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This is an ABC Color Test.

Hello,

I'm Alec Baldwin. First up tonight, a conversation with award -winning

and actor Ricky Gervais. After launching the original version of The Office,

Gervais became a comedy sensation on both sides of the Atlantic and continues

write, produce, and perform across multiple platforms, including season two

his ABC game show Child Support.

Also tonight, Oscar -winning actor Jeff Bridges is here. For nearly five

decades, Bridges has played a wide range of seminal characters in films like The

Big Lebowski, Hell or High Water, and Crazy Heart. His latest is the new

thriller Bad Times at the El Royale. We're glad you've joined us. Ricky

and Jeff Bridges coming up right now.

What temperature is this?

Is it?

What do you mean, is it? It's freezing.

You can't tell that's freezing.

Yeah, I like it. I will tell them, set it to snow. Make it snow.

Right, okay.

We're going to do some cross -country skiing here during the break. If I start

shivering. Are you freezing? Would you like a blanket? Would you like a wrap?

Okay. Do you know what room temperature means?

For me, room temperature is 48 degrees.

Well, you're an eskimo.

Without a doubt.

Without a doubt, I'd last longer in the sea than you.

Okay, forget the temperature.

What do you want to know?

I was terrified to interview you in that one sense, which is obviously

manifesting itself, where they're really brilliant comics. It's like log rolling

with them.

And you're going to dump me in the water at any given moment you want to. You're

just kind of playing with me. This isn't comedy.

This isn't comedy. This isn't a bit.

I'm freezing.

Do we have a blanket for Ricky?

Right, let's go for it. Right, go on. Speaking of you being such a diva, do

find that in the work you've done, the considerable amount of work you've done,

you prefer to do your own thing and you're on your own?

Writing, producing, directing, self -generating? Or in your career, what's

been like in terms of... Because I would imagine after the considerable success

you've had, a lot of people have reached out to you and said, come do this with

us, develop this with us. You prefer not to do that? Well, I get no joy out of

just seeing my fat face.

on telly or in a film.

I like the creative process. That's the buzz for me, coming up with an idea and

doing it my way, for better or worse, you know.

Even if more people hate it than love it. I mean, I've had a... You do what

wanted to do. Yeah.

Place yourself.

Yeah, exactly.

The limited number of episodes of The Office that you did over in the UK was

many? Everything I've done, I think nearly everything I've done, was two

of six.

and a special i did that with the office i did it with extras i did it with

derek i did it with an idiot abroad um and uh i think that sort of works for me

because you put everything into it so they're like they're like mini series

they're not they're not traditional sitcoms in the sense they can go out in

order because there's a trajectory um they develop the characters develop and

there's an arc and you can't do that for long you can't keep doing those twists

and turns for long because you either repeat yourself or you run out of ideas.

Now when you are, now obviously American entertainment, that industry has

mined British content forever in various forms and brought it over here and

packaged it their own way. How did that process begin for you with The Office?

Meaning the show was a hit in the UK?

Yeah.

Who contacted you and said, we'd like to... But again, it was a hit in the UK.

It went out on a Monday night at 9 .30 on BBC Two, which

is essentially a fringe channel.

And it didn't cost much.

You know, it wasn't huge. It got like, I think, one and a half million, which

was good, which was good and great.

And then it was repeated and it sort of doubled. So word of mouth, which is the

greatest. There's still nothing like it, you know.

And then the second season started with, I think...

sort of three and a half million, and then the special went up to like five or

six, which was a triumph on a smaller channel.

It was big for its genre, its plot, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like...

EastEnders. No, exactly, yeah.

People had to turn at least one dial to find it, which was... That dates us, by

the way, when we go like this. I know, I know, yeah. That was a conscious

decision, though, because...

because I've always sort of demanded final edit, there is a compromise.

And to get final edit, I have to go to smaller channels. I couldn't get final

edit on a network or BBC One.

So I went to BBC Two and HBO.

But then Netflix comes along and I get final edit and no interference.

