Laid-Back Jeff Bridges, Going Where the Spirit Takes Him

By ANNE THOMPSON
Published: June 28, 2004

Jeff Bridges is changing his clothes in the green room of the ''Tavis Smiley Show.'' He is shedding his casual Santa Barbara persona -- white Mexican shirt, gray linen slacks and loafers -- for a leading man look: elegant black shirt, gray suit and suede shoes. He is in Hollywood to promote ''The Door in the Floor,'' Tod Williams's $7 million film adaptation of the 1998 John Irving novel, ''A Widow for One Year,'' co-starring Kim Basinger. He plays a children's book author, a blond, bearded, charismatic, womanizing narcissist whose estranged wife is still grief-stricken after the death of their two sons in a car accident.

Early reviews of the film, which opens on July 14, positioned as relief for audiences sated by big action films, suggest it is the best role the actor has had in years. There is even some Oscar buzz about Mr. Bridges, 54, who has had three nominations for supporting roles and one for best actor in 1984 for ''Starman.'' This week he will finish filming ''The Moguls'' an $8 million indie gamble he calls ''a sweet Frank Capra-does-porn story.''

Leaving his beat-up brown leather briefcase behind in the green room, Mr. Bridges pops up on the television monitor. The actor adopts his familiar, affably goofy public persona with Mr. Smiley. But he takes care that the talk show host shows off to best advantage several panoramic black-and-white photographs from ''Pictures by Jeff Bridges,'' a 2003 collection of photographs he has taken over the years on film sets and on location.

Though Mr. Bridges cultivates a laid-back manner and likes to fly under the radar of superstardom, he takes all of his art -- acting, painting or playing guitar -- quite seriously. Later, in an interview, it becomes apparent that he wants people to underestimate him so that he is free to go where the spirit takes him, guided less by big paydays or commercial prospects than by his own impulses and taste, which lean toward the offbeat.

It helps that he has had more flops than hits. He has played leading men (''King Kong'' 1975), villains (''Jagged Edge'' 1985) and in the Coen brothers' 1998 cult comedy, ''The Big Lebowski,'' a pot-addled slacker known as the Dude. He played the portly racehorse owner Charles Howard in last year's ''Seabiscuit,'' which won a best picture nomination. He has slimmed down considerably since then and shows off his new form in ''The Door in the Floor,'' prancing around in the nude, scenes that Mr. Bridges plays with unabashed relish.

He said, ''I've gone out of my way to not take baggage with me from film to film,'' to avoid the kind of type-casting that plagued his father, Lloyd Bridges, first with the television series ''Sea Hunt'' in the late 1950's and early 60's, then the 1980 disaster film spoof, ''Airplane.'' ''I keep mixing characters,'' he continued. ''I go from the Dude to the president of the United States. That way I get different scripts, and keep it more fun. I'm not locked into playing one guy.''

He made his screen debut in 1951 at four months, co-starring with his mother Dorothy and brother Beau in ''The Company She Keeps,'' and 20 years later had his break-out role in ''The Last Picture Show.''

Mr. Bridges is close to his mother, who is now 85. She reads all his scripts and approved of ''The Door in the Floor,'' though she prefers him to play presidents (he won a supporting actor Oscar nomination for playing one in ''The Contender'' in 2000) and doctors (''K-Pax''). ''She didn't like the Dude,'' he admitted.

The Dude wasn't a stretch for Mr. Bridges, who has been open about past marijuana use. ''The Dude has a serious laid-back streak,'' Mr. Bridges said. ''I'm always busy, but I'm lazy as well. I wish I were more disciplined.

''I used to kinda worry about it being distracting to have so many interests,'' he continued. ''But I find that when I start to engage creatively, all my creative juices get stirred up and start to excite each other. And I end up making a drawing or playing music in the middle of studying for a scene.''

Mr. Williams, the writer-director of ''The Door in the Floor,'' likens his star to a creative child who has never had to face the embittering grind of reality. ''From Day 1 I don't think the guy ever tried to get work,'' he said. ''In a creative sense he is pure and undamaged.''

''The Door in the Floor'' is based on the first 188 pages of Mr. Irving's 592-page novel (the title comes from one of the spooky children's stories written by Cole, Mr. Bridges' character). Mr. Bridges himself provided the pen and ink book illustrations. He also tried to produce for the movie the life drawings created by Cole, who seduces women by having them pose nude. But the actor gave up after lining a location house's empty ballroom floors and walls with explicit pictures he deemed unworthy.

With ''The Door in the Floor,'' Mr. Bridges took a gamble on the second-time director Mr. Williams on the basis of his script, though he wasn't in love with ''The Adventures of Sebastian Cole,'' Mr. Williams's first effort, which cost a mere $350,000. It helped that Mr. Williams had persuaded John Irving to sell him the rights to ''A Widow for One Year'' for a dollar. (Mr. Irving wanted to stay involved in the film; he says he is happy with the final results.)

After Bill Murray failed to commit to the project, Mr. Williams insisted on Mr. Bridges for the lead. ''Ted Cole is a complicated character,'' the director said. ''He's selfish, creative, super-smart. And there is heavy stuff going on. And we sprinkle comedy throughout, overt or subtle. These are all things Jeff can do.''

The chairman of Paramount, Sherry Lansing, said: ''He's always been an extraordinarily gifted actor. He's just a generous soul.''

But even having the veteran actor on board did not guarantee financing. ''This is the kind of performance-driven film that distributors are afraid to make,'' the New York-based independent producer Ted Hope (''American Splendor,'' ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'') said in a telephone interview. ''They love it when it is perfect. People think the world of Jeff as an actor. But not, 'This is what makes the financing go.' ''

But only after Mr. Bridges agreed to star did the filmmakers land Ms. Basinger to play his wife, who embarks on a summerlong affair with his intern. (She had starred opposite Mr. Bridges in 1987's ''Nadine.'')

After four years Mr. Hope was finally able to scrape together financing from equity investors, foreign presales and a domestic distribution deal with his old partner James Schamus at Focus Features, a division of Universal. ''Both Jeff and Kim made this movie happen,'' he said.

Last month, Mrs. Bridges let her son borrow her Malibu beach house so the ''moguls'' ensemble (including Tim Blake Nelson, Ted Danson, Joe Pantoliano and William Fichtner) could bond before beginning filming the next weekunder the direction of the neophyte writer-director Michael Traeger.

''It's a bizarre tale, pretty politically incorrect,'' Mr. Bridges said, as his driver ferried him west along Sunset Boulevard to a rehearsal with the director and the actress Jeanne Tripplehorn, who plays his wife. ''A small-town guy having a midlife crisis gets the whole town together to make a porn film. I hadn't seen something like this.''

He has learned how to pick and choose his collaborators. ''I've had great luck with first-time directors,'' said Mr. Bridges, who has bet on rookies like Robert Benton (''Bad Company''), Michael Cimino (''Thunderbolt and Lightfoot''), Steve Kloves (''The Fabulous Baker Boys'') and Rod Lurie (''The Contender'') over the years. ''There's a certain power to naïveté. You don't know what can be done and can't be done. You just go for it. If a first-time guy is open to listening to all these experts he's going to surround himself with, you can come up with some really great, fresh stuff.''

His own resistance to directing? ''Laziness,'' he said. ''I know it's a tough job, it takes years out of your life.''

Correction: July 2, 2004, Friday A profile of the actor Jeff Bridges in The Arts on Monday included one director erroneously among those who made their first films with Mr. Bridges. Rod Lurie directed ''Deterrence'' before making ''The Contender'' with Mr. Bridges.