The movie Jeff Bridges was convinced would be a career-killer: “The final nail in the acting coffin”
Jeff Bridges is the epitome of cool, with an effortlessly breezy persona that has been perfectly honed to add to his eclectic array of characters, starring in culturally iconic films such as The Big Lebowski, Iron Man, True Grit and The Last Picture Show.
In real life, Bridges has always maintained an impressive level of humility and self-awareness, remaining grounded in the way he approaches Hollywood and his work. However, there was one project that rattled Bridges’ undeniable sense of cool, admitting that he thought it would be the end of his career as he knew it.
John Frankenheimer was perhaps best known for his 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate, a gritty war thriller about a Sergeant during the Korean War who has been brainwashed into murdering two of his fellow soldiers. He became known for his suspenseful dramas that often revolved around social issues with real-life commentary. In 1973, the director went on to make The Iceman Cometh, a story set in 1912 about the patrons of a dive bar called The Last Chance Saloon.
Many of the old Hollywood legends such as Lee Marvin, Fredric March and Robert Ryan star in the film, as well as a young Jeff Bridges, who was fresh off the success of The Last American Hero. However, Bridges was initially wary of agreeing to the project, saying to his agent that he was too tired after his last production. However, the director of The Last American Hero called up Bridges himself and said he’d be an ‘ass’ to turn down the chance to work with Frankenheimer, and so he reluctantly accepted.
When describing his inner battle over the decision to star in the project, Bridges said, “Maybe I’ll just do this movie. And maybe it’ll be the final nail in the acting coffin for me. You know, I’ll say, oh, this was a terrible experience. I’ll do something else. And it turned to be quite a unique experience for many reasons but one being that we had eight weeks rehearsal. You know, usually, if you’re lucky, you’ve got a couple of weeks. And we shot the movie for two weeks.”
Besides the rarity of being given a substantial rehearsal period, Bridges also described the joy of getting to work with actors who were at the top of their game, saying, “And I got to hang out with these old masters a lot, you know? And they were just as anxious as I was (laughter) about getting it right, you know, doing the material justice. And watching these guys dealing with their flop sweat and their anxiety and all that was kind of heartening for me. And I learned that that’s not something that goes away.”
Despite needing a fair amount of coaching, the chance to work with Frankenheimer is one that you’d regret turning down and one that would no doubt haunt Bridges had he said no. And regardless of the general fear of ruining his career, every good creative decision needs a dash of terror in order to truly test us.