And the sky's the limit. So it's the best of all worlds. So who comes and

her doorbell about bringing it over to the United States?

So...

I didn't expect it to travel. I just wanted to be in the gang and have a

in comedy.

And I get a call on my mobile. I'm in Wardour Street, and I get a call from

Silverman. And he says, Hi, I'm Ben Silverman. I work for... I want to take

show and make it for America.

I went... He said, where are you?

I said, oh, I'm in Wardour Street. He said, I'm round the corner, I'll come

find you. So we had a coffee and he said all these things and I thought, oh, why

not? We started the ball rolling and it was when I went out to the Golden Globes

when The Office won.

I think I won Best Actor in a comedy and it won Best Sitcom, which was a total

surprise. I nearly didn't go because I thought it's a long way to go to lose.

For the L .A. people, it's a car ride. For everybody else, it's a plane ride.

Yeah, exactly.

And I thought, of course I'm not going to.

And so that was surreal.

And that week, we had a meeting with Ben and talked about the remake.

And at first, they said, well, you could be in it. And I said, well, what's the

point of that?

That doesn't make any sense. I did mine, and I'm done with it.

And I treated it like a cover version.

You know, like, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

Steve Carell and the cover band. This was before we even cast.

And they said, OK. And then we cast and we found Steve Carell and the rest of

the amazing cast.

And it sort of went through the same thing. They did a testing, right?

And it came out really low.

And I remember Greg Daniels sent me an email saying, arm of it down, we scored

low on this testing.

And I went, congratulations.

We scored the lowest ever joint bottom with women's bowls.

And we didn't change a thing. I said, don't panic.

That's good. That's what we want.

Exactly. That's a good sign. We're right where we want to be. Yeah. And they did

six episodes.

And it did okay.

And I knew it was precarious, but I was still giving him encouragement, saying,

no, don't worry about it. You know, it's better to make a good show and it fail

than make a bad show and it succeed.

And they didn't understand that. When you do the show and they're going to

launch the show, how involved are you creatively in the casting?

Or did you consign the whole thing to other people? Well, they used the

for the first few, which I think...

in retrospect uh it got better and better the more they moved away from our

scripts because as i said it should always it should be made for americans

americans you know the i think one of the successes of the the my version of

office was that i worked in an office for 10 years so i knew the details i

what it was to be british working in an office at the beginning of the the

century and you've got to do the same but different and they did make it

different And it should be, because America is different to the UK. And if

you're dealing with realism and the minutiae of, you know, human behaviour

whatever, politics, social politics or whatever, then it is slightly different.

And I think they did six. And then it was close to getting canned, you know,

because it was network. But then they discovered...

and this is so in, and I still don't understand it, that its demographic was

best, because it had the highest proportion of people earning over a

With money. Yeah. And they did it again, and then it hooked, and did like,

I think it was 200 and something episodes.

That was good for you?

Well, I mean, yeah.

You know, syndication, again, I didn't even know what that was until it

happened. You do now.

I do now, yeah.

No, comedy in a place where the mind goes to tickle itself.

That's what she said.

That's good.

Pleasure to meet you. Where are you working?

Dunder Mifflin.

Any jobs going? No, not right now.

Just let me know. All right, see you around.

Bye -bye.

What a nice guy.

I think I've failed out, to be honest.

Yeah, it's difficult, isn't it?

To keep the integrity where you're going for that first... Little fat man who

sold his soul.

The little... Little fat man who sold his dream.

At the moment, with Bowie, obviously in extras, there's like this huge... People

play this ad nauseum.

That was amazing.

Very amazing.

Now, in your work, was that something that delighted you, was a side benefit

people you've gotten to meet?

Did you ever dream you'd be doing a TV show and Bowie would? No, exactly.

And particularly with Bowie, he was always a hero of mine growing up.

