"Jeff Bridges"

Speaker 2 I love to walk. I walk almost every single day.
Some of the shoes I wear wear out after a while, but some things are actually built to last.

Speaker 2 And that's what LL Bean has been doing for over a century, making boots with a level of craftsmanship that proves not everything has to wear out.

Speaker 2 Bean boots carry that tradition forward, handcrafted in Maine with the same care since 1912, made with full grain leather, durable rubber bottoms, and triple needle stitching built to last.

Speaker 2 These aren't shoes made for a single season, they're boots designed to take on years of rain, sleet, mud, and snow and come out stronger.

Speaker 2 Perfect for commutes, weekend hikes, or cheering from the sidelines. And when it comes to style, bean boots prove that timeless design always wins.

Speaker 2 They've looked the same for more than a century because real style doesn't chase trends.

Speaker 2 With every season, each pair becomes more personal, more distinctive, and a reflection of the life lived in them. LL Bean boots are simply best worn.
Find your pair at LLB.com.

Speaker 2 Crafted to last, ready for the outdoors, and timeless in style.

Speaker 2 Nobody wants to spend the holiday season clicking from one site to the next to get their hands on the best brands. But who knew Walmart has the top brands we all love?

Speaker 2 Like the big names that your friends and family actually want and all in one place. Nespresso, Nintendo, Apple, you name it.
Get the brands everyone loves at prices you'll love at Walmart.

Speaker 1 Who knew?

Speaker 2 Go to Walmart.com or download the app to get all your gifts this season.

Speaker 1 You guys got, okay, wow.

Speaker 1 The kitchen is crackling this morning. And it's an all-new episode of the Will Arnett Breakfast Podcast.
So get your turkey bacon ready because we're about to sizzle up some snacks.

Speaker 2 We're doing smartlist.

Speaker 1 We're still doing smartless. Yep.
It's the only one.

Speaker 1 The only one. Yeah.
But are we going to get to the breakfast? No, you should have had breakfast already, dude.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. It's an all-new Smartlist.
Smart.

Speaker 1 List.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 List.

Speaker 1 smart

Speaker 1 less

Speaker 3 So your mic's coming in from over the top today, huh? You're usually uh undermiced, aren't you?

Speaker 1 I'm using my 87, which is my broadcast mic. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Will, you have, it looks like you have sweat coming off your

Speaker 3 Will, are you nervous?

Speaker 1 I was running around. I am actually nervous, but I was also running around

Speaker 1 trying to get my mic fixed, and I could not fix it.

Speaker 2 And that caused all that sweat.

Speaker 3 How did you break your mic? Did you have a bad

Speaker 3 peanut butter chocolate session?

Speaker 3 What's the name of the...

Speaker 1 You know what I would say about that joke? It's lazy.

Speaker 3 What's lazy? I'm just pissed off because I still don't have free Reese's.

Speaker 1 You threw around just a bunch of info, but it was lazy. You didn't put it together.

Speaker 3 No, I don't usually.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm just gonna go.

Speaker 1 I'll tell you what's really well put together. It's a Reese's peanut butter cup.

Speaker 3 Are you sorry?

Speaker 1 I'm not sorry.

Speaker 1 He's the best.

Speaker 2 Wait, but Will, trying to fix your microphone whipped up all that sweat that's dripping from your face and your body?

Speaker 1 Wait, what's wrong?

Speaker 3 Usually one doesn't really sweat when you just plug stuff in.

Speaker 1 I had to run upstairs, get some plowers, get some things. It's hot in here.
I just took a sauna.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's why. But you have air conditioning on, right?

Speaker 3 No, he's still sweating for a sauna.

Speaker 1 I'm like, I worked out. I got, you know, okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 Sean, did you exercise at all today?

Speaker 3 Were you helpful to your body?

Speaker 1 No, not at all. No.

Speaker 2 Well, I want to tell you a little story, something that happened to me and Scotty.

Speaker 1 I want to hear a story. I want to hear a story about you and Scotty.
Okay, great. Here we go.
So it was a couple weeks ago.

Speaker 2 Scotty and I had a dinner to go to, and I walk out of the closet

Speaker 2 and I walk out of the closet and he says, He says, are you really going to wear that? I'm like, what's wrong with it? And he said, it's too matchy-matchy. We can't both wear the same color red shirt.

Speaker 2 It looks weird. And I was like, what do you mean? This is dark green.
He said, no.

Speaker 3 By the way, I haven't owned a red shirt since I was four.

Speaker 1 Oh, I have a red shirt. shirt.

Speaker 2 And I said,

Speaker 2 we can't wear the same. I said, mine is green.
He said, no, it's red. And we just both looked at each other because we both knew that, how colorblind I am.

Speaker 2 And I was like, oh, and I just, then I switched shirts. But when I was younger, I worked at the Gap.
Remember? And girls would come in and they want to put together outfits for their boyfriends.

Speaker 2 This is what reminded me of this. And I'd be all confident and they'd walk out with like a mustard yellow sweater and shit brown pants and like a bright red shirt.
None of it matched.

Speaker 2 And the coworkers co-workers would be like, after the transaction was done, they'd be like, hey, are you okay? Because

Speaker 1 that looks terrible.

Speaker 2 And they were like, are you sure?

Speaker 1 I was like, are you clowning our customers? Are you doing it to fuck with them? No, I wasn't. He's colorblind.

Speaker 2 I was colorblind and I didn't really admit it. And so I was putting together these things.

Speaker 1 And I got to start listening to what you're saying. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. I was surprised.

Speaker 1 I need help, right? I should know that he's colorblind. Well, it's going to cut my question.
I'm super, super, super colorblind.

Speaker 3 You would think that

Speaker 3 the gap, that would be like the first test they would give you. Probably

Speaker 3 with the security clearance. And then if you're colorblind.

Speaker 1 Now, you're colorblind. And what's the deal? You think that there's a cure in McDonald's food? Is that why you eat? I don't understand the crook.

Speaker 2 Hey, guys, I'm up for the challenge if that's what it takes.

Speaker 3 Chin Chin does not have a cure for food.

Speaker 1 I'm getting Chin Chin for dinner tonight. Not a shocker.
You are.

Speaker 2 But it's so funny because those girls, because they didn't know what looked good on their man. And I was like, I can take care of that.

Speaker 1 And I I was putting together these outfits that were so ugly.

Speaker 1 I can't believe it. Yeah, I don't, I'm not a big, anyway.

Speaker 1 What I do want to do, though, if I can switch gears for a second, I want to get to our guest because I am really excited. You asked me before if I was nervous.
Yes, I am nervous.

Speaker 1 It's not why I'm sweating, but it would not be unusual for me to sweat thinking about, you know, having this person on our podcast. This is somebody that I have a great, great deal of for real,

Speaker 1 what we call for real skis admiration for.

Speaker 1 I don't think anyone says that. People, a lot of people, well, they're going to start saying it.
For real ski's admiration? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it makes it sound less important.

Speaker 1 For real skis. But I'm really, really nervous.

Speaker 1 This person's been nominated, I think, for seven Academy Awards.

Speaker 3 Now I'm sweating.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Received an Academy Award in

Speaker 1 2009. I don't want to say what it's for because I don't want to give it away yet.
Could have received an Academy Award, in my view, probably five more times for other roles.

Speaker 1 This is a guy who has consistently delivered. I don't, I can't even name his movies because you're going to immediately know who he was.

Speaker 1 The first time I actually met him, it was only a few years ago because his brother played my dad. So, for a minute, he said that

Speaker 1 he was my fake uncle.

Speaker 1 He's a guy who started working with his brother and his dad when he was super young, and he has never stopped. And all he's done is really incredible, interesting stuff.
It's none other than Mr.

Speaker 1 Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 1 God, I was so close.

Speaker 1 Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 Jeff Bridges. I'm so cool to be with you.

Speaker 1 I dig all of you guys so much. Oh my gosh, Jeff.
This is so cool to see. Yeah, this is wonderful.

Speaker 3 Listener, first of all, you should know that Jeff is sitting in one of the yummiest looking rooms I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 This looks like a downstairs.

Speaker 3 This looks like a basement. It's got a wood ceiling.

Speaker 1 It looks like a set. It looks like a set.
No, well, it is. You got it, Sean.
This is the

Speaker 1 barn from the horror house of Heaven's Gate. Wait, what are you talking about? Are you being serious?

Speaker 1 Chimino, the director, you know, they were going to burn this set down because the owner of the land didn't want it on his property. And Mike said, anybody want it?

Speaker 1 And I raised my hand and we numbered the logs and we put it 400 miles south and set it up. And this is where I've lived with my wife for about 40 years in Montana.

Speaker 1 No way. No way, man.

Speaker 2 In Montana.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 You know, that's a film I've never seen.

Speaker 1 Heaven's Gate.

