"Jeff Bridges"
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You guys got it? Okay. Wow. 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 subjects. Hang on, hang on. We're doing smartless. We're still doing smartless? Yeah. It's the only one. It's the only one, yeah. But are we going to get to the breakfast? No, you should have had breakfast already, dude.

Okay. All right. It's an all-new Smartless. Smart. Less. Smart. Less. Smart. Less.

So your mic's coming in from over the top today, huh? You're usually under-mic'd, aren't you? Yeah, I'm using my 87, which is my broadcast mic. Oh, yeah. Will, it looks like you have sweat coming off your... Will, are you nervous? I was running around. I am actually nervous, but I was also running around trying to get my mic fixed, and I could not fix it. And that caused all that sweat? How did you break your mic? Did you have a bad peanut butter chocolate session?

What's the name of the... You know what I would say about that joke? It's lazy. Well, it's lazy. I'm just pissed off because I still don't have free Reese's. You threw around just a bunch of info, but it was lazy. You didn't put it together. No, I don't usually. Well, I'm not paid to write. I'll tell you what's really well put together. It's a Reese's peanut butter cup. Are you sorry? I'm not sorry. He's the best. Wait, but Will, trying to fix your microphone...

whipped up all that sweat that's dripping from your face and your body? Wait, what's wrong? Yeah, usually one doesn't really sweat when you just plug stuff in. I had to run upstairs, get some pliers, get some things. It's hot in here. I just took a sauna. Oh, that's why. But you have air conditioning on, right? Yeah.

No, he's still sweating from the sauna. Yeah, but I'm like, I worked out. You know what I mean? Okay, okay. Sean, did you exercise at all today? Were you helpful to your body? No, not at all. No? Well, I want to tell you a little story, something that happened to me and Scotty. I want to hear a story. I want to hear a story about you and Scotty. Okay, here we go. So it was a couple weeks ago. Scotty and I had a dinner to go to, and I walk out of the closet.

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? He said, it's too matchy matchy. We can't both wear the same color red shirt. It looks weird. And I was like, what do you mean? This is dark green. He said, no, I haven't owned a red shirt since I was four. Oh, I have a red shirt.

And I said, 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 how colorblind I am. And I was like, oh, and 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. 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. And the coworkers would be like, after the transaction was done, they'd be like, hey, are you okay? Because that looks terrible. And they were like, are you sure? Are you clowning our customers? Are you doing it to fuck with them? No. He's colorblind. I was colorblind. I didn't really admit it. And so I was putting together these outfits. God, I got to start listening to what you're saying. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. I was surprised. Probably help, right? I should know that he's colorblind. Well, it's going to cut my questions in half. I'm super, super, super colorblind. You would think that the gap, that would be like the first test they would give you. I know they don't, though. Security clearance, and then if you're colorblind. Now, you're colorblind, and what's the deal? You think that there's a cure in McDonald's food? Is that why you... I don't understand the correlation. Why are you shoveling in so much McDonald's all the time? Hey, guys, I'm up for the challenge, if that's what it takes.

-Chen Chen does not have a cure for color blindness. -I'm getting Chen Chen for dinner tonight. -Not a shocker. -Of course you are. 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." And I was putting together these outfits that were so ugly. -Huh. -Yeah. -I can't believe it. -Yeah, I'm not a big-- Anyway. 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.

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, what we call for real skis admiration for.

- I don't think anyone says that. - A lot of people-- Well, they're gonna start saying it. "For realskeez admiration?" Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it makes it sound less important. - I'm so nervous, Sean. - For realskeez. But I'm really, really nervous. This person's been nominated, I think, for seven Academy Awards. - Now I'm sweating. - Okay. Received an Academy Award in 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.

- Jesus. - For other roles. This is a guy who has consistently delivered. I can't even name his movies 'cause you're gonna immediately know who he was. - I know. - The first time I actually met him was only a few years ago 'cause his brother played my dad, so for a minute he said that-- - Brother played your dad. - He was my fake uncle.

He's a guy who started working with his brother and his dad when he was super young, and he has never stopped. Michael Douglas? And all he's done is really incredible, interesting stuff. It's none other than Mr. Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges! Oh, my God! God, I was so close. Thanks for having me, Will, and you guys. Hey, man. Jeff Bridges. What a pleasure. I'm thrilled to be with you. I'm thrilled.

I dig all of you guys so much. Oh, my gosh. Jeff, this is so cool to see you. Yeah, this is wonderful. Listener, first of all, you should know that Jeff is sitting in one of the yummiest looking rooms I've ever seen. This looks like a downstairs. Yeah. This looks like a basement. It's got a wood ceiling. It looks like a set. It looks like a set. Well, it is. You got it, Sean. This is the barn from the horror house.

Of Heaven's Gate. Wait, what are you talking about? Are you being serious? Michael Cimino, the director, you know, they were going to burn the set down because the owner of the land didn't want it on his property. And Mike said, anybody want it? 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. No way. No way, man. In Montana. Wow. Oh, my God. You know, that's a film I've never seen. Heaven's

Oh, man. 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. No. Well, it's kind of a masterpiece, man. I mean, you know, so much of your experience of seeing the movies is how you're pitched, what your setup is when you go in. Yeah. And if you get these, you know, they had such terrible reviews. One review was...