He was my favourite artist of all time. I discovered him when I was 15, 16. I

saw him...

singing heroes and I thought it sort of put your life in colour. You know, a

working class kid from Reading in Berkshire and you see this guy come on

thought, right, that's what I want to do. You know, I was academic up to that

point and then I wanted to be a pop star because of... So we saw a taste of you

as a pop star. Yeah, I know, yeah. We saw you. We kind of called it a kind of

a... We were both thin once, weren't we?

We said that to us you were a combination here of like aha and flock

seagulls. It was a little bit of both. Yeah.

Well, it was that was what would you say it was? That was 1983.

I was trying to do a bit of Bowie and sort of electronic pop. In fact, the

second time I met.

bowie that had been on tv on one of those before they were famous things and

he'd seen the clip of that and he came over to me and he said it seems my own

apology i've been ripping you off for the last 30 years i went all right don't

start right um yeah that was amazing it was amazing knowing him because You

know, as I say, he was a childhood hero.

And then I met him and became friends and worked with him.

Do they have that picture of me, by the way, so you can see?

Where's that picture of me from when I was on the soap opera?

There it is. See that there with the jeans jacket? See that? Where'd he go?

Wow. What happened to him? A waste.

Incredible. I meant a waste, not a wife. Yeah, yeah.

I had a really nice wave. Yeah, yeah.

And that went to waste.

Look at us. Look at us. Yeah, I know.

Well, what are you going to do?

Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing we can do. There's nothing we can do.

After that picture was taken, I discovered beer and pizza.

I eat a pint of ice cream watching MSNBC, and I get to the bottom and I go,

did that happen? I don't regret a thing. I didn't eat that whole thing. I don't

regret a thing. No, this is the thing. People say, oh, you know, listen, we're

both going to die, okay?

And people say to me, oh, if you gave up, you know, wine and beer now and all

those...

Fatty foods, you'd live 10 years longer.

But they're the last 10 years.

They're the worst 10 years.

In Japan?

Yeah. Oh, tell me about it. If I get to 80 and they said, oh, you've got another

10 years, I'd say, oh, great, can I have 20 to 30 again? They'd go, no, you've

got to have 80 to 90.

I've seen people in their 90s just sit in an armchair like this and go, oh,

broken every bone in my body.

No. Just eat and drink too much and die.

Now, speaking of that, how has your, have you mellowed? Because when people

think of you, they think of you, it's funny, but it's acerbic. I mean, you can

be really tough on people and you can be really wicked.

Well, that's because the truth can seem acerbic when it's been suppressed for so

long. I don't buy this sacred cow nonsense.

You know, I mean, you're probably talking about the Golden Globes when...

I went out and told some jokes about some famous people in the room.

This wasn't a room full of wounded soldiers.

No. They were the most privileged, happy people.

Yeah, of course. And it wasn't that bad.

What did I say that was so wrong? I think people just thought, oh, we're not

used to a roast. Are you referring to the first time you did it or the second

time you did it?

I think the second time I did it. The first time you did it and then you were

asked to do it again. Why did you do it again?

Because I thought I could do a better job.

You enjoyed the venue?

Yeah, I thought I could, I thought I was, it was okay, but I thought I could

a better job. And the second time, I sort of came out all guns blazing, and I

thought, let's go for this, and, you know.

But I still stand by it. I didn't go, I wasn't trying to ruin people's night or

undermine the moral fabric of America.

I was telling jokes, and I think people didn't quite understand that, because I

thought, well, who's this little fat Brit?

teasing us. But I found in this business, and this is not any

observation, but I found in this business that there's some people, some

startling example of people who make their living kind of prodding and poking

and disturbing other people and mocking other people. And you turn it on them

and they're miserable.

Of course, yeah. People can hand it out but not take it. But I think it depends

on the target. I think it's okay for me to tease.

people who are richer and more handsome than me. Do you know what I mean? And I

didn't go after anyone, anything they couldn't help. I went after their public

behaviour. I teased them about it. You didn't help them about anything. No,

exactly.

And no one wants to be the butt of the joke, but often people get offended when

they mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target. And often they're not

the same.

