Jeff Bridges is the Dude

Jeff Bridges has starred in some of the biggest movies over the past 40 years, "The Last Picture Show, "The Fabulous Baker Boys," "Tron," "The Big Lebowski," "Crazy Heart," "True Grit," “Sea Biscuit”, “Arlington Road”, “Fearless”, “The Mirror Has Two Faces”, “The Fisher King” and to name just a few. 

I have loved Jeff Bridges long time. 

I think “The Fabulous Baker Boys” was the film that convinced me of his greatness.  He has aged magnificently too.  I am at that age where I can truly appreciate a silver fox.

This week he released an album of original country music and to support that, he’s been doing media rounds in the US.  He appeared on “The Colbert Report” and last week he did “Piers Morgan Tonight”.  The hour long interview was riveting.   He is such a cool guy; so confident and normal and sweet. 

He has been married to wife Susan for 34 years and he talked at length about how they met and how they’ve survived.


"It was, you know, the corny "love at first sight" thing, you know.  I met her on a movie set in Montana. We were making a movie called "Rancho Deluxe."  And I see this girl, gorgeous girl who's watching us. I mean, she looks like she's working there or something.  And she's just gorgeous. I could not take my eyes off her. And she busts me every time, you know, I look at her.

And it's tough asking a girl out. You know, you've got to really, you know, get the courage, you know and I said, would you like to go out tonight?  And she goes, no. It's a small town, maybe I'll see you around. I said, really? She goes, yes.


I said, OK. And her prophecy came true and maybe it might have been that night or the night after that, I saw her in a bar and we danced and, you know, that was it.

And we we cut 20 years later. So I'm married. We've got three kids. I'm sitting at my desk opening my mail. And I got a letter from the makeup man on that show. And he says, I was going through my files and I came across a photograph that might be of interest to you. It's a shot of you asking a local girl out for a date.

And I look at the thing and it's a picture of me asking my wife out for a date.”

Bridges carries the photo in his wallet and calls it his most prized possession.  “The first words that I ever spoke to my wife, asking her out, and her answer we are no.”

Asked “ Why do you think you've been able to have such a happy, sustainable marriage”

Bridges responds, “ Luck, I'm sure, has a lot to do with it. My  parents were very, I was going to say happily, but they went through, you know, unhappy times, too. And I think Sue and I, we've developed a practice of kind of leaning into those tough times, you know, and looking at those as this, oh, here's an opportunity for us to get a lot more intimate, to know a little bit more about each other.”

Lovely. Just lovely. I love the idea of "leaning into those tough times".