If they shaved Michael Cimino's head, they would find three sixes. He is the devil and he's making devil movies. Oh, my God. It was just terrible. You know, there was such animosity between all the...

the suits and the reporters and everything, but it's, it's a brilliant movie. I would check it out if I was you, I think you might do. It's a long sucker. You know, it's about four hours long. My wife Sue just had a wonderful Photoshop. She was taking pictures all through it. And Vilmos Zygmunt, the cinematographer kind of took her under his wing and,

and there was this beautiful photographic exhibit that she's got in Livingston, Montana. And we had the producer up and Joanne Corelli and it was exciting. - And you're a great photographer too, correct? - Yes, my, yeah. - I feel like I've seen some really, really cool wide angle black and white shots of, I wanna say, "Fisher King." Or do you do it on every single movie?

Just about every movie since Starman. Okay. Wow. And it's called a Wide Lux camera, and it's a panning still camera. And if you go on my site, jeffbridges.com.

All right. Look at the photography. Yeah. And you will see. That's a good plug. You'd like that? But then you've got a wrap gift for everybody, every single film you do. Just about. Very smart. Yeah, and it's putting those things together. You know, the editing is tough because you take rolls and rolls. 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.

No, no. And the Thesbos, you know, us actors, you know, I know what it's like, you know, to have a camera, any lens pointed at you, that freaks you a little bit, you know. But, you know, I haven't gotten any complaints. I'll give them the camera and we'll, you know, jam a little bit. Right. They dig getting the pictures, too. I'm so excited you're here. This is so cool. Hey, Jeff, so let me ask you a question. I want to kind of get into it for a second. So,

I took a picture with you, Will. Remember our picture that I gaffed? Yeah. Our prom pose. Our prom pose was so good. Yeah, at some point, yeah, you have to show that to the gaffes. I know, I got to get that. I don't, where is that photo? I don't know where that is. Who took it? Yeah. It's so good. And Jeff's sitting on my knee. 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. Yeah.

But I wanted to ask you about Bo, who I adore. Yeah. By the way, he played my dad on Will and Grace. And he played your dad on Will and Grace. Oh, wow. I think he played my dad, too, in a thing called Thanksgiving Promise. Oh, of course. I think I was in that, too. I think you were, too. I don't think we worked together, but I think both his sons were in it as well. Yes. Wow. Wait, he's played all of them?

I think so. That's wild, man. So I'm your uncle. I'm Uncle Jeff. So Uncle Jeff, answer me this. So you and your brother Bo and your dad, Lloyd, starred in Sea Hunt together. And this I was going to kind of say once again, 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?

- Oh, I must have been eight or so. - Wow. - But I was, on my first movie, I was six months old. - Oh my God. - And I heard you were a nightmare. - John Cromwell was shooting a movie and my parents were friends with him and they needed a little baby in the shot. And Jane Greer was the actress and so my mom said, "Oh, take my baby."

But I was a rather happy little kid, and I needed to cry in the scene. So my mom said to Jane, oh, just pinch him. Just pinch him. And she did, and of course I cried. No way. And now we cut, oh, 35 years later, and I'm working with Jane in a movie called Against All Odds, which is a remake of her great movie Out of the Past. Yeah, yeah.

And 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? Just a little bit. So he gave us a good chortle. How is your trick for crying? Everybody's got a different technique for crying on camera. Do tears come easy to you?

I don't think so, man. What do I do? I look at a photo of my dad. Oh, I... What do you do? I look at a photo of my dad. It's a long story. You do? And that does it. No, sorry. Finish the sentence. He looks at a photo of his dad coming home. That makes him cry. Every time he hears tires squealing, it kind of triggers it, too.

Gosh, it's always a challenge. How about you guys? What do you, you know? Jason, I heard one time, I heard a rumor, Jason, when you were doing, this is a true story. Is it? When you were doing, I'm not setting myself up for a joke. You were doing a scene on Office Christmas Party and everybody was cracking up in the conference room, right? Right.

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? We talked about this about a year ago. And he said, what are you, how are you not cracking up? Everybody's cracking up. And you said, I just imagine all of them dying and terrible things happening to them. I also, yeah, I also like. I was like, what a psycho. I do something similar to that when people get the giggle fits, you know, on a comedy or something.

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. What a blast. Yeah. I just find disgust in them. Oh, that's fun. It can be very funny for the other Thesbos.

Yeah, for the other Spice Bros. Where'd he go? Jeff, what's one of the relationships that you cultivated on a shoot that you now, that ended up in a lifelong friendship? Like, is there... Well, you know, our dream come true was doing Baker Boys with Bo. Oh, yeah. Can you imagine how much fun we had, man? I mean, you know, 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?

No, you didn't have to mess with that. I think about you every day when I'm driving on Sunset Boulevard, that incredible... At Beverly Glen. Yeah, Against All Odds, right? Against All Odds. Oh, with Jimmy Woods. Oh, man. That car chase is just... Wasn't that great? It hasn't been beaten yet.

That was an amazing thing. And it was right by my parents' house there on Sunset. We had all the traffic going east locked off. Yeah. Right at rush hour. And there are all these people going home to the beach. And in the middle of the shot, we're going 90 miles an hour. You're in the middle of it. 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. Oh, God. They never caught up with it. No way. Jeff, 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? Like, you started, you did all these things early on and you made a lot of great movies in Last Picture Show 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. 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,

Fearless, which I loved, which I thought was a really underrated movie. That changed... That's hard to watch. I can't watch that movie anymore. Your performance of a guy who has faced death and now is living his life with this fearlessness because of that experience, 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

And in the same way, I really connected with what that character went through in that movie and your relationship with Robin was incredible. And it was a Terry Gilliam directed, right? Yeah, man.