So I think that's... Sometimes if I deal with taboo subjects, they say, oh, you

shouldn't joke about that. I go, well, let's look at the joke.

It depends on what the target is, particularly if you're using irony.

You know, you can tell jokes about things without it being the wrong

So it depends on the joke.

What was media, TV, movies, music, anything cultural, what was it like in

childhood? How did you grow up? Your mom, your dad, what was the household

in terms of culture?

The TV was a portal to the rest of the world. What did your dad do?

My dad was a laborer.

He worked on the building sites all his life. He was a Canadian soldier who

volunteered for the war, left Canada, came over, met my mom in the war. What

she do?

She was a... Mum. Yeah, a mum, a housewife, yeah. How many siblings do

I've got two older brothers and an older sister. I'm the youngest by 11 years.

Yeah. I remember when I was about 13, I asked my mum why my brothers and sisters

were so much older than me, and she just said, you were a mistake.

I wanted to say they were all mistakes.

That seems right, doesn't it? Yeah, I just laugh.

So, yeah.

That's when you develop the shell.

Exactly, yeah, yeah.

I'm mistaken, am I? Show after you've heard. Right, I'll show you.

And, yeah, TV was everything.

I used to watch it all the time. I used to watch nature programmes.

I'd learn from TV. I wanted to learn.

I sucked up knowledge. I'd be out in the garden. I'd see something on TV, and

I'd go out in the garden. I'd root around, and I was in awe of science. Did

mimic? Yeah. When you watched it, did you repeat it and kind of go into that

world? And I tried to make people laugh all the time.

I thought I was experimenting.

I was just pushing the boundaries.

And I was a good kid, but I answered back.

I thought I was... I thought I was smart, so I'd annoy teachers. I didn't

understand why I couldn't answer back.

I just wanted to learn and have fun. I thought life was an adventure.

There was no, I just wanted to do anything I wanted every day. Was there a

before being a performer?

No, I knew, but I kept up with that. I just wanted to have fun every day and

learn as much as I could. I think I knew from an early age that life was finite,

and this is all we've got, so you've got to enjoy every day.

I know, crazy.

So I knew life was all about fun and learning was a hobby.

Was your mother fun?

Yeah, she was honest. She was very honest.

Is that what you get that from? I think so.

Your searing insight?

But I knew it was funny. I knew it was funny being honest.

I remember once I was a kid and we were all around there one Sunday

and my dad was just sort of reading the paper and my mum was saying...

He hasn't put any money away for his funeral, right? So when he dies, we'll

to pay for that. And he's just quiet. And my dad just went, bury me in the

garden. Like that.

What's your tipple?

Um, vodka and coke.

Me, lager.

Uh, Finchie, lager.

Gareth, lager, sometimes cider. So, different drinks for different needs.

Yeah. Good.

Well done. Well done again. Congratulations.

Thanks.

New secretary.

Good.

Efficient.

You know, for me, the joy, and I assume it's true for you as well, Bowie, or

Bowie, as you say, one example, has the joy also been for you, who you get to

work with, who you get to meet? I'm always sort of thinking, oh, God, I got

work with this person, people I worship.

I look back at the first time I went to the Golden Globe Awards, and again, I'm

walking around, and there's Jack Nicholson, and, I mean, icons, you know,

Eastwood, who apparently...

When we went up on stage, me and the cast, to get the award, Clint Eastwood

said, Who the f*** are they?

And I want that to be true.

Because no one knew who I was. But I've never really... I've never put any value

in fame, per se.

Do you know what I mean? I've never been... You're onto it.

Yeah. It's always fascinated me.

I've fascinated...

And not just people who become famous as an upshot of what they do, like a great

musician or a great actor, but people who just want to be famous for anything.

That new breed of fame, that reality breed of fame, the people who live their

life like an open wound, do anything and are rewarded for it.

That's always fascinated me. And David Brent wanted to be famous for anything,

and that was the joy. That's why he did this documentary.