Speaker 3 That was the famous sort of like that it did, like the first big studio flop. But I've heard subsequently that it really wasn't that big of a flop.

Speaker 1 No, it's well, it's kind of a masterpiece, man. I mean, you know,

Speaker 1 so much of your experience of seeing the movies is how you're pitched, you know, what your setup is when you go in. Yeah.
And if you get these, you know, they had such terrible reviews.

Speaker 1 You know, one review was,

Speaker 1 if they shaved Michael Cumino's head, they would find three sixes.

Speaker 1 He is the devil and he's making devil movies. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 It was just terrible. You know, there was such animosity between all the suits and the reporters and everything.
But it's a brilliant movie. I would

Speaker 1 check it out if I was you. I think you might date.
It's a long sucker. You know, it's about four hours long.
My wife, Sue, just had a wonderful Photoshop. She was

Speaker 1 taking pictures all through it. And Wilmo Zygmunt, the cinematographer, kind of took her under his wing and...

Speaker 1 mentored her and there was this beautiful photo photographic exhibit that she's got in Livingston, Montana. And we had the producer up and Joanne Corelli, and it was exciting.

Speaker 3 You're a great photographer too, correct?

Speaker 3 Yes, my I feel like I've seen some really, really cool wide-angle black and white shots of,

Speaker 3 I want to say, Fisher King.

Speaker 3 Or do you do it on every single movie?

Speaker 1 Just about every movie since Starman. Okay.
Wow. And it's called a wide luxe camera, and it's a panning still camera.

Speaker 1 And uh yeah if you go on my site okay jeffbridges.com all right look at the photography yeah and you will see okay that's a good plug you'd like that but then you've got a rap gift for everybody every single film you do it's just about

Speaker 1 yeah and it's putting those things together you know the editing is tough because you take

Speaker 3 roles and roles yeah have you ever had some scumbag studio executive say hey hey hey hey we can't have you taking a bunch of photographs on set no man no no.

Speaker 1 And the Thesbos, you know, us actors, you know, I know what it's like, you know, to have

Speaker 1 any lens pointed at you that freaks you a little bit, you know. But, you know,

Speaker 1 I haven't gotten any complaints. And, you know, I'll give them the camera and we'll, you know, jam a little bit.
Right. Yeah, this time, they're getting the pictures, too.

Speaker 3 I'm so excited you're here.

Speaker 1 Hey, Jeff. So let me ask you a question.
I want to kind of get into it for a second. So

Speaker 1 I took a picture with you, Will. Remember our picture that I gaffed? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Our prom pose. Our prom pose was so good.
Yeah, yeah. At some point, yeah, you have to show that to the gaffe.
I know. I got to get that.
I don't, where is that photo? I don't know where that is.

Speaker 1 Who took it? Yeah. It's so good.
And Jeff's sitting on my knee.

Speaker 1 And we were both doing press for something, and we were in New York. And he said, you're playing my brother, Bo's son, so I'm kind of like your uncle, your fake uncle.

Speaker 1 But I wanted to ask you about Bo, who I adore.

Speaker 2 By the way, he played my dad on Will and Grace.

Speaker 1 And he played your dad on Will and Grace.

Speaker 3 I think he played my dad too

Speaker 3 in a thing called Thanksgiving Promise.

Speaker 1 Oh, he is a chorus. I think I was in that too.
I think you were too.

Speaker 3 I don't think we worked together, but I think both his sons were in it as well.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow. Wait, he's played all of our daddy.

Speaker 1 That's fine, man. So I'm all of you.
I'm your uncle. I'm Uncle Jeff.
So, Uncle Jeff. So, Uncle Jeff, Uncle Jeff, answer me this.
So, you and your brother, Bo, and your dad,

Speaker 1 Lloyd, starred in Sea Hunt together. And this is, I was going to kind of say, once again,

Speaker 1 not unlike our friend Jason here, you started at a young age working in TV. How old were you, Jeff, when you started doing that, the Sea Hunt?

Speaker 1 Oh, I must have been eight or so. Wow.
But I was.

Speaker 1 On my first movie, I was six months old. Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 And I heard you were a nightmare. Yeah.

Speaker 1 John Cromwell was shooting a movie, and my parents were friends with him, and they needed a little baby in the shot.

Speaker 1 And Jane Greer was the actress. And so my mom said, oh, take my baby.

Speaker 1 But I was a rather happy little kid. And I needed to cry in

Speaker 1 the scene. So my mom said to Jane, oh, just pinch him.

Speaker 1 And she did. And of course, I

Speaker 1 cried.

Speaker 1 And now we cut,

Speaker 1 35 years later, and I'm working with Jane in a movie called Against All Odds, which was a remake of her great movie, Out of the Past.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 we have a scene together. I say, Jane, I can't get there.
I'm having some problems achieving the emotion I need in this scene. Would you just please pinch me? I'm just going to disobedience.

Speaker 1 So it gave us a good chortle.

Speaker 3 Do you have,

Speaker 3 how is your trick for crying? Everybody's got a different, a different technique for crying on camera.

Speaker 3 Do tears come easy to you?

Speaker 1 I don't think so, man. What do I do?

Speaker 1 I look at a photo of my dad. Oh, I do.

Speaker 1 What do you do?

Speaker 2 I look at a photo of my dad. It's a lot.

Speaker 1 You do, and that does it. No, no, sorry.
Finish the sentence. He looks at a photo of his dad coming home.
At home, exactly.

Speaker 1 That makes him cry.

Speaker 3 Every time he hears tires squealing, it kind of triggers it, too.

Speaker 1 Gosh, it's always a challenge. How about you guys? What do you, you know, I'm not sure.
Jason, I heard one time, I heard a rumor, Jason, when you were doing, this is a true story. Yeah, is it?

Speaker 1 When you were doing, there's not a, I'm not setting myself up for Joe.

Speaker 1 You're doing a scene on Office Christmas party, and everybody was cracking up in the conference room, right? Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 And everybody was going crazy, and they're all cracking up, and you were the only one, and you had to keep it together, and you're not. And Will Speck said to you, do you remember this?

Speaker 1 We talked about this about a year ago. And he said, what are you, how are you not cracking up? Everybody's cracking up.

Speaker 1 And you said, I just imagine all of them dying and terrible things happening to me.

Speaker 1 I also, yeah, I also like. I was like, what a psycho.

Speaker 3 I do something similar to that when people get the giggle fits, you know, on a comedy or something.

Speaker 3 The only way I can keep a straight face is by just convincing myself that they are destroying the movie with their childish, sophomoric humor. I get like real high and mighty and indignant internally.

Speaker 1 And that's what you're keeping. What a blast.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Just, I just, I just find disgust in that.

Speaker 1 That's funny. It could be very funny for the other Fezbos, man.
Yeah, for the other Fezbos. Where'd you go?

Speaker 2 Jeff,

Speaker 2 what's one of the relationships that you

Speaker 2 cultivated on a shoot that you now, that ended up in a lifelong friendship? Like, is there...

Speaker 1 Well, you know, our dream come true was doing Baker Boys with Bo.

Speaker 1 Can you imagine how much fun we had, man?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 if it wasn't my brother, you know, you'd spend a lot of energy trying to figure out how do we create the illusion that we're brothers. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, you didn't have to

Speaker 1 mess with that.

Speaker 3 I still, I think about you every day when I'm driving on Sunset Boulevard with that incredible.

Speaker 1 Berlin Glenn.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Against all odds, right?

Speaker 1 Against all odds. Oh, with Jimmy Woods.
Oh, man.

Speaker 3 That car chase isn't that difficult.

Speaker 1 It hasn't been beaten yet. That was an amazing thing.
And it was right by my parents' house there in Sunset. We had

Speaker 1 all the traffic going east locked off. yeah right at rush hour and there are all these people going home to the beach

Speaker 1 and in the middle of the shot and we're going 90 miles an hour you're in the middle oh no let's not go to the beach and they'd hang a yui you know and get in the shot oh it was frightening you couldn't shut down sunset through all those rich homes right now today

Speaker 1 they'd never put up with it yeah no way you you jeff you did there were a bunch of movies you did in a row that i i mean first of all i feel like you've had like so many different kind of phases You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like you started, you did all these things early on, and you made a lot of great movies and Last Picture Show.

Speaker 1 And then you did, and then the 80s, you know, you did Against All Odds and a bunch of other, I mean, amazing Starman and all these other great movies.

Speaker 1 And then in the 90s, you did like a whole other, you had like, you keep on having these different phases and you made like

Speaker 1 Fearless, which I loved, which I thought was a really underrated movie. That changed.

Speaker 3 That's hard to watch. I can't watch that movie.

Speaker 1 Your performance of a guy who has faced death and then

Speaker 1 now is living his life with this fearlessness because of that experience,

Speaker 1 that really spoke to me. It was really impactful to me.
Your performance really, I really got it. I really connected with that.
And then that was actually after you had done Fisher King.

