Jeff Bridges once named “one of my favourite directors to work with”
Having spent well over half a century as a fixture of the silver screen, Jeff Bridges has worked with many of the finest directors hailing from multiple generations of cinema, so it probably takes a special filmmaker to rank among his most favoured creative collaborators ever.
After all, the Academy Award-winning veteran has been under the stewardship of the likes of Peter Bogdanovich, John Huston, and John Frankenheimer. Visionaries such as Michael Cimino, John Carpenter, Hal Ashby, Francis Ford Coppola, Walter Hill, the Coen brothers, and Terry Gilliam are also on the list, which is a preposterous collection of auteurs.
Not that a stellar reputation guarantees a hospitable working environment by any means, but one of the most celebrated directors Bridges ever had the opportunity to partner with didn’t just offer him a new insight into the acting process. It instilled in him a belief system that he applied to his personal life.
As the architect behind a multitude of classics and more than a couple of all-timers, Sidney Lumet was somebody every actor would love to work with. The 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network mastermind knew how to draw phenomenal performances from his actors, with Bridges thrilled at the opportunity to sit under the learning tree.
That came on 1986’s psychological thriller The Morning After, where Jane Fonda’s struggling actor wakes up one morning with no recollection of the previous evening’s events, with the added conundrum of a dead body in bed next to her. Trying to piece together her missing memory, Bridges’ ex-cop becomes the only person she can rely on to solve the mystery and clear her name.
Fonda earned an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Actress’, and while Bridges didn’t gain any awards season recognition for his efforts, the experience was more than enough. “Working with Sydney Lumet – who was one of my favourite directors to work with – he loves to rehearse,” he explained to Charlie Rose. “We wound run through the movie with him, with Jane Fonda – it was a tough role, especially for her, it was really a demanding role – and we would go through the entire film two times a day.”
As exhausting as that sounds, Bridges found it to be hugely rewarding because Lumet’s reasoning was that familiarity with the material would enhance the drama on set. “His general direction was that, ‘I don’t want any indicating of how you’re going to do it when we’re filming. I want you to do it full blast performance level’. The idea being that’s the only way you can discover the deeper layers and get into the character.”
More than being a mere professional highlight, though, Bridges turned it into a personal one after incorporating Lumet’s approach into his everyday life. “I believe that with the self,” he mused. “It’s bottomless.” Going over the script repeatedly worked wonders for The Morning After, and the star was more than willing to peel back his own layers and peer inwards when the cameras weren’t rolling.