And once you know he's showing off and thinking he'll be discovered...

Everything makes sense.

His desperation makes sense.

Him wanting to be PC, him wanting to be loved.

It all makes sense, you know. And getting back to talking about the

between the American office and the English office, as a good analogy for

difference between America and England is it had to be different because

Americans are more positive and they're often harder working. And Americans are

brought up to believe they can be the next president of the United States.

And it's true.

Whereas Brits are told it won't happen to you. Oh, unbelievable.

You know... We've taken it a little too far as far as I'm concerned.

Let's not even go there.

And you don't.

When you do your routine, do you touch on that? I don't bring politics into my

stand -up or comedy in general, particularly not party politics. Not

worried about offending half the people in the room.

It's because I think if you're getting a round of applause...

for saying something that they agree with, that's rallying. It loses

comedically for them to agree with your politics. That's called masturbation.

Yeah, and I think comedy is an intellectual pursuit.

The joke should work for whatever your belief, because it's

the semantics and syntax of the piece.

Let me ask you this, which is that, and I don't mean to lay this on so thick,

but, you know, obviously, I mean, I was so looking forward to you coming here

because you live in that rarefied spectrum of people in the business.

in the business loves you.

Everybody in the business thinks you're... I'm finished, by the way.

I'll cue you.

You live in that rarefied place where everyone in the business thinks that

you're... unbelievably funny and brilliant.

And with all the things you've done and all the things you've accomplished and

all the things you've succeeded at, what's something you'd like to go do now

that you haven't done?

I just want to carry on doing what I want. I love, it's a privilege that I

up in the morning, if I have an idea, I can go along to a club that night and

try it out. I love that. Or I have an idea and I can write it and I do five

things at once and I do it at my own pace.

And it's fun. And I, you know, I say I work a few hours a day. Honestly, I work

a few minutes a day unless I'm literally filming something.

If I have one idea, I take the rest of the day off because there's pressure.

You've got to keep experiencing life to have an idea.

Otherwise, you're in a vault.

What are you going to write about?

So I try and live a fun, easy life.

And, yeah.

Not take it too seriously. Not take it too seriously, because we're all going

die, you know?

Hopefully, sooner than later. Oh, hopefully, yeah. We're not ourselves in

wheelchair. Well, again, yeah, I often sign off my Facebook Lives with, thanks

for following, I hope you die in your sleep.

And that's a nice thing to say.

My acting juice. But I want to ask you this, which is your new movie is called.

Oh, yeah. Bad Times at the El Royale. Bad Times at the El Royale. And then

you do movies now, I mean, as we're researching this conversation with you

we're going over this unbelievable map of where you've been and what you've

done. It seems in the research we did, it seems in looking into you and things

you've said.

you don't like to work all that much. You're not like burning to go to work

the time.

There's got to be, the stars have to align a certain way. Why this movie?

How did they get you to say yes?

Well, my MO is that I really try not to engage and do, you know, accept a role

because I know what it takes. You know, you're away from your family, you know,

and you're away from all the other interests that you might have.

Your art. A lot of my music. I've got a lot of different things I like to do.

But in the big thing, is when you engage in this, there might be something

coming down the road that you can't do because you're doing this. I have that

question. And so I really try hard to resist to engage.

I did a painting once of a dream I had that kind of sums it up for me, where my

dream is I'm in a robot and I'm going down this big river with cliffs on

side. And there are these huge, oh, this looks very much like the whirlpool that

we're in right now. About this size, you know, this round stage.

And there are whirlpools all over the place. And my task is to navigate down

this river.

And at the vortex of each whirlpool is a gorgeous jewel.

And I will be rowing like this. And I'll go, oh, look at that. That is

incredible. Oh, that was a close one.

And go like this. And then, oh, oh.

Yeah, looky here.

Ah! And that's the painting right there. And the title of the painting is Jeff

Makes a Decision.

