me. Have you ever done something that you're like, I can't, I didn't think it was possible? Well, yeah. The 12 years of raging addiction, I certainly have some things where I'm like, how do we either forget about that or accept that? What percentage have you accepted and what percentage do you think you just compartmentalize and it's gone? I don't think any are gone yet.

But I've had to work towards going like, yeah, that's what happened. Highly regrettable. Highly shameful. And we can't really do anything about that. Exactly. And it's got to go forward and not do that again. Do you feel free when you do that? No, there's some things I still have a little kernel of fear over. Fear. I just spit my bug out. I just spit. Oh, that's cool. My bug's on the table now. Y'all have fear. What if everyone knew this about me? And then I have to...

work through why not everyone's going to know that about me. Is that who I am today? Yeah. You know, but see, mine are more, I had actions that are highly regrettable. I had an action. You didn't choose, you know, I don't even know why you have any guilt. I think you should be like, you're finally on the cool club. No, it was a choice, kind of. Oh, wow. Well, kind of. Okay. I don't want to talk about it.

Do you see what's happening, though? It makes me love you more. Well, you haven't heard the story yet. You're not going to be my friend anymore. No way. I'll like you more. I already know it. I can already tell. Talk about messiness of being human. Oh, my God. Literally. Maybe this will put the second wind in that saying for us.

We can bring it back. Oh, want to hear what I watch? I don't think you're going to give this one a shot, but it is an incredible documentary. Okay. It's kind of like Jim Crazy in that it is not uplifting. It's the Mr. McMahon documentary. Oh, I saw.

But it, I didn't see it. Bill Simmons produced it and it's so well made. And it's really, I followed wrestling when I was nine for three years. Yeah. And then I really stopped. And his own personal story, like, you know, I don't know if you know any of this, but Vince McMahon didn't know his dad.

Until he was 12. He grew up like in a trailer with a single mom, dirt broke, met his father, who was already the owner of that wrestling federation. He was like a showman who had this business. And he really wanted to be, well, he wanted to work with his dad. And he wanted to prove everything to his dad. And then he eventually died.

His dad wanted to retire and he, his dad was not a great guy. Obviously they met when he was 12 and he said, why don't you sell it to me? He was in no position to buy it, but he's like, I'll pay you on this schedule. The dad said yes to it thinking, well, he won't make the schedule and I'll get it back, but I'll get some money before he defaults. But he didn't default. And then he went about breaking all these customs where he started stealing talent from other regions because it was all regionalized and you were only allowed to have your

your circuit in your region. So everyone hated him as day. I was like, you can't do this. All of my friends who are also promoters are going to be mad at me, but he didn't care. He pissed his dad off. He built this thing and they have these tropes in there. You're a heel or a baby face. You're a bad guy or a good guy. And you're always a bad guy. You're always a good guy. WCW came out and Turner wanted to destroy WWF and he had a lot of money and he started stealing all the big performers from WWF, Hulk Hogan, all these big,

So then they started losing this war. Then he made himself the heel. And it's insane how far the storyline went. He was like, had mistresses that were there. One of the mistresses drugged the wife. The wife would be in a wheelchair. When you would watch the show, the owner of WWF, he was the heel. He was a bad guy. But is it all made up, these mistresses and...

drugs well that's what the the documentary is so fascinating because no it's like anything that's happening in real life he would immediately do as his character oh and so he becomes this deplorable and what they'll all admit every his competitor everyone he became the greatest heel in the history of this genre the most hated the most vile you know reviled

And he does the deplorable things and he wrestled himself and he's huge. Oh, wow. It's the craziest story. Tons of sexual misconduct, abuse. The daughter and son who want to also prove to him that they can take it over and he's doing the same thing as his dad. Yeah.

