The “really remarkable” director who brought out the best in Jeff Bridges: “A wonderful person”
The best or most memorable performances of any actor’s career aren’t always the ones that load their trophy cabinets up with shiny trinkets, something Jeff Bridges understands more than most, thanks to the most iconic turn of a storied silver screen legacy.
He won an Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’ in Crazy Heart and has been shortlisted a further six times, to go along with three Baftas nominations and a Golden Globe win from six nods. However, ask most people to name the most recognisable turn he’s ever given, and the vast majority of them won’t respond with anybody other than The Dude, who received zero major awards recognition.
The Coen brothers’ classic caper, The Big Lebowski, has endeared itself to millions, and in addition to being one of Bridges’ favourite performances, it’s ingrained deeper into the cultural consciousness than the rest. He didn’t need the awards because The Dude will be eternal.
The circumstances may have been different, but another entry from the Bridges back catalogue that rarely gets the credit it deserves is the part of Max Klein in Peter Weir’s 1993 drama Fearless. After surviving a plane crash, the protagonist convinces himself that he’s nigh-on invulnerable, with the near-death experience encouraging him to live life in the fast lane.
At his peak, Weir was one of the finest auteurs in the business before he eventually soured on the job he’d dedicated his life to. Ethan Hawke points the finger of blame at Russell Crowe and Johnny Depp for causing the filmmaker to fall out of love with Hollywood, but when he was active, nobody ever had a bad word to say about him.
Bridges is an upbeat personality at the best of times, and having been coaxed towards one of his best performances by Weir, he had especially high praise. “It was a really remarkable experience working with Peter,” he told Alex Simon. “He’s very inclusive, really enourages the actors to give as much as they can to the project.”
To help get himself into character, Bridges purchased art supplies and painted what he imagined Klein’s artistic feelings of his brush with death to be. Suitably impressed, Weir took his leading man’s improvised and extracurricular flourishes on board by incorporating them into the movie.
“He loves music so much and would always have music on the set while we were working,” Bridges continued, which explains his fondness for Weir when he’s always been a musician himself at heart. “He would have a big boom box with tapes that he would play to not only put the actors but the crew into the mood that he was trying to create.”
It might not be the most well-known or widely celebrated work of his career, but Fearless is easily up there with the best Bridges has ever had to offer, and Weir’s collaborative spirit was key.