Speaker 1 And in the same way, I really connected with what... that character went through in that in that movie and your relationship with Robin

Speaker 1 was incredible. And it was a Terry Gilliam directed, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, man. Fisher King.
Tell me a little bit about that. Well,

Speaker 1 as you're mentioning these different movies,

Speaker 1 they start to explode in my head.

Speaker 1 Fearless was Peter Weir, who was just

Speaker 1 incredible. Yeah, Peter Weir.

Speaker 1 Director.

Speaker 3 That plane crash was just so well done that I just, I can't, I can only watch it the once because he literally puts you on a plane that's falling from the sky for minutes and minutes and minutes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that whole movie was, you know, but each one, they're like little lifetimes, aren't they?

Speaker 1 You know, each one is like a little incarnation, you know, and sometimes you get to work with the same people again. You mentioned Terry Gilliam.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 God, he was just so wild to work with. And Robin, you know,

Speaker 1 another kind of director wouldn't have allowed Robin to do the kind of stuff that he would do. But we'd be working, you know, 16-hour days.
It'd be four o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 1 Everybody's dragging ass.

Speaker 1 And then Robin would get up and he would start to jam on all of the cast and crew. You know, and he would go on and on and start busting chops.

Speaker 1 You know, and other director, you know, would say, okay, okay, Robin. But Terry would say, yeah, but what about him? You know, and Terry would drag him on.
And we'd go on for 15, 20 minutes.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, this is fun. What we're doing.
And we had the energy to complete the day. But Terry and I are still close.
We FaceTime all the time and catch up with each other.

Speaker 1 And then we did a weird movie, probably the weirdest movie. I think

Speaker 1 certainly the weirdest movie I've ever met.

Speaker 1 And I think it might be the weirdest movie Terry made called Tideland. Oh, wow.
I've never heard of that. I play a junkie rock star.
And most of the movie, I play a carcass, just dead, overdosed.

Speaker 1 But it's a very bizarre movie. And again, worth checking out.

Speaker 3 With all the time that you've spent on sets and

Speaker 3 all of these sort of families that

Speaker 3 you've met and built and then said goodbye to, right? All these groups of crews and casts.

Speaker 3 How much, and you're usually in a leadership position, such that you can affect the harmony, the ecosystem,

Speaker 3 the whole situation there.

Speaker 3 Is that an important thing to you? You seem like the kind of guy where it would be and that you would enjoy sort of setting

Speaker 3 a tone on the set so that we can all enjoy our work experience. You strike me as that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 That's the most important thing,

Speaker 1 I think. I mean, my dad, you know, you mentioned Seahunt and

Speaker 1 working with him, I was eight, you know, a little kid, and he would set me on his bed and teach me all the basics. You know,

Speaker 1 You know, don't, you know, don't just say your line. Listen to what I'm saying and then make that, you know, have something to do with the way you talk about it.

Speaker 1 Now, go out of the room, now come back and do it differently. You know, he would do all that stuff.
But the main thing I learned from him was his joy at work.

Speaker 1 And whenever he came on the set, that was just contagious. And

Speaker 1 just shot out. I got to work with him as an adult twice with Francis Coppola in Tucker.
Sure. And Blown away.

Speaker 1 And that was such a gas, man, to do that advanced pretending with my dad as an adult. We would jam so we had such fun, man.

Speaker 1 Advanced pretending.

Speaker 1 But that joy thing,

Speaker 1 because it makes you relax, right? And then all the best stuff can come out of that relaxation and you feel safe.

Speaker 3 And we will be right back.

Speaker 2 This message comes from the International Rescue Committee.

Speaker 2 The IRC has spent over 90 years helping people whose lives have been upended by crisis, often in responding within just 72 hours when emergencies strike.

Speaker 2 Every day, IRC teams support recovery efforts in places like Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, helping displaced children and families find safety, rebuild their communities, and recover hope for the future.

Speaker 2 Donate today by visiting rescue.org rescue.org/slash rebuild.

Speaker 2 One of the hardest parts about B2B marketing is reaching the right audience. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads.

Speaker 2 LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, and that's where it stands apart from other ad buys.

Speaker 2 You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company, role, seniority, skills, company revenue. LinkedIn will even give you an extra $250 credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself.

Speaker 2 Just go to linkedin.com slash smartlist. That's linkedin.com slash smartlist.
Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads.

Speaker 1 Paragold is the destination for luxury home. They've brought the world's best design brands together, including Visual Comfort ⁇ Co., Century, Schumacher, and Four Hands.

Speaker 1 From traditional to modern, indoors to out, their curated selection of furnishings and home improvements spans every style craving inspiration their go-to edits for home include expert styling tips and exclusive designer shops where trusted tastemakers pick products they love they promise a seamless experience with fast free full service delivery on most items ready for extraordinary shop now at paragold.com

Speaker 2 And now back to the show.

Speaker 1 Did you learn most of what you use today as an actor from watching your dad or did or did you did you study uh strictly you know like i studied a little bit at berghoff in new york yeah uh but i didn't really learn much there it's mainly on-the-job training you know i mean just

Speaker 1 and then and bow you know bow i don't know this is a story i've told before maybe you guys haven't heard it i'll tell it again if you like yeah please you know one of the tough things as an actor is like you know where am i going to get an audience to practice my stuff you know yeah so bow he's about

Speaker 1 in his early 20s. I'm about 15, 16 years old.

Speaker 3 Hi, Jeff, I got to tell you, you look terrible.

Speaker 1 15?

Speaker 1 For 15? Yeah, 15 years ago.

Speaker 3 We're going to have to side text you after this interview.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I didn't sleep well last night.

Speaker 1 So, Bo rented a flatbed truck. And we would get some scenes together.
We were working on some

Speaker 1 holding coffee, you know, what, Catcher her in the rye scenes, you know, and other scenes. And

Speaker 1 he worked at, because we were trying to get me an agent and so forth. We'd get this flatbed truck and we'd pull into a supermarket.

Speaker 1 And our father taught us how to do stage fighting. And so he would stage a fake fight.
Up in the flatbed?

Speaker 1 No, no, I in the parking lot, you know, and we'd get, you know, but it would get our, you know, we'd act the shit out of it. And the crowd would come around and we'd say, no, it's a show.

Speaker 1 And we'd jump up on the back of the flatbed and we'd do our scenes until the cops came. And then we would try to improv the cops into our scene, which really pissed them off.
No way.

Speaker 1 And then we'd say, okay, we're going, we're going. And we'd get in the truck and go to the next supermarket.
Traveling. Like the supermarket circuit, man.

Speaker 1 That's hysterical.

Speaker 2 But wait, so that was all in and around Los Angeles?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 what made you want to

Speaker 2 go to the farm life in Montana?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I did the movie up here with Clint Eastwood called Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Sure.

Speaker 1 And I fell in love with Montana. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Got me a Harley Davidson, you know, rolled around.

Speaker 1 Because it's the opposite.

Speaker 2 It's the absolute polar opposite of.

Speaker 1 Have you guys been to Montana at all? I have, yeah.

Speaker 3 I don't think I have, no, but I hear it's

Speaker 1 sweet, man. It is sweet.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then I made a movie called the Rancho deluxe up here, and that's where I met my wife.

Speaker 1 And then that's, yeah.

Speaker 3 And then what was she doing on the film?

Speaker 1 She was,

Speaker 1 they used to do brain surgery in this whole place. It was like a big, it's a hot spring and stuff called Chico.

Speaker 1 Chico Hot Spring. And she was working her way through college as a waitress or a maid.
I don't know. She did all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 1 And I'm sitting in there. We're in the hot spring doing a scene with Sam Waterston and Harry Dean Stanton, right?

Speaker 1 And Richard Bright. You know, we're looking there and we're saying, I can't take my eyes off this gorgeous girl, man.

Speaker 1 She's got two black eyes and a broken nose, and she's just gorgeous. I cannot take my eyes off her.

Speaker 1 And so I finally get the, you know, the guts to ask her out.

Speaker 1 She says, no, no.

Speaker 1 I say, no. She goes, no, maybe small town.
Maybe I'll see you around.

Speaker 1 And I said, oh, okay. And her prophecy proved true.
And I think it was at the rap party I saw.

Speaker 1 And we danced. And

Speaker 1 that was all through bro. Now, this is, again, a story I've told many times.
If you guys have heard it, try to act like you haven't heard it. No, please.
I love it. We'll do some advanced pretending.

Speaker 1 So now we we go yeah so now we cut 30 years later we're married we've got all these kids and i'm at my desk opening my mail and i opened this letter from uh the makeup man on that show rancho deluxe and he says i'm going through my files and i found something that might interest you you uh was two shots two photographs of a local girl that you were asking out

Speaker 1 so i have a photograph of the first words that I've ever spoken to my wife. Oh, wow.
Saying, would you go out with me? And she's saying no. And like, I have that picture.