And he builds this thing into a $10 billion property. And it's all he cares about is that business. And he's like, I'm a businessman before I'm a father or a person or anything. That is what I, I'll do anything for the business. So he was willing to have everyone hate. It's, it's a fucking wild psychotic journey through life.

building something like that. It's very dark. I mean, these wrestlers, they started dropping dead. Like, you know, there's like a pandemic level. Like a lot of these, tons of these wrestlers didn't make it to 40. Because of CTE? Steroid abuse, drug abuse. One of their doctors,

got federally indicted for selling them everything you've got cte is one of them one of the wrestlers killed his whole family yeah and then the dad was nice enough to let this guy who studied cte study his brain and it was like he said it was the worst case he'd ever seen of cte but then weirdly vincent man's the only organization that started cooperating and saying like okay um

I'm not sure I'm willing to say that our wrestlers have gotten CTE from us, but I am willing to going forward, what can we do? So like they got rid of hitting people with chairs. Jesus Christ. That is absurd. I'm saying it out loud. Oh, my God. Also, I bet that guy, he did something he thought he could never do. Well, it was one of those suicide, kill everyone, then commit suicide. Oh, God. Yeah.

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That is so awful. Oh, it's the darkest. CTE is so not talked about. It is so scary. Yeah. Like as much as, you know, we on here talk a lot about our brain chemicals and things we don't really have control over. CTE, you don't have control over it. Well, the worst part is it's degenerative. It just gets worse and worse. There's no arresting it. It's like,

It's damage and then it just continues to degenerate. It's like that episode of Blame where the radio lab episode of Blame where the guy has something. He has a brain surgery and then he becomes a pedophile. Yeah. Essentially. Yeah, yeah. And like. Well, let's just be careful.

in case he would want to sue us. He started consuming pedophilia pornography. They found a bunch of child pornography on his computer. He never had a victim. I just want to say that. So, I mean, I guess that gets into like what's a victim. But yes, child pornography on his computer, post-brain surgery and the doctors. Masturbating nonstop, can't stop eating, gaining weight. Zero impulse control. Yes. And the doctors said that.

that that was due to the surgery. My whole point is like the brain is doing stuff. If you mess with it that you don't have control over and with CTE and this damage, like he killed all these people. And in some ways there is a question like, can he be blamed for that? Right. Yeah. Well, his wrestling move was the flying headbutt. Yeah. So he was just jumping off the rope and headbutting someone. Yeah.

It's so, it should not be allowed. Well, now they apparently don't have many concussions in that. There, but I'm talking about football and all of it. No, I mean, yeah, they need to do everything they can. There's a really good daily on it. I know you love that daily. You hate CTE. I hate CTE. I hate it too, but you know, these things have different.

We have different issues that trigger us more. That one is strong for you. I think it's related to your childhood stuff. Oh, why? Tell me. A seemingly normal person can always start acting really unpredictably and in a scary way because something in their brain. Oh, sure. I'm sure that has something to do with it. But there's also a justice element to it. Football.

is a sport that is often a ticket out of a bad situation for a marginalized group. So it does affect that group more. Disproportionately. And it's not fair. Like a family that has a ton of money can opt out, can say like, yeah, we probably don't need to put our kid in football. Yeah. And if you don't, but you know, they have like that aptitude, it's more of a coin toss. Yeah. That's

That's so sad to me. It is. I guess the little piece of it to me that I'm always going to lean on this side more than you are, which is like, do you think people have the right to destroy themselves? And I think the white players that have played still would want to play. Oh, I've heard a bunch of them say it. Like, even when they learn of the risk. Once they've done it. Once they've already played. Yeah.

Yep. They say I would still do it. Yes, but that's not... And so I do, I feel like what's crazy is I do feel like I would protect the right to do that. Like if someone decides with all knowledge that they want to go down that path, I'm in favor of them being able to make that choice. But they're put in the position when they're kids. Like you don't get to that point unless you've been playing since little... Well, that's what's... Yeah, the societal pressures now, kids, parents with money...

are opting more and more to not let their white kids play. But poor white kids are playing. Yeah, exactly. And socioeconomics. Poor people, yeah. Yes. Poor people are going to always choose that. And that part is unfair. But there's also rich kids that will choose that. So if a rich kid chooses it and they have all the information, I can live with that. But that's a kid, though. That's a kid. Like, a kid can't think in the future about CTE. Yeah. They don't know. Parents who are disenfranchised, fair.

I feel that they might have to put their kids in it. I don't think the kids' decision really has... Once they're playing, they like it. It becomes their thing and they're good at it. I personally don't think it works that way. I don't think a parent goes to their five-year-old who's shown no aptitude for anything yet. Their five goes, we better put them in football so that they can have a way out. I actually don't really think that's happening.