Fisher King. Tell me a little bit about that. Well, as you're mentioning these different movies, they start to explode in my head. Fearless was Peter Weir, who was just incredible. Yeah, Peter Weir is great. The director. That plane crash was just so well done that 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. Oh, man.

Yeah, that whole movie was, you know. But each one, they're like little lifetimes, aren't they? 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. God, he was just so wild to work with. And Robin, you know, 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. Everybody's dragging ass.

And then Robin would get up and he would start to jam on all of the cast and crew, you know. It would go on and on and start busting chops, you know. And other directors, you know, would say, okay, okay, Robin. But Terry would say, yeah, but what about him? You know, and Terry would add him on and it would go on for 15, 20 minutes. 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. And then we did a weird movie, probably the weirdest movie. I think certainly the weirdest movie I've ever made. And I think it might be the weirdest movie Terry made called Tideland. Oh, wow. I've never heard of that. I played a junkie rock star. And most of the movie I play a carcass, just dead carcass.

Overdose. But it's a very bizarre movie, and again, worth checking out. With all the time that you've spent on sets and all of these sort of families that you've met and built and then said goodbye to, right? All these groups of crews and cast. How much, and you're usually in a leadership position, right?

such that you can affect the harmony, the ecosystem, the whole situation there. 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 a tone on the set so that we can all enjoy our work experience. You strike me as that kind of guy. That's the most important thing, I think. Yeah.

I mean, my dad, you know, you mentioned Seahunt, you know, working with him when I was eight, you know, he had a little kid. He would set me on his bed and teach me all the basics, you know.

Don't just say your lines. Listen to what I'm saying and then make that have something to do with the way you talk about it. Now go out of the room. Now come back and do it differently. He would do all that stuff. But the main thing I learned from him was his joy at work. And whenever he came on the set, that was just contagious. It just shot out. I got to work with him as an adult twice.

with Francis Coppola in Tucker. Sure. And blown away. Yeah. And that was such a gas, man, to, you know, do that advanced pretending with my dad, you know, as an adult. We would jam. We had such fun, man. Advanced pretending. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, but, you know, that joy thing, you know, because it makes you relax, right? And then all the best stuff can come out of that relaxation and you feel safe and...

You know, it's... Yeah. Yeah. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. Did you learn most of what you use today as an actor from watching your dad? Or did you study strictly, you know? I studied a little bit at Berghoff in New York. Yeah. But I didn't really learn much there. Mainly on-the-job training, you know? I mean, just...

And then, and Bo, you know, Bo, 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 don't like. Yeah, please. You know, one of the tough things as an actor is, you know, where am I going to get an audience to practice my stuff, you know? Yeah. So Bo, he's about, I don't know, in his early 20s. I'm about, you know, 15, 16 years old.

Jeff, I got to tell you, you look terrible. For 15? For 15, yeah. We're going to have to side text you after this interview. Yeah, I didn't sleep well last night. So Bo rented a flatbed truck and we would get some scenes together. We were working on some Holden Caulfield, you know, Catcher in the Rye scenes, you know, and other scenes. Yeah.

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 and our father taught us how to do stage fighting.

And so we would stage a fake fight. Up in the flatbed? No, in the parking lot, you know. And we'd get, you know, but we'd 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. And we'd jump up in 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. 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 show. We played the supermarket circuit, man. That's hysterical. That's great. So that was all in and around Los Angeles? Yeah, yeah. And what made you want to...

go, you know, to the farm life in Montana? Well, I did the movie up here with Clint Eastwood called Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Sure, huh? And I fell in love with Montana. Got me a Harley Davidson, you know, rolled around and that.

Because it's the opposite. It's the absolute polar opposite of Los Angeles. Have you guys been to Montana at all? I have, yeah. I don't think I have, no. But I hear it's gorgeous. Oh, it's sweet, man. It is sweet. And then I made a movie called Rancho Deluxe up here, and that's where I met my wife. Mm-hmm. And then that's, yeah. What was she doing on the film? She was a...

They used to do brain surgery in this old place. It's like a big, it's a hot spring and stuff called Chico, 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. And I'm sitting in there. We're in the hot spring doing a scene with Sam Waterston and Harry Dean Stanton and Richard Bright. We're looking there and we're like, I can't take my eyes off this gorgeous girl, man.

She's got two black eyes and a broken nose, and she's just gorgeous. I cannot take my eyes off her. And so I finally get the guest to ask her out. She says, no, no. I say, no? She goes, no, maybe small town. Maybe I'll see you around. And I said, oh, okay. And her prophecy proved true. And I think it was at the wrap party.

I saw her, and we danced, and that was all through Rome. 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. We love it. We'll do some advanced pretending. 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 open this letter from 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. It was two shots, two photographs of a local girl that you were asking out.

So I have a photograph of the first words that I've ever spoke to my wife. Oh, wow. Saying, would you go out with me? And she said, no. And click, I have that picture. Now, did he know he was sending it to you? No, he had no idea. Was it my wife? No, no, he had no idea. What a valuable thing. Oh, man. Yeah, that's my prized possession. Whenever I think we're not meant for each other or any of that. How long have you guys been married now? Going on 45. 45.