And that's how I choose my thing. You know, I try hard not to, but if it's too

cool, it gets me. And this script, Bad Times at the El Royale, was a good

example of that. You liked the writing.

I love the writing and, you know, I love going to movies and a bunch of love.

And, you know, being in the movies, one of the downsides is that we get

sophisticated, man. We see through all, you know, we see so much of the effort

and what it takes.

And when the filmmaker is ahead of you and taking you in places that you don't

expect, you've done some wild movies like that. You don't know where it's

That engages you, you know, as the audience. And this was one of those.

What are you doing here, Father?

Do I know you, son?

No, but I mean, this is not a place for a priest, father.

You shouldn't be here.

We might need to work on your sales pitch, son.

The El Royale, no place for a priest.

There are other hotels, father.

Maybe closer to Tahoe, I could help you find one.

I'm sure you would be happier there.

Miles, is it?

If this is not a place for a priest, Miles, then this is exactly where the

wants me.

Steve Clovis. Do you know Steve Clovis? I know of him, yeah. Oh, God. So first

-time director, first -time writer, writer -director. Baker Boys.

Man, I dug him. He was a great director.

And like you say, you know, writer -director, you think, oh, is he just

the director gig because he's the writer?

So I was a little concerned about that, but not much because I met him. I liked

him very much. And we would do these maybe for a couple of months before the

show. We would come over to my house and we would improv, do improvs, you know.

And Steve said, OK, here's the improv.

Jeff, you are 16 years old.

You have.

And late at night, about 3 o 'clock in the morning, you've broken out of your

house and you've gone to this bar where your hero, Bill Evans, is playing piano.

And Bo, you're the big brother, but you're not in this yet. And I will play.

I'm talking to Steve.

He says, and I will be Bill Evans.

I will have just gone into the men's room to shoot up. And I'm coming back.

I join you at the bar and I bum a cigarette off you.

And Bo, when I put my hands through my hair like this, you're going to come in

and get your little brother out.

So we did this improv, and it lasted 10 minutes or so.

And I saw how he totally engaged with his part. You know what I mean? He

totally committed to being Bill Evans.

And I said, oh, this guy knows what it is.

And that got my confidence in him right up there.

How often had you worked with your brother before Baker Boys?

Well,

not professionally.

Not in the movies?

Not in the movies, but Bo, you know, my dad, as I was saying, he was away.

a lot of the time making movies.

And so Bo was eight years older than I am. He kind of helped raise me, taught

the sports. He was a very athletic guy.

Played under Wooden at UCLA, scouted by the Dodgers. He was a big athlete.

And one of the challenges of young actors is, well, who do we perform to?

We need an audience to do our stuff.

So Bo came up with this idea of renting a flatbed truck.

and we'd get some scenes together, and we would pull into a supermarket, and

father taught us how to fake fight, you know, stage fight. We would put on a

fight, and people would say, oh, no, stop it, stop it, and then we'd say, no,

it's a show, and we'd jump up on the flatbed truck, and we'd do our scenes

the cops would come, and then we would try to include...

You're doing such a bang -up job a few months ago. You had them paying us not

play. That's genius.

What are you doing?

Are you employing Mr. Lebowski?

Wait, let me explain something to you.

I am not Mr. Lebowski.

You're Mr.

Lebowski. I'm the dude.

So that's what you call me, you know?

That or his dudeness or duder or, you know, El Duderino, if you're not into

whole brevity thing.

And obviously the Coen brothers.

The brothers.

The brothers, yeah.

What can you say? Let's say the brothers. Well, having my own brother

my brother, but thinking about directing a movie with you. Can you direct a

movie with your brothers? No. Oh, man, no.

I remember asking myself. I can barely get through a poker game with my

Not that you don't love.

Oh, they're great people.

But not to direct them. I say, how did you guys do that?

And I can't remember. I think it was.

I can't remember which guy. How do they do it? Well, I said, why aren't you

arguing? He says, oh, we do that when we're writing.

You know, they iron it all out.