I think little kids play football with each other on the playground. That's what's happening at Delta school. And then they want to join this team. Yeah. And their parents are like, yeah, teams are good. And then maybe they're not totally informed. And once they are now good at it, I do think another thing can happen. But I don't think parents are sending them into that feeder and thinking they're going to get out. But it's CTE because of the daily. I know this, um,

It's repetitive hits. Yes. It's not like one hit or if so. They used to think it was these big concussions. Exactly. And it's the amount over time. So it generally is people who are like, oh, let's stick with this and let's see what could happen with them. And and like and so look, my whole point is I don't blame the parents who are like, well, fuck this kid's really good at this. And this might be they want to very bad and they want to.

I feel like there needs to be regulation. Well, it should be stated that the policies have changed dramatically. There has been a lot of good adjustments. Like there's not full contact practices now, mostly speaking. They have changed a lot of things. They wear special helmets. I know at least in the professional, they wear these insane helmets when they're practicing with the padding all on the outside. So-

It's not like they're not. They haven't adjusted. Yeah. They have. And then, unfortunately, we all have to wait to see how effective those were. Yeah. But I think Travis Pastrana should be allowed to do backflips on a motorcycle if that's what he wants to do, even if it's going to kill him. Yeah. I mean, he's an adult and he's making that decision. And I think mountain climbers should be allowed to climb mountains. I know, but also— When we know they're going to die at a, you know, 20% rate. But CTE has the high likelihood of affecting others. It incites violence. That's true. That's true.

hurting yourself yeah i don't i can't go for it i don't like it but like yeah okay so that doc was really good it's phenomenal i had to binge it like i was craving oh i can't wait to watch the next episode i haven't had that in a minute that's fun yeah that was really good okay well this is for uh quentin tarantino this is for jeff bridges oh my god you want to hear something crazy yeah remember he talked so much about t-bone burnett yeah i met him this weekend oh

God. Weird. He's awesome. Cool. As soon as I met him, I'm like, of course.

Corsi's to our friends. Yeah. He has that kind of like wispy, mystical wisdom yet in a Southern kind of. Cool. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there's not very many facts, but there was a debate of how many songs that he sold to Quincy Jones. And you said two, he said one, and it's confusing. Okay. On some places it says one, definitely Lost in Space. Yeah.

That's 1969. It was before he even landed his first lead role as an actor. And so it says he sold two songs he had written to Quincy Jones, including Lost in Space. But it doesn't say the other song. Was produced, maybe. It just doesn't say anywhere. And then some places it just says Lost in Space. So I understand why he's confused and why you are. Yeah.

And then Heaven's Gate, a little bit of the lore. We said it had some lore. Yeah, I didn't want to really get too far into it while he was in front of us. Well, it faced numerous setbacks, including cost overruns, significant retakes, bad press, which he did talk about.

including allegations of animal abuse on set, rumors about the director's allegedly authoritarian directorial style. He had an expensive and ambitious vision for the film, pushing it nearly four times over its planned budget. Let me just put that in perspective. Like Warner Brothers gave me $25 million to make Chips. Yeah. With the agreement, I would get a rebate from the state of California, so it would really be $20 million. Yeah.

Let's say that I set out to make chips and then it was a hundred million when I was all done. Oh.

Oh, my God. I mean, I don't know how they— How do they even keep giving the money? I think they think they've passed the point of no return. Right. So obviously he didn't ask for four times the amount of money the first time. Yeah. First time he's like, look, the movie's 70% done, and I can't finish it unless you give me another $20 million. Yeah. And they're like, well, fuck, what are we going to do? Yeah. We still owe a third of the movie to protect the first $25. We're going to have to give him $20 more. And then that happens three more times. Yeah.

Yikes. Well, apparently it earned $3.5 million against its $44 million budget. Oopsies. Yeah.

Yeah, like I was so humiliated with having a movie that made exactly as much as it costed. Like that was a humiliation for me that the movie broke even. Right. I can't imagine what I'd feel like if the movie made one ninth of what I spent on it. Yeah. Yeah, it's not. Or I guess in that case, one twelfth. It's not a failure to break even. Right. That's what I'm saying. That to me is a huge failure. I know, but I'm telling you it's not. Okay, thank you. You're not listening.

