Most budding actors who want to get noticed might do something crazy like go to auditions, create self-tapes, or pester agents for representation. Not Jeff Bridges, though. No, his methods of getting attention were very peculiar indeed.
Nowadays, you’ll find Jeff Bridges in some of the best movies around. He’s the Dude with the nice rug; he’s faced off against Iron Man in the MCU; and he’s even entered the Grid to ride cool motorcycles. But, long before he was regarded as one of the best actors in town, Bridges was getting an education from his father in the art of stage combat.
This learning curve was far from orthodox, though. “Our father, Lloyd, taught [me and my brother] how to stage fight, you know, fake fight,” Bridges told FreshAir. “And we would stage this fake fight. And a crowd would gather around the parking lot, watching these two guys go at each other… And we’d jump on the back of the flatbed truck and perform our scenes that we’d worked on until the police came.”
I mean, they weren’t actually fighting so I guess that doesn’t count as child cruelty? And, to be fair, stage fighting is a huge skill for any actor to have in their repertoire. Bridges hasn’t quite put it to use as much as some of his contemporaries, but he’s not really an action movie kinda guy.
What Bridges does bring to every role, though, is a lot of energy and a great comedic edge. I’d like to think a lot of that stems from his early days fighting in the back of a truck. I’m surprised that didn’t come up in his speech when he won that Oscar back in 2010.
Arguably Bridges’ most famous role is that of the Dude in the Coen Brothers epic comedy movie, The Big Lebowski. Funnily enough, the best scene from that film does involve a fight in a parking lot, which had to have brought all those memories of youth flooding back for Bridges.
For more from Bridges, check out our guide to the Iron Man cast, or look back at the best ’90s movies. You may also want to look ahead to new movies like Deadpool 3, which’ll probably involve some kind of silly fight in a parking lot, too.