Speaker 3 Did he know? Did he know he was sending it to you?

Speaker 1 No, he had no idea it was my wife. No, no, he had no idea.

Speaker 3 What a valuable thing.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. Yeah, that's my prized possession.

Speaker 1 Whenever I think we're not meant for each other or any of that stuff.

Speaker 3 How long have you guys been married now?

Speaker 1 Going on 45.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 How many kids?

Speaker 3 You said you got a bunch of kids.

Speaker 1 Three kids.

Speaker 3 Yeah. How old are they now?

Speaker 1 Oh, they're like, you know, 40, 36, 30.

Speaker 3 You got any grandkids out of them yet?

Speaker 1 I got three grandkids.

Speaker 1 Bennett, Barbaco, went to school with my middle girl, Jessie. She just had a baby.
She just had a little baby, Leon.

Speaker 1 And I've got Gracie and Ben.

Speaker 3 Do you, do you, I would imagine I'm going to be a real goofy granddad. I'm going to be very excited to watch.

Speaker 1 Oh, you think you're going to be less grouchy than you are now? Definitely. How many kids you got?

Speaker 3 Jeff, I have two daughters, 15 and 10.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 they're little angels. Oh, man.

Speaker 1 Two daughters. That's yeah.
So I got three girls.

Speaker 3 Did any of your kids go into the business?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 unlike my dad and my mom, who really encouraged me to go into it all. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I didn't do that. You know, I'd really drag my feet about going into it.
You know, I had so many other things that I wanted to do and I resisted. You know, but that's kind of my MO in life.

Speaker 1 I resist, resist until I can't do that anymore and get sucked in. But,

Speaker 1 you know, I didn't give it to my kids. Like, I didn't present it to them early enough, but they've cued me, you know, and I can say, oh, you got this.
You could do this.

Speaker 1 You know, and they say, no, I don't want to do that.

Speaker 3 Did you dissuade them at all from it? Because I know I do that with my friends.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. I didn't.
No, I wanted to come from them, you know, because

Speaker 1 my parents, like I said, I was carried on at six months old. I mean, they were shoving it down my throat, man.
You know, who wants to do what their parents want you to do, man? I didn't want to do it.

Speaker 1 I had other things to do.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm kind of the same. I have like, I have three boys, and my middle son,

Speaker 1 he's a really funny kid.

Speaker 1 But both his parents,

Speaker 1 my ex-wife and I are, you know,

Speaker 1 we're both in sort of comedic actors or comedians or whatever. And so we're like, we're hesitant to actually like push him into it.
But at the same time, we kind of want to just leave it open to him.

Speaker 1 And if that's what he wants to do, we're not actively dissuading him.

Speaker 1 And then there's the whole thing about competing with your dad or your brother. You know, I didn't want to get into that thing either.
No, exactly. Well, that's weird, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, Jeff, I mean, think about it. Like, yeah, your dad, Lloyd, was

Speaker 1 an actor for ever. Huge star.
And huge star. And your brother, too, man.
I mean,

Speaker 1 that's an intense dynamic. It could be anyway.

Speaker 3 The competition there or lack of it.

Speaker 3 Was it, I know, I dealt with that with my sister as well. And we were always just very kind of open and upfront about, we took it as a positive.

Speaker 1 Like, well, you know, listen,

Speaker 3 we've got extra things to talk about now at the dinner table, you know, like

Speaker 3 that's all.

Speaker 3 Was it ever an issue with you guys?

Speaker 1 I would imagine. No, it was really, you know, if, you it's like being on the same team, basically.

Speaker 1 And like you say, there's so much in common, so much great stuff that you can talk about, you know, that's not

Speaker 1 always like that in families.

Speaker 1 But I just didn't want to, you know, when we did Baker Boys, there was no competition. That was like just a gas, man.
It was fun and working with my dad.

Speaker 1 So I don't know, you know, so much about what we worry about.

Speaker 1 It's fantasy. It doesn't happen.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm such a believer in that, too. All the worst things that ever happened to me never happened.
Yeah, what's that? That's that quote, you know, what's his name?

Speaker 1 Samuel Clements, you know, what's his, you know. Is that what he said? You know, who's the guy? You know, I can't wait.
This is something, I don't know if it's COVID or old age, but my memory, man.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, it's me too.

Speaker 1 Do you guys have had COVID or no? No, you had a bad case of it, didn't you?

Speaker 3 But even before that,

Speaker 3 I reached for something in my head, and it's just not there. And then you try to, it's like trying to remember a dream, and the more you try to remember it, the further it slips away.

Speaker 3 And so now I just say, fuck it. I just, it'll come back to me in five or ten minutes again.

Speaker 1 Who wrote Tom Sawyer? You know, Mark Twain, man. Mark Twain.
Samuel Clemens. Thank you, man.

Speaker 1 Mark Twain said something about that. What you were saying, Will, you know, we worry about all this stuff.
Yeah, all this shit. And it's all just so painful, and it's all not, it's unneeded.

Speaker 1 Chaff, I'm glad we're talking about this now because just to get real for a second,

Speaker 1 I've been going through a thing lately, and I don't know know if it's because of the world around us or what. And I've been kind of like bummed out.
And I'm by nature, these guys will attest to it.

Speaker 1 By nature, I'm a very optimistic person. Joyful.
And joyful. And I wake up every day.

Speaker 1 Our dear friend Robert Downey said a few times in the last couple of years, nobody wakes up in the morning happier to be themselves than you. He said to me.
And it's true. I'm very happy and joyful.

Speaker 1 And I've been kind of bummed out, man. And I'm like, is it because I'm getting,

Speaker 1 well, I'm asking my uncle Jeff now. Is it because I'm getting older? Am I going through? I don't know what's going on, but why am I? I have a sense of ennui right now.
Yeah, but look at Jeff.

Speaker 2 Jeff's the most joyful guy we've had on the show.

Speaker 1 I know, but maybe he's gone through phases, man. Oh, I go through phases, man.
The emotional weather shit. Now, I wake up in the morning.
My mornings are terrible. So challenging, man.
Oh.

Speaker 1 I wake up and I go, oh, another day.

Speaker 1 Really? I've got to do it all over again.

Speaker 1 I got to do this. I do these little exercises that literally take only five minutes.
You guys might want to check it out, especially if you got any back problems.

Speaker 1 Yeah, called foundation training, and it's about two or three minutes, but it's painful and it's torturous. Yeah, and I say, I got to do that.
I go anyway.

Speaker 1 I got to have a couple cups of coffee, and then I'm feeling good.

Speaker 1 But you know, I think, well, it's the weather, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 and then also

Speaker 1 these obstacles, you know, the difficulty,

Speaker 1 the challenges of where we are now.

Speaker 1 Those are all opportunities to us to figure it out.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And also opportunities for us to kind of, you know, gnash our teeth a little bit.
Like the older you get, I think

Speaker 3 the more you become aware of things that are just not great. You know, you just become smarter.
Your radar becomes more acute and you can notice more things that could be better.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And the thing that, you know, your guys' generation, what is it now?

Speaker 1 When I first heard this word, I said, are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 You know, the great career now is I want to be an influencer. Right.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 and damn it, I want to be an influencer. I think that's, you know, and I guess we all are.
You know,

Speaker 1 in one sense, I talked about this thing that Bucky Fuller, you know, the geodesic dome guy turned me on to, trim tabbing.

Speaker 1 You know, he made this observation with the big ocean-going tankers, the challenge the engineers must have had with this to make a rudder big enough to turn this ship.

Speaker 1 And it took too much energy to make that rudder turn, to turn the ship. So they came up with a simple, brilliant plan of putting a little rudder on the big rudder.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So the little rudder turns the big rudder and the big rudder turns the ship. And Bucky said, this is a perfect metaphor for how all of us individuals are connected to society and our culture.

Speaker 1 We're all trim tabs. You guys, what you're doing here on the show, you know, this is all a trim tab and we're influencing.
We're saying, hey guys, what about this? Check this out.

Speaker 1 Am I the big rudder or the small runner? I love that.

Speaker 1 You're the big rudder. And I'm turning you, Sean.
I'm turning turning you. So listen,

Speaker 1 I will say.

Speaker 3 You've been influencing us and a lot of folks for a long time with all these great, great roles. And

Speaker 3 as Will was saying earlier, I love the way that you have bounced between, back and forth between leading man and character actor just so effortlessly for so long. No one can do that.

Speaker 3 You tell me one leading man that can, you know, bite off a big, spicy, chewy character and not look like he's chewing up the scenery.