Haters will point out the marketing budget. Whatever. Why do you read them? No, no, no. I didn't read anything. Speaking of, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I have to shout this out. Hold on. Okay. Get my other computer. Get my computer from 96 and then my computer from 2003. Oh, you've got an actual. I have a prop. Okay. Somebody, I don't know who.

sent me a book that was made. It's called Fuck the Comments.

This is an armchair. He did this. Oh, my God. And, like, it's full. And it's tricky because I don't read the comments. Right. But it's full of kind comments. No way. It's so. You don't know who sent that. We got to shout them out. I know, but I don't know who sent it. Holy cow, that was thoughtful. It's so sweet. It says, we, the armchair contingency, say fuck the comments. Us real fans know what's up.

And it's just a book full of beautiful, beautiful, sweet. It's so kind. I don't deserve it, especially after what happened on Thursday. Oh, my gosh. And I'm going to keep it in here. I don't know how you're... That's...

That's so nice. I know. I would have a very hard time receiving that. You don't think I should have received it? No, no, no. I'm saying I would have a really hard time receiving it. That's so sweet. It's crazy. It's so sweet. Like how much time it would take to pour through all the comments. I know. So whoever compiled this and also everyone who contributed. Oh my Lord. You guys are the best and really amazing.

Made me feel very, very good. I feel like they should have sent it to me. And then once a time, once a fact check, that might be too many. I open it up and I read one nice comment. No. Okay. I'm glad they did the way they did it. They did it perfectly. It should say, fuck the comments, parentheses, except for these. No, because you know. You still don't know. You know it's tricky because. People say this. If you're going to believe the good ones, you got to believe the bad ones. Yeah, I do believe that. Why? Why is that a thing? That sounds logical, but why? Because you don't.

to get so high on your own supply. Do you think that you're running a big risk of that? I don't, but I don't, I don't want to. I am aware that that's a slippery slope in this business. Really? Like it is very, very easy to get high on yourself, to surround yourself with

Yes, men. With yes, men and people who are afraid to say anything to you. Yeah. That really goes against my identity because I feel strongly that people should be... Objective? No, that like you should be able to say whatever you want to people you...

know and trust and care about. And I don't ever want to be like, oh, that friend of mine is saying something I don't like, so they're not my friend anymore. I think it's more common than not. I think you have to actually tell yourself, I can't do that. I just decided I really want chicken parm. Oh, soup's over. Two things was happening. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow, there's a lot going on in there. Yeah. Anyway, but you know what I mean? I do know what you mean, and it could lead to narcissism, and it could lead to an inflated self-image, but— Just not reality. Could not be reality.

What about this, though? There's enough negative stuff going on in here that reading some of that to me can right-size my self-loathing. Well, I'm not telling you. I want you to do whatever you want to do. Oh, yeah. I'm just saying theoretically. If you're a type of person who's prone to a lot of negative self-talk. Yeah. And that's what you're ingesting all day long. And you read something that contradicts that. Mm-hmm.

And it quiets that voice to some degree. Yeah. I guess for me. I can see it being good. Well, sure. If it's good for you, great. Go for it. I don't think that's the right prescription. I think the right prescription is figuring out how to silence the negative self-talk or combat within you. That's the only way you're really going to feel good. And, you know, I did try to look at some of these. Yeah. They're beautiful. Like, they're so.

But you can figure out a way to make them negative. I can't feel it. Right. I really can't. And that feels mean to say because I don't want to. Discredit this nice gesture. Yes, which is like the most beautiful thing. Yeah. But I don't internalize it. Well, I'm going to hit you with another angle. Okay. This is a new approach. You do let the negative ones affect you. Yeah, bad. So you owe it to yourself to let the good ones affect you.

Because it's that's not balanced either. Yeah, but it is balanced because I just remove them all. I just remove the negative ones. My reality is that these positive ones don't out. They don't fix the negative ones. The negative ones aren't true. Some are maybe some aren't. I don't know. I'm not going to try to figure out what's true and what's not true. So I just take it off the table. So it is mildly helpful.

