Quotes

As far as the lack of hits goes, I think perhaps it's because I've played a lot of different roles and have not created a persona that the public can latch on to. I have played everything from psychopathic killers to romantic leading men, and in picking such diverse roles I have avoided typecasting.

I don't think I ever went down that movie star path. I always enjoy taking a 90-degree turn from the last thing I did.

A large part of acting is just pretending. You get to work with these other great make-believers, all making believe as hard as they can. What I learned most from my father wasn't anything he said; it was just the way he behaved. He loved his work so much that, whenever he came on set, he brought that with him, and other people rose to it.

Basically, one of the hardest things about being an actor is getting your first break. I'm a product of nepotism. The doors were open to me. I'd done several movies before I decided what I wanted to do. There was a certain amount of guilt and worry about whether I really had what it takes. I thought I'd spare my girls that.

My father [Lloyd Bridges] encouraged his kids to go into showbiz, not because he wanted to live vicariously through them, but because he dug it so much. Growing up there was like a mild competition with my father and my brother, not so much maybe in reality, but in my own mind.

Most cynics are really crushed romantics: they've been hurt, they're sensitive, and their cynicism is a shell that's protecting this tiny, dear part in them that's still alive.

When you start to engage with your creative processes, it shakes up all your impulses, and they all kind of inform one another.

I kind of rebelled against it. I resisted it. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was a kid and was reluctant to go into, y'know, Dad's line of business.

I had years of partying, and I was kind of surprised and happy I survived it all. Now, being a parent, I look back on it thinking, Oh God, the things you did!

(on working with Kevin Spacey on K-PAX (2001) and their similarities in working] I've been a big fan of his work -- The Usual Suspects (1995), American Beauty (1999), L.A. Confidential (1997). He's a really good actor and he turns out to be a wonderful guy as well. We approach acting in the same way in that we both enjoy the process. We both like rehearsals and we understand the value of them. There are some actors who don't like to engage with other actors; they just like to relate to each other between "Action!" and "Cut!" But I've always felt that getting to know the people you're working with can inform and enrich the work. The closer you get, even if you're playing opposites, the better the work. Some actors are afraid of leaving it all off-camera or getting the characters confused, but I don't see it that way. I often feel that the actual movie is like the skin sloughed off the snake; it's the by-product of the real valuable stuff, which is the real-life experience of doing it.

[on his father, actor Lloyd Bridges] My father, unlike his father, was very supportive of all his kids getting involved in movies and acting in general. He loved what he did and wanted to turn his kids onto it. He thought it was a great way of meeting people, being creative, and traveling around the world and doing what you love to do.

I went from high school -- bang! -- into the movies. I did spend a few weeks in acting classes in New York when my father was there doing "Cactus Flower". But most of my training really came from my parents and my brother [Beau Bridges].

For a long while I wasn't sure I was going to make acting my main focus professionally. I was interested in music, painting and other creative pursuits. I did the movies with a little more capricious an attitude; I wasn't so seriously minded as a total professional. Then came The Iceman Cometh (1973) We had eight weeks of rehearsals and then we shot for two weeks. So it was almost the reverse of how most movies are made. During those eight weeks, I was sitting around with these great actors and this great director, just shooting the breeze and, of course, going over the material. I was also getting to know how other actors of that caliber work on things like this. It was very enlightening. After that experience, I decided, "Hey, I can do this. And I can do this for the rest of my life in a professional way".

When I was offered the part of The Dude in The Big Lebowski (1998), I went through a big thing in my head worrying if this was going to be a bad example for my girls. The guy was kind of an anti-hero, a pot-smoking, slacker kind of guy, and I was really racking my brain about it. I always want to feel free to play any role, a despicable guy or a good guy -- the full range of human experience. But this one was really giving me problems. So I assembled the family and told them my problem. After a long pause, my middle girl said, "Dad, you're an actor. We know that it's all pretend what you do. We know that when you kiss some lady on the screen that you still love Mom. We know you're an actor". So I had their permission, their blessing, to go play a character like The Dude. That was great that they understood that. And I count on the audiences to understand that what I do in my personal life and what I do on the screen are not some kind of example for them to base their lives on. Hopefully, when people see a movie, they know it's a movie.

I'm very proud of The Last Picture Show (1971). It was absolutely thrilling when I got that part. Peter Bogdanovich was just great, and the whole ensemble was too - Cloris Leachman and Ellen Burstyn and Tim Bottoms and Cybill. When we were doing it, we all had the feeling that we were doing something unique and special. For me, that film stands alone. It's not like any other movie I can think of. It just hangs there by itself. It's still and slow and quiet.

I'm glad I survived the '60s. They were dangerous. Fun, too. Everything in your life teaches you something.

I've been involved with two big flop Westerns [Heaven's Gate (1980) and Wild Bill (1995)]. I don't know if Americans still care about Westerns. I hope they do. There are some wonderful ones still to be made. - 2001.

Acting is tough some times. It can be a complicated case. A lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what-have-yous, a lot of strands to keep in your head, man. But, you know, you manage.

[on Heaven's Gate (1980)] I remember going to the New York premiere. I'm not sure he (Michael Cimino) had seen the movie complete; he was scrambling to put it together. Afterward we heard that terrible stuttering applause, and it was that sinking feeling. We tried to tell ourselves, "Well, maybe they liked it so much that they are stunned into silence."