Speaker 3 You got real chops, Jeff, and you always have.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Well, a lot of that came from my dad because I saw how much he struggled doing Seahawk.

Speaker 1 He got that character so down that people thought he was a skin diver.

Speaker 1 And they sent him a bunch of skin diving scripts. And he's a Shakespearean trained actor.
He replaced,

Speaker 1 let's go see here's a name i just forgot man of lamanche mark twain uh

Speaker 1 anthony quinn who did the who is the famous you know i am i don't see

Speaker 1 is that is that anthony quinn who is that no no it's but but on broadway you know he's and he replaced him and i remember doing a movie uh blown away a movie i did with him sure and i said to the producer hey i got a guy i got a guy who could play my uncle he kind of looks like me he's a good actor.

Speaker 1 And he's a guy. I said, who? I said, Lloyd Bridges.
And he laughed. And I said, why are you laughing? He says, well, your dad is a good actor, but he's more of a comedian, really.

Speaker 1 I said, what are you talking about? And it's because my dad did airplane.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's high.

Speaker 1 And so he was labeled for a while as a, you know, he just does comedy. That's right.
So I went out of my way to mix it up, you know, and do 180s as many times as I could early early on.

Speaker 1 I think that's really smart, man. I got a lot of, I did early on, people came to know me because of arrested development.

Speaker 1 I think that people thought like, and I played a lot of characters who were, people used to say, oh, you play a lot of assholes. And I said, no, I don't play assholes.

Speaker 1 I play characters that are like, that have a lot of issues and that are unhinged, but they're not, I never see them as assholes. I always just see them as,

Speaker 1 you know, not connected to reality in some way or they've got something going going on and like this character we did on arrested he was like he had his dad didn't love him his mom didn't love him either uh and then you know whatever but i but i think that you get into that as an actor i i feel like that for a lot of time people are like oh you just kind of do this thing and you're like yeah it's not really since when like who gets to decide that i that that's what i do now you know i love it where i love it when the comedians uh play bad guys like you know remember robin the when he did those two two or three movies back to back where he played the bad guys.

Speaker 3 One hour photo.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And then Albert Brooks played a bad guy. These guys have dark sides too that you can tap into.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Sean, show him. Take your hat off, Sean.
Show him.

Speaker 1 Show him your dark sides. You got crazy.

Speaker 1 That's kind of like a murderer tear.

Speaker 2 Wait, Jeff, are you still doing music? Do you still play?

Speaker 1 Do you still sing? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You know what I'm doing now is kind of, I'm going back into what I call my music mine and looking at you know a bunch of stuff that i kind of didn't you know have too much faith in and bringing those things out and i say oh i dig this this is pretty good

Speaker 1 i'm jamming with my buddy t-bone brunette you know

Speaker 1 to mentor me a bit and say you know what do you think about all this stuff shall i just make these little albums for myself because what's you know i don't know i you know i don't know uh i don't know what to do with it but i'm having fun with it i love music you know i like his wife too What a funny thing.

Speaker 1 Callie is so great.

Speaker 3 Really, really cool. If you could go back in time and see one concert from a band that's either no longer together or artists that are no longer with us, what would it be?

Speaker 3 I know mine would be Led Zeppelin.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. Yeah, I

Speaker 1 was thinking of the Beatles. You know, you see Ronnie Howard's that movie and they played that Last Shea Stadium thing with a good sound? Yeah.

Speaker 1 That concert would have been great, but I bet the sound was so bad that it wouldn't be that great.

Speaker 1 Do you remember a thing called Rock and Roll Circus? Do you ever see that?

Speaker 1 Check that out. Google that.
Rock and Roll Circus. That's a concert.
Something that the Rolling Stones,

Speaker 1 they

Speaker 1 hosted. And it's just, you know, I think The Who is on there.
I think John Lennon. formed a band for it.
It's a pretty wild little thing.

Speaker 3 Like an early music festival?

Speaker 1 It's an early music festival.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but it was like a, it was like like a circus vibe all in a sound stage i think it was something like that wow sean what would you go see from that's not no longer with us yeah maybe like the first oh this oh that's what you said that's no longer with us well yeah like or just could be no longer with us or a band that's now defunct yeah well i just got to say ronnie hawkins because ronnie just bit the dust recently ronnie hawkins and i don't know if you guys know him but he's yeah quite an amazing cat i would i would like to go see one of his early shows with uh the Hawks, who were, you know, then were that became the band.

Speaker 1 You know what I, Jeff? I was going to say, I wish I could go and see that last waltz concert. That's what I would have.
That would have been the goodie.

Speaker 2 I probably would have checked out the Carpenters. Is anybody still listening?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I interrupted you, Sean.

Speaker 1 The Carpenters, man. She had a beautiful voice, didn't she?

Speaker 1 Yes. Are you being facetious?

Speaker 1 I'm being both. I'm being both.
You're being both. See, that's real brilliance, man.

Speaker 1 Because I was a huge fan. I was a massive fan.

Speaker 1 But you're also being a little bit cheeky.

Speaker 2 No, no, but

Speaker 3 I'm never a big fan of the Carpentries.

Speaker 2 I used to listen to them all the time.

Speaker 1 And Simon and Garfunkel.

Speaker 2 I would have listened to Simon and Garfunkel.

Speaker 3 I'd love to see

Speaker 3 that concert they did at Central Park. That would be fun to go.

Speaker 1 One of my favorite concerts I went to was a double bill with Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. Oh, Jesus.
Wow. And Paul Simon comes out.

Speaker 1 They switched who would open for the other guy. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And Paul Simon comes out and he opens with something like America, you know, that lets you,

Speaker 1 you know, and he's got two drummers, violins, horn section, you know. And I said, how is Bob going to follow this?

Speaker 1 And Bob comes out. He's got, you know, a bass, a drum, a piano, and a guitar, you know.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And what does he open with?

Speaker 1 Hello, darkness, my old friend.

Speaker 1 And again, Sean, you don't know if his tongue's in his cheek or not, man. He's just perfect.

Speaker 1 Hello, Darkness. That's my song, man.

Speaker 3 You got a Bob Dylan t-shirt on, don't you?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Look at that.
Yeah. Oh, I'm a total fan, man.
Oh, wow. I got to work with him in another weird movie that he wrote with Larry Charles.
Do you know who Larry Charles is? Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What was the movie?

Speaker 1 It's called Masked and Anonymous.

Speaker 1 Check it out, man.

Speaker 1 Look who's in it. Look who's in the thing, the cast that he's in.

Speaker 1 But it was Larry Charles and Bob Dylan wrote this over about three years.

Speaker 1 Dylan's the star of it, and Larry was his first thing he directed, man. Wow.

Speaker 1 And it is a trip. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 What a cast.

Speaker 2 The albums I had on Rotation when I was a kid were, I wrote them down. The Carpenters, The Eagles,

Speaker 2 The Cosby,

Speaker 2 you know, Stanley.

Speaker 1 Comedy album. Album.
Comedy record. Yeah.

Speaker 2 George Carlin's comedy album. Yeah.
Yeah. And then, and Simon and Garfunkel.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Erasure Unplugged.

Speaker 2 Well, Erasure, everything. I know every word to every song.

Speaker 1 Oh, sorry. Fully plugged.
Erasure Fully Plugged. How about Nichols and May? Did you get into them, you know? Nickels and May? Nichols and May, of course, yeah.
Of the doctor stuff. What was it?

Speaker 1 A Little More Gauze.

Speaker 1 I once in the 90s went and saw in New York, I saw within six days of each other, I saw Dylan at the supper club. They were shooting something, and there was like 250 people there.

Speaker 1 And somehow, I forget how I got in, but I got to see. And then six days later, I saw the Jerry Garcia band, and I saw them within six days, I saw them both play Forever Young, which was really cool.

Speaker 1 Dylan and Jerry Garcia. And yeah, yeah.
And they played together for a while, too. Yeah, man.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 Looking for a running shoe that does it all? The New Balance 1080 is your ultimate go-to, blending comfort, performance, and undeniable style.

Speaker 2 Whether you're clocking miles or grabbing coffee, it seamlessly transitions from your morning run to your everyday life.

Speaker 2 With plush cushion support, your feet stay secure and comfortable run after run. And thanks to lightweight, breathable materials, you'll stay cool and fresh no matter how far you go.

Speaker 2 From race day to rest day, the new balance 1080 delivers the versatility and comfort serious athletes and everyday movers demand.

Speaker 2 Slip them on and experience what effortless performance really feels like. I got myself a pair of 1080s right before I came to London, and boy, oh boy, did I need them.
They are so comfortable.

Speaker 2 The soles are thick and it's super soft and plushy, and it makes walking everywhere such a pleasure. I love it.
Shop the 1080 at newbalance.com.

Speaker 3 Let's be real.

Speaker 2 We all deserve snacks that hit that sweet spot, delicious and better for you. That's where Skinny Pop Popcorn comes in.