To see if your internal image is matching at all what the external world's telling you. Because you're trapped in your image of yourself. Yes and no. So if 98% of the people are screaming, you're so beautiful, unprompted, not like you were fishing for it, just like when Lupita was on. Mm-hmm.

No one was asking for it. People couldn't resist to write how beautiful she was. I know. She's so stunning. Just imagine a scenario where you think you're ugly and you look at the comments and it's like Lapita. That is relevant. You'd have to go like, okay, I have a broken sense of self. Yeah. But here's the thing. That is not the problem. The problem isn't like, oh my God.

I just haven't been looking in the mirror correctly. Like I'm, my brain's broken. I can't see what everyone else is seeing. That's not the problem. The problem is that I feel ugly. Right. So their opinion, people's opinion isn't going to fix my feeling about myself. I have to fix that.

I agree with you. I have to figure out a way to look in the mirror and like what I see. No one else is going to do that for me. Listen, I love this because you are making the exact point I always make. And now I'm making the point you always make. So this is fun to try this on. I don't think I make your point. Yes, you are. Because I'm saying that people don't make you feel a certain way. You decide to, you react. About yourself.

I'm just saying if someone says something mean to you and your feelings are hurt, I'm always saying that's your responsibility and actually what people say is irrelevant. That's usually my position. So we've swapped sides. Yeah, I think there's a little bit of a difference, but that's okay. Okay. But what I'm saying is yes and no.

If you think you smell great and 10 people in a row tell you you smell like shit, you're going to take that on and you're going to adjust yourself. You're going to go, I really do. I'm not smelling it, but clearly I smell. I need to use a different soap and I need to put on deodorant. So if that is true, why isn't the opposite of that true? Which is I am saying I'm ugly and universally everyone that meets me thinks I'm beautiful. I'm the problem. That could be the impetus for you confronting this delusion you have. Yeah.

Sure. Yeah, I get that. That could be the impetus. But reading is not going to fix it. It's then saying like, huh, there seems to be some sort of disparity here.

What is it? What's happening in my brain that is causing me to hate myself? Yeah. That's so disjointed from what everyone else is telling me. Right. I mean. Like, if you think you're really funny and nobody's ever laughing around you when you tell these funny jokes, you know, it's time for an inventory. Is it? Because, okay. Yes.

No, I don't know. Because thinking you're funny isn't a bad thing. It is if you're making jokes all the time and they suck. I've been around a lot of people that do this and they're usually the boss and people laugh

out of respect and deferential. Sure. And they're not funny. Yeah. And they're abusing the whole system. And everyone's got to suffer through it. Okay, okay. Dude. If they're abusing a system, that's bad. But if they think they're funny... I just called you dude. That almost never happened. That was weird. Dude. Is that because of what happened on Thursday? Oh, my God. Yeah, sorry. Funny. I'm so funny. And I tell jokes at dinner. And no one laughs. And I'm taking up time. But it's...

if it's making you feel good because you think you're funny, I wouldn't, I don't want that person to walk around thinking like, I am so not funny. That's bad. They need to evaluate what offering they have that is pro-social. Sure. They can't just, listen, I don't want to out anyone in my life and my family, but you know, there were some people that could have stood to just recognize that's not their offer. I know. I know. They had other great offerings. Sure.

Sure, I get it. But resident comedian wasn't it. How about this? Yeah. Do you like when someone tells terrible jokes? No, look, I... It's really painful, right? It is bad. I'd rather them do something foul. Well... Because you're stuck now in this position where it's like your own pro-social nature is going to force you. I mean, when someone tells a stinker, can you tell a bad joke? What? Knock, knock. Who's there?

Orange. I'm going to start excited, actually. Okay. Knock, knock. Who's there? Orange. Orange who? Orange, you want some applesauce? That's the joke. I know. Imagine if that was my reaction. I could never give that reaction. I would love to. Do you get that one, though? Mine? Yeah.