Probably 150 less movies are going to be made next year (2010), and that's very concerning to all actors. It's hard enough finding a great script, but now it's going to be tougher. -- on how the economy is affecting the film industry.

To get a good script at any age is kind of a rare thing. The movie-going audience is mainly young guys, and (producers) want to target them. It kind of makes sense from their standpoint, but an interesting story is an interesting story. I remember being a younger guy liking to see movies with older folks in them, so that never deterred me. -- on ageism in the film industry.

The hardest thing about acting is getting a foot in the door and that was all handled by my dad. The fact is, I'm a product of nepotism. And that took some getting used to. Life will supply you with gutters. Having a famous father. Feeling that stench of nepotism. That's a gutter right there.

[on what advice he'd give to himself as a young actor starting out] Have fun. Don't take it too seriously. Don't mistake this for reality. Be sincere, but don't get too serious. But that's a life direction too, it doesn't just apply to movies.

(On The Big Lebowski (1998) It's kind of a masterpiece, man. It's like The Godfather (1972) - I see it on the tube and I think I'm just going to watch a couple of scenes, but I end up watching the whole thing.

[on Crazy Heart (2009)] This one was kind of a challenge - I find I'm most challenged by things I really care about, because I really want to do them well. It causes quite a bit of anxiety. But that very thing you're afraid of is kind of like a blessing in disguise. If you didn't have that fear, you wouldn't have the other side - courage and bravery, positive emotions. As an actor, you get used to those fears, and you're almost happy when they show up. It makes you learn your lines and prepare. Then when it's finally time to pull the trigger on the thing, you relax and let it come out.

I like to think of myself as a character actor, though there's some redundancy in that... I'm very pleased with my career, the stories I've told. I consider myself very lucky as to how it all came down. I don't really care about having more fame than I have. [2010]

[on incorporating digitized images of deceased actors in current films] I don't know quite how I feel about that. I guess it's progress. You can't slow that thing down. I imagine they'll soon be able to - if they don't do this already - take a little De Niro, a little Brando, a little Bridges and just a drop of Julie Andrews and shake that up. It's gonna get weird.

[on releasing his first album of songs] People like to put things in a box - and they do that with their own lives too, they limit things - but it's all art to me. To me, all art is truth. People try to define things and make it easier for their mind to digest things, I guess. But music has been part of my life since I was a kid. Music meant more to me when I was young, but I went into acting because of family and because because it was the path of least resistance.

On Michelle Pfeiffer: I bet her a thousand dollars after that movie (The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989)) came out that she'd be offered a recording deal, and she still owes me.

On Michelle Pfeiffer: She's a wonderful combination of beauty, mystery and funk. The funk factor is her ordinariness, the surfer girl from Orange County. These elements are mixed with her courage to do things she is frightened of and the talent to make us believe.

[remembering director Michael Cimino] In 1973, Mike Cimino cast me as Lightfoot in the first movie he directed - Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974). I was just starting out, just a kid. I remember being up in Montana wondering why he had picked me. I didn't feeling anything like the character I had been hired to play. I felt inadequate, undeserving, confused. The day before shooting began I confessed this all to Mike. This was Mike's first movie, one he had written as well. He'd been given this opportunity by Clint Eastwood, the movie's producer and star. I felt sorry for Mike. This was a big break for him, and here he was the day before his movie was to start shooting, and this frightened young actor who had a major roll in it was telling him he didn't know if he could do it. After not too long a pause, Mike looked at me, and said, "You know that game Tag?" "Yeah," I said. "Well... You're it," Mike told me. He went on to say that this guy, Lightfoot, was no one other than me, that I couldn't make a mistake, or a false move, even if I wanted to. I've never forgotten that bit of direction that that young director gave me on his first movie, that gift of confidence. I'll often bring it to mind when that feeling of inadequateness, that feeling of not deserving what I've been given comes to me. I'll remember to enjoy the game, this game of 'Tag.' A few years later, after Mike won an Academy Award for directing The Deer Hunter (1978), he cast me again in another movie. Now he was an award winner, and along with Coppola, Bogdanovich, & Scorsese, a 'Hollywood Darling', encouraged to make whatever movie he wanted to make. Heaven's Gate (1980) is what he had in mind. A movie about a particularly fascinating time in American History when Cattle Barons, sanctioned by the United States government, waged war on emigrants - the Johnson County Wars. I was cast to play John Bridges, a character Mike loosely based on one of my relatives. The many months of shooting in Montana were a one of a kind movie making experience. When "Heaven's Gate" came out, many critics called it a flop, a disaster. Well...that's just their opinion, man. To me, and many others, it's a masterpiece, and grows in beauty each time it's seen. Michael Cimino was a splendid filmmaker. Getting to work with him was a great pleasure and honor, and a real stroke of luck, a blessing. I'll miss you, Mike. Thanks for tagging me, man. [4th July 2016]

I don't dig Trump or follow what he has to say, but I find it fascinating that he's surfaced in the political arena. I'm a Hillary supporter and I don't go the Trump way.

It's a very tricky situation we find ourselves in. It's kind of like the expression ... the cows are out of the gate. There are so many guns in our society already. Do we really need to arm our citizens with machine guns or semiautomatic weapons? And don't we need to make sure that people who do own guns are qualified to own them? Those are simple steps leading us in the right direction.