Wow. How many kids? You said you got a bunch of kids? Three kids. Yeah. How old are they now? Oh, they're like, you know, 40, 36, 34. You got any grandkids out of them yet? I got three grandkids. Bennett Barbico went to school with my middle girl, Jessie. Oh, no way. No way. She just had a...

A little baby, Leon. Wow. And I've got Gracie and Ben. Do you... I would imagine I'm going to be a real goofy granddad. I'm going to be very excited to watch little grandkids. Oh, you think you're going to be less grouchy than you are now? Definitely. How many kids you got? Jeff, I have two daughters, 15 and 10. And they're little angels. Oh, man. Two daughters. That's... Yeah. So I've got three girls. Did any of your kids go into the business? You know...

Unlike my dad and my mom, who really encouraged me to go into it all. I didn't do that. You know, I really dragged my feet about going into it, you know. I had so many other things that I wanted to do, and I resisted. But that's kind of my M.O. in life. I resist, resist until I can't do that anymore and get sucked in.

But, you know, I didn't give it to my kids like that. 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. You know, and they say, no, I don't want to do it. Did you dissuade them at all from it? Because I know I do that with my girls. No, no, no. I didn't. No, I wanted it to come from them, you know, because...

My parents, like I said, I was carried on at six months old. They were shoving it down my throat. Who wants to do what their parents want you to do? I didn't want to do it. I had other things to do. Yeah, I'm kind of the same. I have three boys, and my middle son, he's a really funny kid. But both his parents, my ex-wife and I, 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

And if that's what he wants to do, we're not actively dissuading him. And then there's the whole thing about competing with your dad or your brother. I didn't want to get into that thing either. No, exactly. Well, that's weird. Right. I mean, Jeff, I mean, think about it. Like, yeah, your dad, Lloyd, was an actor forever. Huge star. And huge star. And your brother, too, man. I mean, that's...

That's an intense dynamic. It could be anyway. The competition there or lack of it, was it – 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. Like, well, you know, listen, we've got extra things to talk about now at the dinner table. You know, like that's all.

Um, was it, was it ever an issue with, with you guys? I would imagine. No, it was really, you know, if, you know, it's like being on the same team basically. And like you say, there's so much in common, so much great stuff that you can talk about, you know, that's not, uh,

I always liked that in families. 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. I'm working with my dad. So I don't know, you know, so much about what we worry about

It's fantasy. It doesn't happen, you know. I'm such a believer in that, too. All the worst things that ever happened to me never happened. Yeah, what's that quote? You know, what's his name? Samuel Clemens, 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.

Yeah, no, it's me too. Do you guys have had COVID or no? No, you had a really bad case of it, didn't you? But even before that, 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. And so now I just say, fuck it. I just, it'll come back to me in five or 10 minutes. Who wrote Tom Sawyer? Mark Twain. Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens. Thank you, man. Yeah.

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. Jeff, I'm glad we're talking about this now, because just to get real for a second, I've been going through a thing lately, and I don't 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, by nature, I'm a very optimistic person. Joyful. Joyful. And I wake up every day, 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. And I've been kind of bummed out, man. And I'm like, is it because I'm getting...

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. Jeff's the most joyful guy we've had on the show ever. 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, man.

I wake up, I go, oh, another day. Really? I got to do it all over again. 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. Yeah. Called foundation training.

And it's about two, three minutes, but it's painful and it's torturous. Yeah. And I say, I got to do that. Anyway, I got to have a couple cups of coffee and then I'm feeling good. Right. But, you know, I think, well, it's the weather, right? Yeah. And then also these obstacles, you know, the difficulty, the challenges of where we are now. Yeah.

Those are all opportunities for us to figure it out.

Yeah, and also opportunities for us to kind of, you know, gnash our teeth a little bit. Like the older you get, I think 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, you know? Yeah, and the thing that, you know, your guys' generation, what is it now? When I first heard this word, I said, are you kidding me?

The great career now is I want to be an influencer. That's not us. Damn it, I want to be an influencer. I think that's – and I guess we all are. In one sense, I talked about this thing that Bucky Fuller –

You know, the geodesic dome guy turned me on to trim tabbing. 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. 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. 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. We're all trim tab. You guys, what you're doing here on the show, you know,

Right. This is all a trim tab and we're influencing. We're saying, Hey guys, what about this? Am I the, am I the big runner or the small runner? I love that. You're the small, you're the big runner and I'm turning you, Sean, I'm turning you. I will say you've been influencing us and a lot of folks for a long time with all these great, great roles. And, and I,

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. You tell me one leading man that can –

bite off a big, spicy, chewy character and not look like he's chewing up the scenery. You know, you just, you got real chops, Jeff, and you always have. Thank you. Well, you know, a lot of that came from my dad because I saw how much he struggled with

doing Seahunt, he, you know, got that character so down that people thought he was a skin diver. Right. And they send him a bunch of skin diving scripts, you know, and he's a, you know, Shakespearean trained actor. You know, he replaced, uh,

Let's see. Here's a name I just forgot. Man of La Mancha. Mark Twain. Anthony Quinn. Who is the famous, you know, I am I, Don Quixote. Is that Anthony Quinn? Who is that? No, no. But on Broadway, you know, he replaced him. I remember doing a movie, Blown Away, a movie I did with him. Sure.