Is there an equivalency of when the directors are kind of pen and teller?

doing more of the talking, the other's kind of nodding at the end. Yeah, pretty

much that way.

Who's doing most of the talking?

Joel. Yeah, Joel. And Ethan will be walking around usually carrying a stick

something like that. And he'll occasionally make a point.

But they never...

You know, I remember the biggest upset, not even upset, what you would call a

disagreement in Lebowski when I'm about to hit, you know, had the dream and I'm

going to hit my head on the bowling pin.

And Joel would say, now when you hit the pins, you know, you're kind of wincing

because it's kind of hurting. And Ethan said, oh, really?

No, I think it would be more of a kind of annihilation kind of thing. Joel

really?

All right, well, let's just do it both ways. Okay.

That's the disagreement.

And I remember when they came to me with that part, they had, I think, won the

Academy Award the year before, and they offered me the part, and it really

looked kind of lowball salary. I said, come on, guys, come on.

And they said, no, you know what, we want a really low -budget thing because

want the studio to be beholden to us. We don't want it the other way around.

And that made so much sense.

You know, they'd just come off, I think, the Hula Hoop movie. You know, it was a

big movie. Hudsucker. Hudsucker. Scott Rudin. A movie I loved, by the way. But

it was a bomb for them. And it was tough for them. Expensive. You know,

expensive and a lot of pressure.

And so they kind of flipped that around.

And what that did is it makes everything on the set very relaxed because you've

got loads of time. You feel a sense of rush and we've got to make this date and

all that.

So that was great. And then working with him on True Grit.

You know, it was the same kind of thing. You know, they called me up and wanted

me to do it. I said, well, that's the John Wayne movie? Yeah, but that's

interesting to me. How would you, who I'm not going to say is reluctant, but

you're cautious.

Yeah. And you're deliberate in whatever way about the movies you do. What was it

like for them to come and do a remake of a guy that already won an Oscar? Well,

that's what I said. I said, why are you guys doing that? Why? What was their

answer? And they said, well, have you read the Charles Portis book?

And I said, no.

And I said, let me read it. So I read the book. I said, oh, of course, because

it reads like a Coen Brothers script.

It's beautifully written and funny and all kinds of things like that.

So I jumped on board. And like you, I didn't look at the Duke at all.

Just kind of went into it and had a great time.

So Lebowski, of course, you become the...

we can say any word, legend, icon, whatever.

Was that something, did you see that coming when you did that movie? No, I

I was, you know, upset when the movie came out originally. It didn't do much,

you know. I thought it was funny. We had a good time, you know.

Didn't do anything. And then it went over to Europe and became a hit and then

splashed back over here.

And then it kind of took off, you know.

fest you know these lebowski festivals you know i played i played that a couple

times with my band it's like i had my beetle moment you know yeah the dude the

dude is here they go nuts

Gosh, it was so fun.

People who love the dude, what do they love about the dude?

What do you love about the dude?

Oh, man, well, you know, the writing, all those wonderful lines, you know, and

the scenes, just one right after the other. Boom, boom.

You know, I'm a clicker guy when I watch TV and I spin, you know.

and I don't watch my movies too much, but when Lebowski comes on, I'll say,

just watch till Turturro licks the ball, and then I'll, you know. And I get

hooked, man.

That's like the godfather, you know.

And I just have to watch it, because they just, they've geared it up so it's

to watch, you know.

Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski.

Condolences. The bomb's lost.

My advice to you is to do what your parents did.

Get a job, sir.

The bums will always lose.

Do you hear me, Lebowski?

It's a real nice boy you got there.

Thank you.

Not around men much. I worry about that sometimes.

What about his daddy?

I made a lot of mistakes. I'm just trying not to make them twice.

Good boy, good mom.

Good biscuit.

Now, you've made countless movies where you are the leading man in the movie.

You're a very handsome guy. You've been a leading man in the movies most of your

life. What about some of your leading ladies? Who are some of your favorite

actresses you got to work with?