Speaker 2 Skinny Pop uses quality ingredients to bring you the light and tasty flavors you love. Skinny Pop keeps it simple and tasty, using quality ingredients to create light, craveable popcorn.

Speaker 2 The original ready-to-eat flavor is made with just three ingredients, popcorn kernels, sunflower oil, and salt. Nothing more.
Nothing weird.

Speaker 2 And if you're feeling adventurous, they've got got plenty of flavors to choose from. White cheddar, sweet and salty kettle, and more.

Speaker 2 It's always non-GMO, gluten-free, with plenty of vegan-friendly options, too.

Speaker 2 I started taking a little bit of a more break from the sweet side of my life with like candy bars.

Speaker 2 I mean, I still eat them and stuff, but for movie night, I still go to Skinny Pop just because of the natural ingredients. I love it.
It tastes so good and it goes great with a movie.

Speaker 2 And my favorite is the original Skinny Pop. I love it.
I eat a whole bag in one sitting almost. Skinny Pop popcorn, deliciously popped, perfectly salted.
Shop Skinny Pop now.

Speaker 2 250 years ago, a promise was made to connect families and friends near and far. And during the holidays, that promise is more important than ever.

Speaker 2 That's why USPS is building a better network to meet your needs with timely deliveries, easy and affordable ways to ship, and everything you need to make your season full of holiday cheer.

Speaker 2 Their purpose is delivering your peace of mind, knowing your love will arrive, bringing joy to all. The United States Postal Service.
Learn more at usps.com slash holidays.

Speaker 2 And back to the show.

Speaker 3 Jeff, I want to ask you before we're done,

Speaker 3 I want to give you enough time to talk about the Cohen brothers if you can.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I was going to get to it. I want to talk about the Big Lebowski.
This is a whole subject, undoing it. Intrigue, yeah? Yeah.
Intrigue grit. Jesus.
But let's start.

Speaker 1 Can we start with Big Lebowski, man? How that came to you into your orbit and what that was like?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I can't remember exactly when, but I ran into the Cohen brothers, I think, at a party or something. They said, yeah, we're writing something for you, man.
I said, oh, great.

Speaker 1 Because I had seen Blood Simple and I was,

Speaker 1 you know, thought they were terrific.

Speaker 1 And then I got the script and I said, what? This is like,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 a high school version of me that you know

Speaker 1 you know

Speaker 1 what you're were we you know what you know you guys spying on me or something

Speaker 1 and uh

Speaker 3 so that's how that happened and well how did they but but but how did they why did they so they wrote it specifically for you and that character like that what was their answer to that why did i'm sure you said that why did you think of me for this part what what had they seen what had they thought i don't know man and i said do you sure?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 I have kind of a history of trying to get out of parts, you know, like with Terry Gilliam. I said, do you, why do you want me for this? I don't feel like this guy.

Speaker 1 I remember, you know, I pitched my other acting friends. You know, I said, what about this guy? You know, and I probably did the same thing with those guys.

Speaker 1 I can't remember what I played just before it, but it was nothing like, I had never played a part like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But do you remember, do you have a recollection, though, Jeff, of doing that movie? Like when you're like, when it's like you and

Speaker 1 John Goodman and Saturo and Steve Buscemi, and you're doing those scenes and you guys are all taking, you guys are all taking big swings with these characters.

Speaker 1 Were you guys going like, hey, man, are we out on a limb over here? Or are we good?

Speaker 1 We had such a good time, man. And when that movie came out,

Speaker 1 it didn't do well here. No? It had this hit Europe first, and then it came splashing back and

Speaker 1 kind of well after the fact, but nobody really got it, you know. Right.

Speaker 2 I auditioned for them for Intolerable Cruelty.

Speaker 1 Remember that?

Speaker 2 And I went in and met with them, and they were really cool. Like at the 20 minutes that I got to meet with them, and they asked me, like, hey,

Speaker 2 do you get stoned at all? Do you smoke pot? And I was like,

Speaker 1 like a little, a little at the time.

Speaker 2 And they're like, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 Good to know, thank you, thank you for coming in.

Speaker 2 And I was like, Oh, was that like the was I supposed to say like all the time, and then we could hang out?

Speaker 1 Well, they probably want you to score some of the weed for them, maybe that's what I want. Why would you hold there? Yeah, yeah, here's a weird thing, but I didn't, I was a pothead before I got sick.

Speaker 1 I can't smoke it, but I'm you know, I consider myself a pothead,

Speaker 1 but I'm kind of surprised that I didn't smoke one joint during that whole film. Oh, wow, no way, wow, No way.
Yeah, no.

Speaker 1 I figured, no, I read those lines, you know, and that good writing, it seems like improvisation, you know, but it's not. That's every man, every fuck, it was just well placed.

Speaker 1 You didn't want to mess with that music, you know.

Speaker 3 I wonder how close, such a specific character, such a great version of

Speaker 3 that writing that you performed. I wonder how close it was to the idea they had for the dude.

Speaker 1 I wonder. Well, they had a guy, you know, they had Jeff Dowd was a guy that that they kind of modeled the character after.

Speaker 1 Brother of Anne?

Speaker 1 No, I don't think so. It's a big world, Jason.
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 Fucking 7 billion people on the planet. Get wise, motherfucker.
Hey, you know what, Jeff? You know what's funny?

Speaker 1 We had Sean Penn on the show last year at some point, and he talked about how he's good, isn't he? He's a lovely actor. Yeah, he's a good actor.
He can do all this kind of thing. He's amazing.

Speaker 1 But he's like you. He's like you, man.

Speaker 1 He's just like you. You guys are cut from the same cloth, man.
And he was talking about doing Spiccoli, his character from Fast Times. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And then recently running into the guy that he always had in mind, who he based it on, and the guy was with his kids and stuff. So he didn't say anything to the guy.

Speaker 1 He saw him like on the path to go surfing in Malibu.

Speaker 1 And the dude was like, hey, man. He's like, oh, hey.
And he's like, oh, this is the guy I modeled this burnout character on. And now he's with his wife and kids.

Speaker 1 Who he's like, I'm not going to say anything.

Speaker 1 do you ever see uh this must be the place a movie that he was in that based on the david burns song you know the talking heads yeah of course david's in the movie too but that's another good one man he plays a kind of a burnout you know glam rocker or something

Speaker 1 no we have we had david on the on the podcast recently actually

Speaker 1 oh man the talking heads now when they came out man oh yeah they replaced the beatles for me oh really and i remember i ran into David at some bar or something in New York, and I was, I just, you know, I had a few drinks on it.

Speaker 1 I just gushes,

Speaker 1 David, you're music, man. I mean, it's so incredible.
You know, and he's just,

Speaker 1 I said, no, man, I mean, like the Beatles, you're better than the Beatles, man.

Speaker 1 And he just stood there. And he just, there was no answer.
And I finally just had to walk away. Walk away.

Speaker 1 By the way, I do that. I'm very passionate about music too, and I do that a lot to musicians.
I corner them all the time.

Speaker 1 What about his shows? What about that American utopia? Yeah, that's incredible. I saw that live.
That's incredible. And the movie's great, too.

Speaker 1 And I also saw the Stop Making Sense tour at the Greek theater. Wow.
Oh, really? The Greek theater. You've seen that movie? Well, of course, yeah.
And he shot that here on his stage, that movie.

Speaker 1 Jonathan Demi, man. He shot that.
God, he knows where to put.

Speaker 3 I feel like you worked with Jonathan Demi, didn't you?

Speaker 1 No, I would love to have, but no, but he was a wonderful God. Amazing.

Speaker 2 I want to know. So, the place where you're at right now is a farm.
Is it actually a farm?

Speaker 1 So we called it a ranch. A ranch.
A ranch.

Speaker 2 And do you actually do work around there?

Speaker 1 Do you have the animals? We had, you know, we had a bunch of cattle and horses and all stuff. We don't need more.

Speaker 3 Shot them. You should just shot them all.

Speaker 1 Shot them buried down there.

Speaker 3 It was a slow Sunday.

Speaker 1 It's like, honey, we're going to do something fun. Let's see how many cows.

Speaker 3 You know, something I ask people that have had a ton of said experiences, you have,

Speaker 3 have you ever been drawn to direct, to use all that you have absorbed and put it all in

Speaker 1 that role? that character? Yeah, a little bit, because I've been digging your direction in Ozark, man. I think, God, that must have been fun, man.
Oh, God.

Speaker 1 He writes it, directs it, acts so brilliantly.

Speaker 3 But you're very nice. But you're, you're, you're, you're, the stuff you have absorbed and from the directors that you've worked with.

Speaker 1 But you know, you know, and I've had, I've had great luck with first-time directors, you know, really incredible. I'm thinking of Baker Boys, Steve Clovis.