Sure. And I said to the producer, hey, I got a guy who could play my uncle. He kind of looks like me. He's a good actor. And he 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. I said, what are you talking about? And it's because my dad did Airplane. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And so he was labeled for a while as a,

You know, he's just this 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.

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. 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. 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...

you know, not connected to reality in some way or they've got something going on. And like this character we did on "Arrested," he was like, his dad didn't love him, his mom didn't love him either. And then, you know, whatever. But I think that you get into that as an actor, I feel like for a lot of time, people were like, "Oh, you just kind of do this thing." And you're like, "No, it's not really-- Since when? Like, who gets to decide that that's what I do now?"

I love it when comedians play bad guys. Remember Robin, when he did those two or three movies back-to-back where he played the bad guy? One-hour photo. Yeah, yeah. And then Albert Brooks played a bad guy. You guys have dark sides, too, that you can tap into. Yeah. Sean, take your hat off, Sean. Show me your dark side. I got crazy hair. That's like a murderer's hair. Very dark.

Wait, Jeff, are you still doing music? Do you still play? Do you still sing? Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm doing now is kind of I'm going back into what I call my music mind and looking at, you know, a bunch of stuff that I kind of didn't, you know, have too much faith in. I'm bringing those things out and I say, oh, I dig this. This is pretty good. Mm-hmm.

I'm jamming with my buddy T-Bone Burnett 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, you know, I don't know what to do with it, but I'm having fun with it. I love music. I like his wife, too. Oh, Cali's so great. Yeah. Yeah.

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? I know mine would be Led Zeppelin. Oh, wow. Yeah, I 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. That concert would have been great, but I bet the sound was so bad that it wouldn't be that great. But do you remember a thing called Rock and Roll Circus? Do you ever see that? No, no.

Check that out. Google that. Rock and Roll Circus. That's a concert movie? It's something that the Rolling Stones, they 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. Like an early music festival? It's an early music festival. But it was like a circus vibe. All in a soundstage, I think it was something like that.

Wow. Sean, what would you go see? That's not No Longer With Us? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe like the first... Oh, that's what you said, that's No Longer With Us. Well, yeah, 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.

I don't know if you guys know him, but he was quite an amazing cat. I would like to go see one of his early shows with the Hawks, who then became the band. You know what, Jeff? I was going to say, I wish I could go and see that last Waltz concert. That's what I would have liked to go and see. That would have been a goodie, yeah. I probably would have checked out The Carpenters. Is anybody still listening? Oh, yeah.

Sorry I interrupted you, Sean. Carpenter's Man. She had a beautiful voice, didn't she?

Yes. Are you being facetious? I'm being both. I'm being both. You're being both. See, that's real brilliance, man. Because I was a huge fan. I was a massive fan. But you're also being a little bit cheeky. No, no, but I never really... But you were a big fan of the Carpenters. I used to listen to them all the time. And Simon and Garfunkel. I would have listened to Simon and Garfunkel. All right. I'd love to see that concert they did at Central Park. That would be fun to go.

One of my favorite concerts I went to was a double bill with Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. Oh, man. Wow. And Paul Simon comes out. They switched who would open for the other guy. Yeah, yeah. And Paul Simon comes out, and he opens with something like America. You know, they let that in, that in. And he's got two drummers, violins, horn section. And I said, how is Bob going to follow this, man? Yeah.

And Bob comes out, he's got, you know, a bass, a drum, a piano and a guitar, you know. Yeah. And what does he open with?

Hello, darkness, my old friend. And again, Sean, you don't know if his tongue's in his cheek or not, man. He's just perfect. Hello, darkness. That's my song, man. You got a Bob Dylan T-shirt on, don't you? Yeah. Look at that. Oh, I'm a total fan, man.

I got to work with him in another weird movie that he wrote with Larry Charles. Do you know who Larry Charles is? Yeah, yeah. What was the movie? It's called Masked and Anonymous. Check it out, man. Look who's in it. Look who's in the thing, the cast that he's in. But it was Larry Charles and Bob Dylan wrote this over about three years.

Dylan's the star of it, and Larry was his first thing he directed, man. Wow. And it is a trip. Oh, my God. You've got to see that. What a cast. The albums I had on rotation when I was a kid were, I wrote them down, The Carpenters, The Eagles, The Cosby, you know, stand-up. Comedy album? Comedy record, yeah. George Carlin's comedy album. Yeah. And Simon and Garfunkel. And Erasure Unplugged.

Well, you raise your everything. I know every word to every song. Oh, sorry. Fully plugged. You raise your fully plugged. How about Nichols and May? Did you get into them, you guys? Nichols and May? Nichols and May, of course, yeah. The doctor stuff. What was it? A Little More Gauze. 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, 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. Dylan and Jerry Garcia. Yeah, and they played together for a while, too. Yeah, man. We'll be right back. And back to the show.

