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Born
December 4, 1949 · Los Angeles, California, USA

Birth name
Jeffrey Leon Bridges

Spouse
Susan Bridges(June 5, 1977 – present) (3 children)

QUOTES:

[on his father, actor Lloyd Bridges] My father, unlike his father, was very supportive of all his kids getting involved in movies and acting in general. He loved what he did and wanted to turn his kids onto it. He thought it was a great way of meeting people, being creative, and traveling around the world and doing what you love to do.
I went from high school — bang! — into the movies. I did spend a few weeks in acting classes in New York when my father was there doing “Cactus Flower”. But most of my training really came from my parents and my brother [Beau Bridges].

For a long while I wasn’t sure I was going to make acting my main focus professionally. I was interested in music, painting and other creative pursuits. I did the movies with a little more capricious an attitude; I wasn’t so seriously minded as a total professional. Then came The Iceman Cometh (1973) We had eight weeks of rehearsals and then we shot for two weeks. So it was almost the reverse of how most movies are made. During those eight weeks, I was sitting around with these great actors and this great director, just shooting the breeze and, of course, going over the material. I was also getting to know how other actors of that caliber work on things like this. It was very enlightening. After that experience, I decided, “Hey, I can do this. And I can do this for the rest of my life in a professional way”.

When I was offered the part of The Dude in The Big Lebowski (1998), I went through a big thing in my head worrying if this was going to be a bad example for my girls. The guy was kind of an anti-hero, a pot-smoking, slacker kind of guy, and I was really racking my brain about it. I always want to feel free to play any role, a despicable guy or a good guy — the full range of human experience. But this one was really giving me problems. So I assembled the family and told them my problem. After a long pause, my middle girl said, “Dad, you’re an actor. We know that it’s all pretend what you do. We know that when you kiss some lady on the screen that you still love Mom. We know you’re an actor”. So I had their permission, their blessing, to go play a character like The Dude. That was great that they understood that. And I count on the audiences to understand that what I do in my personal life and what I do on the screen are not some kind of example for them to base their lives on. Hopefully, when people see a movie, they know it’s a movie.

I’m very proud of The Last Picture Show (1971). It was absolutely thrilling when I got that part. Peter Bogdanovich was just great, and the whole ensemble was too – Cloris Leachman and Ellen Burstyn and Tim Bottoms and Cybill. When we were doing it, we all had the feeling that we were doing something unique and special. For me, that film stands alone. It’s not like any other movie I can think of. It just hangs there by itself. It’s still and slow and quiet.