Speaker 1 You know, he must have been 24 when he wrote and directed that.

Speaker 1 No way.

Speaker 1 And I've had just great, great experiences with these guys. And, you know, as an actor, you know,

Speaker 1 if you create this loosey-goosey, you know, joyous feeling, you're all given ideas. And so I get a lot of my wanting to direct out and just, you know, being on the team and say, hey, what about this?

Speaker 1 You know, what about that? That kind of thing. Yeah, I think that you say you've had a lot of luck with like first-time directors and stuff.

Speaker 1 But I bet you, Jeff, I bet you've spent your life making your own luck. And I bet you're coming with a good attitude.
And I bet you that is

Speaker 1 fostered.

Speaker 1 You know, I bet you all of those first-time directors are lucky to have had you making their

Speaker 1 guy in their movie. Fuck yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but those first-time, I mean, look at Orison Wells. We haven't done much better than Citizen King, man.
Right.

Speaker 1 And it was all that stuff that he didn't know what he couldn't do. He just said, let's jam, you know, and who's the famous DP Tolton, Greg Toland, you know.
He was the old master.

Speaker 1 And there was a story that Peter Bagdanovich, who was a real scholar with movies, he told me a story because he was tight with Orson Welles. And

Speaker 1 Orson said,

Speaker 1 I can't really get the stage direction, that thing. And Toland said, oh, just come over in the weekend.

Speaker 1 Don't you love it with the masters when they don't put any kind of pretense and they're just, I'm one of you guys. You know, I love it.

Speaker 1 And Toland, you know, said, you know, you're the guy. I want to do it.
you do your vision. You know, how old was he when he made that? Was he 24 in his 20s, I think? Something like that.

Speaker 1 And so Wells is in there and it was in the days when everybody wore suits and ties and shit. You know, it worked.

Speaker 1 And he said, no, with the lightning, I want it to come like this, you know, to the gaffer and stuff. And the gaffer goes up to, says, Mr.
Wells, you know, that's

Speaker 1 really Mr. Toland's job.

Speaker 1 And Greg Toland overheard that and he just made a big speech to the whole cast and crew. this is your director you know do what he says he has a vision you know

Speaker 1 do whatever you want ors you know wow gosh what a movie that is what a great movie and i think i think that what you were kind of saying like that idea that you have to have i remember once some a guy telling me a long time ago an acting teacher years ago like art is ultimately absent of ego.

Speaker 1 Like you have to be totally willing and be totally open.

Speaker 1 If you want to do something great and create something great, you got to get over your own, whatever your shit is and let all that go and be open to the process, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, this is this is one of the craziest things.

Speaker 2 I'm a huge sci-fi fan, and my husband, Scotty, is to, but you're not going to believe this. One of my favorite movies of all time is Tron, and he's wearing your shirt right now.

Speaker 1 Ah, Flynn. That's you, Darry.

Speaker 1 That's you. That's you.

Speaker 1 One of the others.

Speaker 1 Man, Tron. What a big deal that was when it came out.

Speaker 1 With all the,

Speaker 3 again, all the years that you've been doing this, has the audience that you have been acting for internally, has that changed? Are you conscious of who you're doing your performance for?

Speaker 3 Because like sometimes for, and you, you guys, Will, and Sean, you should answer this too. Like, do you guys act for the cameraman? Do you act for the director?

Speaker 3 Do you act for the other actor that you're in the scene with? Do you act for the people that are eventually going to see this? Do you act for yourself when you're eventually going to watch it?

Speaker 3 Are you, are you even aware of that?

Speaker 2 Interesting.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I think it's for myself and the director, basically.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, if he was, you know,

Speaker 1 I always like to really, you know,

Speaker 1 very rarely when I don't, you know, put the, you know, I'd like to empower the director to have power over me. You know, you do like that.

Speaker 1 I like that.

Speaker 1 And unless I'm getting, you know, some messages from the big director up in the sky, I try to, you know, do what the director, you know, because he can take me away from myself and my own.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So you'll let the director push you and pull you into places that maybe you weren't even planning on going in the scene, and you're just putting trust in the editing room.

Speaker 3 They're gonna weed out all the crap that sucks and only put in stuff that's good.

Speaker 1 The editing, that's the thing. You know, one of my favorite directors to work with, Bo did his first movie, I did his last movie, was Hal Ashby.
Oh, yeah, who was an

Speaker 1 editing? You know, it's interesting where the directors come from, you know. Yeah.
And editing, man, I mean, God, Bo, you must edit that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'd love to show you. I mean, that, yeah.

Speaker 1 So I'd like to give the director, you know, it's like photography.

Speaker 1 I like to bracket my performances, you know, do too much, you know, one in the pocket, what I'm thinking, what he's thinking, and then do something, you know, on either side. Only for the front row.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Because, you know, in the editing, you don't know what you're going to need because you always shoot out of sequence.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 But that's putting a lot of trust in the editor and the director to make sure they've got to do that.

Speaker 1 Don't you think, man, if you're you're holding back, man, I mean, shit. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I just thought of a fun director story. You might get a kick out of that.
So, Coppola and Tucker,

Speaker 1 our second week, our first week, was just kind of getting to know each other.

Speaker 1 And the second week, he gets the cast and crew together and he says, all right, now this week, we're going to shoot the whole movie on this little video camera.

Speaker 1 Vittorio Storaro, he'll be using this little wheelchair. That'll be our dolly.
And you costume people, you know, the look at those curtains. They would make good wedding dress.
And you actors,

Speaker 1 know your lines as best you can because we're only going to do each scene one time.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 And we're going to do it in sequence.

Speaker 1 It was kind of like, you know, the little rascals, our gang, you know, let's make a movie. Come on.

Speaker 1 And he's shooting this whole thing. Now, what we didn't know is to and from work,

Speaker 1 he's editing all of this stuff.

Speaker 1 And at the end of that week, he gives us each a cassette of the movie. He says, now we've already done the movie.
Here's the movie. And now we're just going to polish it up.
Wow.

Speaker 1 And then as we did the movie, he replaced those

Speaker 1 practice scenes with the real scenes. And even before that, he had a storyboard.
And he shot the storyboard like the movie, like, you know, two hours. So the movie was always in existence.

Speaker 1 Isn't that wild? Yeah, so he he got to do like a version of the movie, like the storyboard or previs with all the actors.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and for an actor, because you're always shooting out a sequence, to have that linear version of it that you could refer to. Yeah, that's really cool.
It was really cool.

Speaker 3 Do you think he was doing it to help you guys out, or do you was it to help you?

Speaker 1 No, no, because if you remember that movie, it had all these low-tech, it was quite advanced with all its technical, low-tech kind kind of stuff that he specialized in. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, like the Dracula movie with Gary Oldman was so great that way. You know, all that.
Oh, yeah. And he, so Francis is, while he's doing that, he's in the kid mode.

Speaker 1 You know, we're just playing around. Come on now, you know, do this.
And it was, you know, relaxed and fun. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It was a wild method.

Speaker 3 What a master he is. I think he's doing another movie right now.

Speaker 1 Is he? I think so.

Speaker 1 I lost touch with him.

Speaker 2 What do you have coming up, Jeff, that you're excited about?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I've got this TV show called The Old Man,

Speaker 1 FX Hulu thing.

Speaker 1 And we started it years ago, and then I got terribly sick and

Speaker 1 stopped for two years. Whoa.

Speaker 1 And then we went back and finished the thing.

Speaker 1 You did go back and finish it? We went back and finished the season, and it was like we had a long weekend, And I had this weird dream, man. You know,

Speaker 1 hey, listen, you seem, yeah, how are you feeling? How are you doing, man? You look great. I gotta say, I'm feeling good.
I'm very good. I'm feeling great.

Speaker 1 You know, those tough times, you know, it's like what you were saying, Will, about these tough times, man. Yeah.

Speaker 1 These tough times, they're opportunities to teach us things that we can't learn without them. You know, yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 let's, you know, let's do some trim tab and let's influence as much as we can to make a beautiful movie.

Speaker 1 Work together to make the cool thing, man. Yeah, dude, I love that.
I love that analogy, too.

Speaker 1 I like that idea that we're kind of like life is like, you were saying like, it's really cool what we get to do.

Speaker 1 If you really think about it, it's really cool what we get to do just to be alive and to have this life.

Speaker 1 And this is the big, all of us, this is the big movie that we get to do. For sure.
Every day.

Speaker 1 Making movies is such a great metaphor for how we can make this a beautiful world you know you get all these people they have all different political you know outlooks and are different personalities some are gloomy you know some actors only want to you know call me by my character you know there's all kinds of different versions but everybody's trying to make a beautiful movie you know yes touches us i love that that's what that's what the world ought to be doing right somehow you know all work together all these all these specialists you know, all these masters that get together to pull this magic trick off, one-time magic trick.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
It's really so wild. I love it because I feel like, Jeff, that you're still in love with the magic of it, not so much the details or the tech, you know, all the technical.