Jeff, I want to ask you before we're done. I want to give you enough time to talk about the Coen brothers if you can. Yeah, well, I was going to get to it. I want to talk about the Big Lebowski. This is a whole subject unto itself. And true grit, yeah? Yeah. But let's start. Can we start with Big Lebowski, man? How that came to you into your orbit and

what that was like. Yeah, I can't remember exactly when, but I ran into the Coen brothers, I think at a party or something, and they said, yeah, we're writing something for you, man. I said, oh, great. Oh, my God. Because I had seen Blood Simple, and I was, you know, thought they were terrific. And then I got the script, and I said, what? This is like, you know, a high school version of me that, you know,

you know, what, you know, what, you know, you guys spying on me or something. And, uh, so that's how that happened. Well,

Well, how did they, but how did they, why did, so they wrote it specifically for you and that character like that, what was their answer to that? Why did, I'm sure you had said that, why did you think of me for this part? What had they seen? What had they thought? I don't know, man. And I said, are you sure? You know, I have kind of a history of trying to get out of parts, you know, like I remember with Terry Gilliam. I said, why do you want me for this? I don't feel like this guy. I remember it.

I pitched my other acting friends. What about this guy? And I probably did the same thing with those guys. I can't remember when I played just before it, but it was nothing like... I had never played a part like that. But do you remember... Do you have a recollection, though, Jeff, of doing that movie? Like, when you're like... When it's like...

and John Goodman and Totoro and Steve Buscemi, and you're doing those scenes, and you guys are all taking big swings with these characters. Were you guys going like, hey, man, are we out on a limb over here, or are we good? We had such a good time.

man. And then when that movie came out, it wasn't, it didn't do well here. No, it had this hit Europe first and then it came splashing back and really kind of well after the fact, but nobody really got it, you know? Right. I auditioned for them for intolerable cruelty. Remember that? And I went in and met with them and they were really cool. Like I, and the 20 minutes that I got to meet with him and they asked me like, Hey, do you get, do you get stoned at all? Do you smoke pot?

And I was like, like a little, a little at the time. And they're like, okay, okay. Good to know. Thank you. Thank you for coming in. And I was like, oh, was that like the, was I supposed to say like all the time and then we could hang out? Well, they probably wanted you to score some weed for them. Maybe that's what it was. I don't know if you were holding. Yeah. Here's a weird thing, but I didn't, I was a pothead before I got sick. I can't smoke it.

but I'm you know I consider myself a pothead but I I'm kind of surprised that I didn't smoke one joint during that whole film oh wow no way yeah no 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. You didn't want to mess with that music, you know. I wonder how close, such a specific character, such a great version of that writing that you performed. I wonder how close it was to the idea they had for the dude. I wonder. Well, they had a guy, you know, they had Jeff Dowd was a guy that they kind of modeled the character after. Brother of Anne?

No, I don't think so. It's a big world, Jason. Jesus Christ. Fucking seven billion people on the planet. Get wise, motherfucker. Hey, you know what, Jeff? You know what's funny? We had Sean Penn on the show last year at some point, and he talked about how— He's good, isn't he? I love watching him. Yeah, he's a good actor. He can do all this comedy.

But he's like you. He's like you, man. He's just like you. You guys are cut from the same cloth, man. And he was talking about doing Spicoli, his character from Fast Times. Oh, yeah. 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. He saw him like on the path to go surfing in Malibu. Hey.

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. So he's like, I'm not going to say anything. You ever see This Must Be the Place, a movie that he was in, that based on the David Byrne song, you know, the talking heads? Yeah, of course. And David's in the movie, too, but that's another good one, man. He plays kind of a burnout glam rocker or something.

Oh, no, we had David on the podcast recently, actually. Oh, man, the talking heads. Now, when they came out, man, they replaced the Beatles for me. Oh, wow. And I remember I ran into David at some bar or something in New York, and I just had a few drinks. I just gushed. I said, David, your music, man. I mean, it's so incredible. You know, he's just...

I said, no, man, I mean, like the Beatles. You're better than the Beatles, man. And he just stood there. And he just, there was no answer. And I finally just had to...

Walk away. Walk away. By the way, I do that. I'm very passionate about music, too, and I do that a lot, too. Musicians, I corner them all the time. What about his shows? What about that American Utopia? Yeah. I saw that live. That's incredible. And the movie's great, too. And I also saw the Stop Making Sense tour at the Greek Theater. Oh, wow.

Oh, really? You've seen that movie? Well, of course, yeah. And he shot that here on a stage, that movie. Jonathan Demme, man. He shot that. God, he knows where to put it. I feel like you worked with Jonathan Demme, didn't you? No, I would love to have, but no. But he was a wonderful guy. Amazing. I want to know, so the place where you're at right now is a farm? Is it actually a farm? We call it a ranch. A ranch.

A ranch, yes. And do you actually do work around there? Do you have animals? We had a bunch of cattle and horses and all that stuff. We don't need more. You shot them all? We shot them and buried them. It was a slow Sunday. It was like, honey, we're going to do something fun. Let's see how many cows.

You know, something I ask people that have had a ton of set experiences you have, have you ever been drawn to direct, to use all that you have absorbed and put it all in that role, that character? Yeah, a little bit, because I've been digging your direction in Ozark, man. God, that must have been fun, man.

Oh, God. He writes it, directs it, acts so brilliantly. You're very nice. But the stuff you have absorbed and from the directors that you've worked with and the actors. And I've had great luck with first-time directors, you know, really incredible. I'm thinking of Baker Boys, Steve Clovis. He must have been 24 when he wrote and directed that thing. No way. No way.