But you're supposed to say banana, banana, banana, banana. No, I made this one up because I wanted it to be bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah. I recognize it. Because all my jokes are so good that. They're really good. Anyway, listen. Okay. Back on track. Back on track. Jeff Bridges. Never told a bad joke. No, he tells great jokes. Excellent lover, musician, actor extraordinaire. Okay. He mentioned No Kid Hungry and I do want to just, No Kid Hungry is a fantastic film.

fantastic organization. It is. Kristen works closely with No Kid Hungry. Getting food to kids at school. Yeah. It's really a very, very awesome organization. So if you're looking for a good place. Donate. Donate or volunteer. Look into No Kid Hungry's a vetted place. Yeah, very good. Trusted brand. Very trusted. Um,

That's it. That was all? Yeah. Okay. Well, that was fun. Always fun. So that book's going to go unread? You can read it. I've read it all. There isn't a comment in there that I haven't read. I'm going to leave it in here. How about this? Yeah. And I'm giving you permission to read it.

To offend me. And I won't get defensive. Okay. Do you think you've observed a negative outcome of me reading the comments? Personally, not like whether or not I address stuff on the show and you don't. Right. I should have to do that or whatever. For my own personal well-being, has it, have you noticed it's diminished it or? I have an example of a time, and I don't think we want to get into it. I kind of dying to hear it.

I don't know if we want to get into it, but we can try it if you want. Yeah, let's try it. Okay. It's actually funny because it's sort of the impetus of this whole thing. This was a really long time ago. We had a guest on that I had a sense was going to be controversial. So I knew that going in. Yeah. I had the expectation.

Yes. That there was going to be a lot of blowback in the comment section. Yeah. I do not think you had that expectation. Yeah, probably. And...

And this is what happened. You were reading them. Yeah. And it was, it really upset you. Yeah. And it didn't. I'm saying, yeah, I don't know the example you're talking about, but I know for sure I have been upset. Okay. Yeah. So. Well, it was Megan Phelps Roper.

Can I say that? Sure. Yeah. We had Megan Phelps rope her on. Okay. Right, right, right. And I knew that that was going to be a controversial. Yeah. And I was a little shocked. You were not expecting it. Right. And so you started reading the comments and they were...

I didn't know this, but I figured that they were really upsetting you because you then sent a text to the working group. Okay. About us being better at monitoring the comments. Yep, yep. And deleting ones that are not.

Very negative to the guest. To the guest. Yeah. Not to me, but to the guest. Yeah. And you were saying it with a tone and a fervor that I knew you were riled up by things you had read. Sure. And I think your reaction was not...

True to you. I think your reaction was outsized because you were very upset by what you were reading. It upset you. Oh, I was. I was. And it was hateful of me. I thought that the person's humanity, like that her humanity would cut through all that.

political talking point stuff. And I was so disappointed. Yeah. Yeah. You were disheartened by humanity. Like it had enough. My point is, because this is what the question was. Yeah. Has it had an impact? Yes. That's an example to me of one that had an impact, not just on your mood, but then it it spread quickly. Yes. Thousand percent.

I don't think since then, because we did have multiple conversations after that. Yeah. I haven't noticed it. Yeah. Well, because I just, I'm going to do it. And I decided I was going to do that. I then, of course, I had to adjust and go like, okay, well, if you're taking this on, you're going to have to be able to do this in a way that you, you know,

It doesn't get you irate and disheartened in humanity. Yeah. And I think the fact that it hasn't happened since then in some blaring way, at least. Yeah. I figured out how to do that. I think you have. Because I have since that moment. That's when I started doing it. Always reading the comments. Yeah. I guess I was aiming more for like, did you, have you noticed that when I read stuff that my body looks good, I'm all of a sudden egomaniacal or something? Oh, no. Okay. Okay.

I don't even know. If I'm 100% honest, I have let the positivity invade me. My self-image has changed. I don't know if I—well, I have also physically changed, which is confusing. Mm-hmm.

So I have physically changed, but then also I have let in what people are telling me. I think that's great. And try to accept that as hard as it is to do. I think that's lovely. And I'm glad you're able to hear it. I do think, and tell me if you disagree. I think you're a little more susceptible in this life.

to strangers' opinions of you than I am. Yeah, this is like a personality test because...

Yes. You and I, it's a metric. Yeah. Yes. But me in general has gone like this. So it's like a little, so yes. And also it has diminished a lot. Yeah. I think that's true. Twisty, turvy. I think we did really good with that. Yeah, me too. We've grown a lot. Good job. Good job. Hey, love you. Love you.

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