Speaker 1 You, you really, you live in the magic. That's where it is for you.
And I get that sense from you, man, which I really love. It's the thing you can't explain or write down or diagram on.

Speaker 1 It's that paradox thing, right, Sean? It's both, right, Sean? It's like you're into the details and you're eh, eh, eh, eh. And then you're into the magic.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's all going on at the same time, man. It's a paradox, isn't it?

Speaker 2 You're always living in the present.

Speaker 1 That's the gig, kind of. That's what I try to do.
Yep. So I will tell you this.
One of the other things.

Speaker 1 So I kind of, we've taken up too much of your time, but I want to point out that, you know, I already pointed out that you and Jason started and you're both child actors.

Speaker 1 But you and Jason also have had some voiceover experience in the world. And there was a time, Jeff, for many years when the Hyundai Motor Company had a real solid voice.
Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 And had a guy who had a lot of gravitational

Speaker 1 light. They wanted to go light.

Speaker 2 And I wasn't available.

Speaker 3 A little bit more economical, a little bit more sensible. No, here's why it was.
I think

Speaker 3 you were nominated for an Oscar, and Hyundai had bought a bunch of ad time during the Oscars.

Speaker 3 And so they couldn't have you being the voice of one of the ads because it would screw up the sort of unbiased,

Speaker 3 whatever it was. So some sort of legal thing.
So I had to do one of those spots.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's what it was. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Oh, I totally forgot about that, Willie.

Speaker 1 That's hilarious. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, listen, we're not, it's not professional grade, nor is it sorry, not sorry. You know, Will's, got some very big campaigns jeff well i mean

Speaker 1 you've got a wonderful voice

Speaker 1 i'm not i'm no jeff bridges but i you know what i mean you've got a voice you've got some i'm getting

Speaker 1 there wonderful i i'm working on my

Speaker 1 campaign i put together

Speaker 1 a demo tape shit somebody murdering a cat what's going on i feel like

Speaker 1 Your voice, you remind me of a, you know, I'm thinking that this is kind of, I promoted a few of my weirder movies on this show, but another weird one, the amateurs.

Speaker 1 And when you were doing that voice, Sean, you reminded me of Joey Pants. Do you know him? Joey,

Speaker 1 I love Joey Pants. And he was playing a character called Some Idiot, and he was, he had that voice.

Speaker 1 And Ted Danson, you guys worked with Ted, and even you guys worked with Ted Pants.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I don't know if he worked with him, but I do like him.

Speaker 1 He's great. He was the greatest.

Speaker 1 He's wonderful. Good.
He's awesome.

Speaker 1 Jeff, I'll say this, man.

Speaker 1 We're going to let you go because you've been so generous with your time and kind. But, you know, we're big fans.
I think we speak for a lot of people. Always have been, man.

Speaker 1 And really, really love your energy and really love what you do. And kind of like your co-star, John Goodman, I've said this to the boys before.

Speaker 1 You're in that same category for me as John Goodman. You guys have never, never phoned it in, never turned into bad performance, ever.
No matter what the picture is, you guys are always there, man.

Speaker 1 And it is such an honor and a treat. And I just think you're the best, uncle jeff and uh you give us all a good name uncle jeff

Speaker 1 thank you man great hanging with you guys me too me too say hi to bo please yeah please send our love to bow father bo i love all of our dad

Speaker 1 lots of love guys all right buddy you too see you later

Speaker 1 bye jeff

Speaker 1 how do you know him well yeah well how you what what how do you know uncle jeff my buddy uncle jeff you don't know jeff bridges what the hell is going on guys cool guys hang together, dude.

Speaker 1 No, I don't think so. You're cool.

Speaker 1 You hang with other cool people. So like the chat room cool guys hang out in? It's for guys who are handsome with good voices.
We're in a special.

Speaker 2 Well, I haven't gotten an invitation. Jesus.

Speaker 1 I'm still waiting for my guy. We're in a girl.
I am looking at you. Is somebody checking out the middle? Check out a weasel? What's going on?

Speaker 3 Yeah, what a, that dude just makes me feel good.

Speaker 1 He's the greatest. Yeah, so when we were, so when Sean, when Sean and I were doing this show years ago, the Millers in Bow was played My My Dad

Speaker 1 on the show. And

Speaker 1 I went to New York and I ran into Jeff. We were doing the Today show.

Speaker 1 And he was like, hey, man, I'm kind of like your uncle. And I was like, all right.
And then we had to do these photos backstage. He's like, let's just fuck around.

Speaker 1 And I was like, I love that he has that fuck around in him. Yeah, he's just so easygoing.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 he's just, he really got a great positive vibe. And he wanted to, and so we just started chatting.
And I just immediately was, you know, and I've always been a massive fan.

Speaker 1 I meant it, like, remember watching all of his movies, and he just has this effect.

Speaker 1 But I remember being in my early 20s and seeing in quick succession, seeing Fisher King, which I thought that character is so interesting. And

Speaker 1 I think about that character more than I probably should. His character who was this big DJ and he gets offered a sitcom and he turns it down.
Remember that thing? He's kind of like a shock jock.

Speaker 1 Right. And he ends up, his life gets turned upside down by this, by this insane Robin Williams character.

Speaker 1 You know, so there's that. And then

Speaker 1 he did that movie,

Speaker 1 Fearless.

Speaker 1 I just remember you were talking about the crash scene, but there was, for me, it wasn't the crash scene.

Speaker 1 It was this idea, you're seeing this metamorphosis, again, of a guy who has this event happen and he completely changes his outlook and he lets go. And I really, it really hit me.

Speaker 1 It was very profound to me.

Speaker 1 It really spoke to me, man. And I've just always, and then, of course, Big Lebowski and everything, but I've always felt connected to that dude.
Yeah, he's just

Speaker 3 good energy. And he's been so consistent and genuine and sincere, it seems, for years and years.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you hit it,

Speaker 2 Will, when you said he, no matter what movie he's in, because we've all kind of been like, I don't know if this script is so great or, or this script is amazing, or whatever it is.

Speaker 2 He doesn't, it doesn't matter. He goes, he does it 100% all the time, every single role.

Speaker 1 Here's the other thing.

Speaker 2 Don't you guys think it's weird that Scotty had on Jeff Bridges'

Speaker 3 shirt? Not really.

Speaker 1 Non-production, because it could have just been like one of like five things. It could have been Star Trek, Star Wars, Tron,

Speaker 3 I love Chin Chin.

Speaker 1 Or I love Chin Chin

Speaker 1 Chin or Koi.

Speaker 2 It's crazy that he had the t-shirt on that from Tron, and we're talking to Jeff Bridges.

Speaker 1 Do you guys have a

Speaker 1 license plate, a holder that says, follow me to Koi? Do you,

Speaker 1 I'm not, I'm not flirting. I'm just being Koi.

Speaker 3 Listener Koi is a fusion restaurant here on Restaurant War. Well, I love

Speaker 1 Sean Sean. What is it? It's a seafood restaurant.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. Sean John Silver's is a seafood restaurant.
Red Lockheed. Koi is a fucking fusion Japanese restaurant.
The fuck are you?

Speaker 2 Well, go there in about a half hour.

Speaker 1 You'll see me. But wait, also,

Speaker 2 so the ranch that he lived on, he said there's no more like cows or horse or anything.

Speaker 1 Do you think there was ever once any bison? Yeah!

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart

Speaker 1 less.

Speaker 1 Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Rob Armjarv, Bennett Barbico, and Michael Grantary.

Speaker 1 Smart, less.

Speaker 4 Fidelity active ETFs have the flexibility to shift and transform as markets do the same.

Speaker 4 So instead of just riding an index, they can seek to outperform it by adapting to market conditions and pursuing new opportunities as they emerge.

Speaker 4 And while you get the potential outperformance of an actively managed fund, you can still buy and sell it on your terms just like any other ETF. Markets can change in real time.

Speaker 4 Make sure your ETF can too. Learn more at fidelity.com/slash active ETFs.
Before investing in any exchange-traded fund, you should consider its investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses.

Speaker 4 Contact Fidelity for a prospectus, an offering circular, or if available, a summary prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully.

Speaker 4 While active ETFs offer the potential to outperform an index, these products may more significantly trail an index as compared with passive ETFs.

Speaker 4 ETFs are subject to market fluctuation and the risks of their underlying investments. ETFs are subject to management fees and other expenses.
Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC member NYSE SIPC.

Speaker 5 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. Business owners meet Progressive Insurance.

Speaker 5 They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business. Quote in as little as eight minutes at progressivecomercial.com.

Speaker 5 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company. Coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers.
Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.