And I've had just great, great experiences with these guys. And, you know, as an actor, you know, 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 saying, hey, what about this? 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, 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...

fostered, you know, I bet you all those first-time directors are lucky to have had you be the guy in their movie. Fuck, yeah. Yeah, but those first-time, I mean, look at Orson Welles. We haven't done much better than Citizen Kane, man. Right. And it was all that stuff that...

that he didn't know what he couldn't do. He just said, let's jam, you know? Sure. And who's the famous DP, Greg Tolan, you know? Yeah. He was the old master. And there was a story that Peter Begdonovich, who was a real, you know, scholar with movies, he told me a story because he was tight with Orson Welles. And, you know, Orson said, you know...

I can't really get, you know, the stage direction, you know, that thing. And Toland said, oh, just come over on the weekend and we'll, you know, know. 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 that. And Toland, you know,

He said, you know, you're the guy. I want to do your vision. How old was he when he made that? Was he 24 in his 20s, I think. Yeah, I think it was something like that. And so Wells is in there, and it was in the days when everybody wore suits and ties and shit, you know, at work. And he said, now with the lighting, I want it to come like this, you know, to the gaffer and stuff. And the gaffer goes up to him and says, Mr. Wells, you know, that's really Mr. Toland's job.

And Greg Toland overheard that, and he just made a big speech to the whole cast and crew. This is your director. Do what he says. He has a vision. Do whatever you want, Ors. Wow. Gosh, what a movie that is. What a great movie. And I think that what you were kind of saying, like that idea that you have to have— I remember a guy telling me a long time ago, an acting teacher years ago, like,

art is ultimately absent of ego. Like, you have to be totally willing and be totally open. 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? - Yeah. - This is one of the craziest things. I'm a huge sci-fi fan, and my husband, Scotty, is too. But you're not gonna believe this. One of my favorite movies of all time is "Tron,"

And he's wearing your shirt right now. Ah, Flynn! That's your character. That's you! What are the odds? Man, Tron. What a big deal that was when it came out. That's so cool.

Um, with, with all the, the, the, all, 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? Cause 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? 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? Yeah.

are you even aware of that? Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think it's for myself and the director, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, he was, you know, I always like to really, you know, very rarely when I don't, you know, put the, you know, I like to empower the director to have power over me. You do like that. I like that. 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. 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 Trusted in the editing room. They're going to weed out all the crap that sucks and only put in the stuff that's good. Well, that's, you know, 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, came from editing, you know. It's interesting where the directors come from, you know. Yeah. And editing, man, I mean, God, well, you must edit your show. Yeah, I love that part of it. That, because, so I'd like to give the director credit

You know, it's like photography. 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, yeah. Because, you know, in the editing, you don't know what you're going to need because you always shoot out of sequence. Right, but that's putting a lot of trust in the editor and the director to make sure they don't Frankenstein. Yeah, but you've got to do that. Don't you think, man? If you're holding back, man, I mean, shit. Yeah.

I just thought of a fun director story. You might get a kick out of that. So Coppola and Tucker, our second week, our first week, we're just kind of getting to know each other. 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. Vittorio Storaro, he'll be using this little wheelchair. That'll be our dolly. And you costume people, you know, look at those curtains. They would make good wedding dress. And you actors, know your lines as best you can because we're only going to do each scene one time. Wow. And we're going to do it in sequence one time.

It was kind of like, you know, the Little Rascals, our gang, you know, let's make a movie. Come on. And he's shooting this whole thing. Now, what we didn't know is to and from work, he's editing all of this stuff. 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.

And then as we did the movie, he replaced those practice scenes with the real scenes. And even before that, he had a storyboard and he shot the storyboard like the movie, like two hours.

So the movie was always in existence. Isn't that wild? Yeah, so he got to do like a version of the movie, like the storyboard or previs with all the actors. 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.

Do you think he was doing it to help you guys out or was it to help himself out? No, because if you remember that movie, it had all these low tech. It was quite advanced with all its technical, low tech kind of stuff that he specialized in. Yeah. You know, like the Dracula movie with Gary Oldman was so great that way. Sure, oh yeah. And so Francis is, well, he's doing that.

He's in the kid mode. We're just playing around. Come on now, do this. And it was relaxed and fun. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was a wild method. What a master he is. I think he's doing another movie right now. Is he? I think so. Oh, God, I lost touch with him. What do you have coming up, Jeff, that you're excited about? Well, I've got this TV show called The Old Man, FX Hulu thing.

And we started it years ago, and then I got terribly sick. Yeah, I heard about that. And we stopped for two years. Whoa.

And then we went back and finished the thing. - 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. - Hey, listen, you seem, yeah, how are you feeling? How are you doing, man? You look great, I gotta say. - I'm feeling very good. I'm feeling great.

You know, those tough times, you know, it's like what you were saying, Will, about, you know, these tough times, man. Yeah. These tough times, they're opportunities to teach us things that we can't learn without them, you know. Yeah.

And let's do some trim tab and let's influence as much as we can to make a beautiful movie. Work together to make the cool thing, man. Yeah. Dude, I love that. I love that analogy, too. I like that idea that we're kind of like life is like... You were saying it's really cool what we get to do.

If you really think about it, it's really cool what we get to do just to be alive and to have these lives. That's right. Everybody. All of us, this is the big movie that we get to do. For sure, every day. Making movies is such a great metaphor for how we can make this a beautiful world. You get all these people. They have all different political outlooks and different personalities. Some are gloomy. Some actors only want to...