Maggie Gyllenhaal comes to mind with Crazy Heart.

She was wonderful to work with.

What we do is so great.

If you're supposed to be a king in the story and they're not treating you like

king, you ain't a king.

But if the people around you are also in the same story and you're the person in

that, that helps so much. I think Karen Allen in Starman.

I wouldn't have been an alien if she didn't do her part to create me being

Jessica Lange, man, you know, and King Kong. I think that was, you know, people

thought, oh, she's just, you know, a blonde airhead. It was just the opposite

that. So that was really a great job.

Rachel Ward. We had that big love scene in Against All Odds. And it was their

honeymoon, I think.

Her and Brian. Brian Brown. And thank God it was an actor who kind of knew

you know, what that is all about.

Yeah, what that's all about.

And Michelle, oh, God, what a joy she was in Baker Boys, you know.

Her voice was so wonderful. You know, she sang so beautifully.

And the soundtrack, they missed her best song, More Than You Know.

She was just so great at that.

I'm told, and you can explicate about this, that you didn't really want to do

Crazy Heart until you found out T -Bone, who's a buddy of yours, was connected

to doing the music. Is that true?

That is so true.

You know, I love playing music.

The script had been offered to me for a couple of years, I think.

And I said, yeah, there's a good script, but there's no music. What are the

music? The music's no good. You know, the movie's not going to be any good.

So I was kind of...

You know, close call. That almost got me in the whirlpool, you know.

And then I run into T -Bone.

And he says, what do you think about this Crazy Heart movie?

I said, why do you ask? Are you interested?

He says, well, I'll do it if you'll do it. I said, you're kidding me. There's

music. He goes, well, that's the easy part.

I said, really?

So there goes my excuse not to do the music. I mean, not to do the movie.

And it was, I've never been so anxious, you know, in a movie. Because I wanted

to. pull it off so much, you know?

My friends all say the same thing about you. They say, there are actors that

everybody in the business admires and loves.

And when you give them an excuse to vote for them for an Oscar, they're going to

vote for them.

They're so in their corner. They so want them to win.

And when you won, you could almost tell people, like, he's going to win.

Because everybody wants him to win.

And when you won, everybody was like, oh, God, that's so cool. That's so cool.

It was wonderful.

T -Bone said that you're... Not really the dude. A lot of people think you

be the dude. You're this California kid your whole life. That you're more star

man than the dude.

Is that true? I like that. Yeah, I mean, I feel like an alien to myself.

I surprise myself.

And now you play this, it's kind of a Kubrick film almost, the caper of this

Times at the El Royale.

You're a very, you're not a nice guy.

Yeah, well, kind of all mixed up. Yeah, yeah.

You know, like all of us, we got our underbelly, you know.

You know, we have the, you know, they got this carpet, and then you look and

say, oh, the underside looks like that, you know. I mean, you know, it's

different. We show people what we want them to see.

Well, let me just say this.

You're definitely someone to me.

Who's in that category where, I mean, I know you have other things to do and

you've got other passions and there's only so much time in the day. But on

behalf of everybody in the entertainment industry, please don't ever stop making

movies. Thank you. Whatever you do. I want to play with you, man.

We got to do it. Yeah. All right. Good.

Thanks. All right. Good hang. That was fun.

Jeff Bridges' latest film, Bad Times at the El Royale, is in theaters now.

We leave you tonight as we do each week with a story from earlier in the show as

animated by acclaimed illustrator Stephen Brodner.

Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.

With all the things you've done and all the things you've accomplished and all

the things you've succeeded at, what's the fantasy now? When I say fantasy, I

mean literally fantasy. You can have it any way you want to.

What's something you'd like to go do now that you haven't done?

I would like to live in a castle.

In the woods, surrounded by... A moat.

Endangered species and injured animals. I want to push open the door, just me in

a dressing gown, and all these animals come down.

I'm singing Zip -a -dee -doo -dah, and all these animals are coming round and

I'm feeding them.

That's beautiful.

Yeah.