How Jeff Bridges and John Wayne received an Oscar nomination for the same role
As one of the most monolithic figures in cinema history, taking on a mantle that had previously been carried by John Wayne is a tall order, but it’s one that Jeff Bridges took comfortably in his stride.
Obviously, it helps that Bridges is one of the most dependable performers of his generation who’s been delivering knockout performances in a string of critical and commercial hits dating back half a century, but such is Wayne’s standing in the annals of Hollywood history that very few of his movies have ever been remade.
Technically, Joel and Ethan Coen were adapting Charles Portis’ novel True Grit as opposed to mounting a direct remake of Wayne’s 1969 classic, but ‘The Duke’ was so indelibly linked to the role of Rooster Cogburn that the pressure was on Bridges to distinguish his own take on the character from the second his casting was announced.
There was inevitable and understandable hesitation on his part, given Wayne’s legendary status, but Bridges was swayed by the Coens reiterating that they were making a completely different movie that was a literary adaptation, not a do-over of Henry Hathaway’s elegiac 1969 epic.
“One of the first things the Coen brothers told me was that they were making a movie of the book and treating it as if no other movie had ever been made,” he explained to The List. “That was a relief to me because I didn’t want to jump into the Duke’s boots. It meant I could approach it fresh.”
Hathaway’s original may have only secured two Academy Award nominations, but one of them saw Wayne named as ‘Best Actor’. Regardless of whether or not the Coens were treating the material as completely fresh and untouched cinematic ground, the perception was always going to be that Bridges was playing the exact same character that won a legendary star his sole Oscar for acting.
Putting his own distinct spin on Cogburn, Bridges ended up earning a ‘Best Actor’ nod of his own for his performance, but he couldn’t quite emulate The Duke in taking home the gold. In fact, of the ten nominations accrued by the Coens’ True Grit – which numbered ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, and ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’, it didn’t win a single one of them.
Nonetheless, a solid case can be stated for the second version of True Grit being the better of the two, and it’s undoubtedly the more faithful to the novel. Whereas Wayne would return to the part in 1975’s sequel Rooster Cogburn, though, his successor as the eye patch-sporting hero would be a one-and-done effort.
It’s not all that often that two actors both earn Oscars recognition for playing the same character, but Bridges couldn’t quite emulate Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro’s Vito Corleones, Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s Jokers, or Rita Moreno and Ariana DeBose’s Anitas in joining the rare winners’ club.
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