Call Me By My Character. There's all kinds of different versions, but everybody's trying to make a beautiful movie where it touches us. I love that. That's what the world ought to be doing. All work together. All these specialists, all these masters,

They'd get together to pull this magic trick off. One-time magic trick. 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,

you know, all the technical, 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 out of it all. 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, eh, eh. I mean, it's all going on at the same time, man. It's a paradox, isn't it? You're always living in the present.

Yeah. That's the gig, kind of. That's what I try to do. So I will tell you this. One of the other things. So I kind of, we've taken up too much of your time, but I wanted to point out that, you know, I already pointed out that you and Jason started and you're both child actors.

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. And had a guy who had a lot of gravitas. Jason took that over. And then they decided that they wanted to do. Can my ass.

Something light. They wanted to go light. And I wasn't available. A little bit more economical, a little bit more sensible. Here's why it was, I think. You were nominated for an Oscar and Hyundai had bought a bunch of ad time during the Oscars.

And so they couldn't have you being the voice of one of the ads because it would screw up the sort of unbiased, whatever it was, some sort of legal thing. So I had to do one of those spots. You did? Oh, all right. I think that's what it was. Oh, I totally forgot about that. Willie, that's hilarious. Yeah. Well, listen, it's not professional grade.

nor is it sorry not sorry. You know, Will's got some very big campaigns, Jeff. Well, I mean, we don't either. You've got a wonderful voice. I'm no Jeff Bridges, but you know what I mean? You've got a voice. You've got some tone. They're wonderful. I'm working on my voiceover campaign. I put together a demo tape. Shit, somebody murdering a cat? What's going on? I feel like...

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 recently.

on this show but another weird one the amateurs and when you were doing that voice Sean reminded me of Joey Pants do you know him oh yeah I love Joey Pants and he was playing a character called some idiot and he was he had that voice exactly Ted Danson you guys worked with Ted any of you guys worked with yes don't know if I've worked with them but I do like he's great he's great he's wonderful good he's awesome yeah

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

You're in that same category for me as John Goodman. You guys have never, never phoned it in, never turned in a bad performance, ever. No matter what the picture is, you guys are always there, man. Thank you. And it is such an honor and a treat, and I just think you're the best, Uncle Jeff. Thank you. You give us all a good name. It's great to see you, man. Uncle Jeff. Thank you, man. Great hanging with you guys. You too, buddy. Say hi to Bo, please. Yeah, please send our love to Bo. I will, Father Bo.

All of our dad. Lots of love, guys. All right, buddy. You too, man. See you later. Bye, Jeff. How do you know him, Will? Yeah, Will, how are you? Who? Uncle Jeff. My buddy, Uncle Jeff. You don't know Jeff Bridges. Yes, I do, man. What the hell is going on? Because cool guys hang together, dude. No, I don't think so. When you're cool, you hang with other cool people. Is there like a chat room cool guys hang out in? It's for guys who are handsome with good voices. We're in a special...

Well, I haven't gotten an invitation. Jesus Christ. I swear to God. I look in the mail every day. Is somebody drowning a weasel? What's going on? Yeah, what a... That dude just makes me feel good. He's the greatest. Yeah, so when we were... So when Sean and I were doing this show years ago, The Millers, and Bo was playing my dad on the show, and...

I went to New York and I ran into Jeff. We were doing the Today show. 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. And I was like, I love that he has that fuck around in him. Yeah, he's just so easygoing. Yeah, 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 man.

fan. I meant it like, I remember watching all of his movies and he just has this effect. But I remember being in my early 20s and

and seeing, in quick succession, seeing Fisher King, which I thought that character was so interesting. And 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. Right. And he ends up, his life gets turned upside down by this insane Robin Williams character. You know, so there's that and then...

And then he did that movie, Fearless. I just remember you're talking about the crash scene, but there was, for me, it wasn't the crash scene. It was this idea, you've seen 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. It was very profound to me. 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 got such good energy and he's been so consistent and genuine and sincere, it seems, for years and years. Yeah, you hit it, Will, when you said 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 this script is amazing or whatever it is. He doesn't, it doesn't matter. He goes, he does it 100% all the time, every single role. Here's the other thing. Don't you guys think it's weird that

Scotty had on Jeff Bridges' t-shirt. Not really. Not really. Not really, because it could have just been like one of like five things. It could have been Star Trek, Star Wars, Tron, Star Wars.

Or just, I love Chin Chin. Or I love Chin Chin. Chin Chin or Koi. But that's crazy that he had the T-shirt on from Tron and we're talking to Jeff Bridges. Do you guys have a license plate holder that says, follow me to Koi? I'm not flirting. I'm just being Koi. I mean, what?

Listener, Koi is a fusion restaurant here on Restaurant Royal. I love... According to Sean, Sean, what is it? It's a seafood restaurant, right? You got a lot of seafood there. No, no, no. Long John Silver's is a seafood restaurant. Koi's a fucking fusion Japanese restaurant. The fuck are you...

Well, go there in about a half hour. You'll see me. But wait. Also, so the ranch that he lived on, he said there's no more like cows or horses or anything. Do you think there was ever once any... Bison? Yeah! Bison! Smart. Worse. Smart. Worse.

SmartLess is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Rob Armjarv, Bennett Barbico, and Michael Granteri. SmartLess. If you like SmartLess, you can listen early and add free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.