After a lymphoma scare in 2020 and an even worse COVID-19 scare in 2021, Jeff Bridges is back in action in FX On Hulu‘s “The Old Man.” And while the long-time actor’s career is well into its golden years, with his last film roles coming in 2018, it’s great that Bridge is still alive, thriving, and being The Dude. After all, he’s had some amazing roles over the years, including “The Big Lebowski,” “Fat City,” “The Fisher King,” and more.
Bridges recently sat down with Vanity Fair for a video retrospective about his career. And while he touched upon some of the roles above, his choicest words came when he spoke about 2008’s “Iron Man,” Marvel’s first movie, and his role as the big bad, Obadiah Stane. From how Bridges tells it, making “Iron Man” was not for the faint of heart, mainly due to the constant script changes. “It was Marvel’s first adventure into making movies,” explained Bridges, “It was so lucky to have Jon [Favreau] on there and [Robert] Downey, because both of them are so, they’re terrific improvisers. We spent a couple of weeks working on the script and rehearsing together, because we didn’t like the original script and we thought, ‘Oh yeah, we fixed this, fixed that,’” Bridges continued.
Bridges went on, “And then came the first day of shooting, and Marvel kind of threw out our script that we had been working on, said, ‘No, that’s no good. It’s got to be this and that.’ And so there was a lot of confusion about what our script was, what we were gonna say, you know? And we’d spend hours in one of our trailers going over lines, and saying ‘Oh you play my part or I’ll play your part,’ exploring how we were going to do it.” Needless to say, all of the script issues halted production for long periods of time, with Favreau constantly reaching out to friends for help. “Jon would say, ‘Oh, I know a writer. Let me see he may have some ideas…’,” Bridges continued. “Meanwhile, the crew is in the sound stage, tapping their feet saying, ‘When are we going to get this thing going?’”
It was a totally new experience for Bridges, even after decades in the industry. “It drove me absolutely crazy until I made a slight adjustment in my brain,” Bridges said, “and that adjustment was, ‘Jeff, just relax. You’re making a $200 million student film. Just relax and have fun.’ And that kind of did the trick because here I get to play with these two incredible artists and just jam, and that’s what we ended up doing.” Of course, the end result was a massive critical and box-office success that ushered in the MCU juggernaut we know and love (or simply endure) today.
And Bridges remains convinced that no other Marvel movie since “Iron Man” has measured up. “For my money, that’s the best Marvel movie,” Bridges declared. “I know I’m biased, of course. But man, I thought it was a wonderful experience.”
Watch the actor’s video career retrospective with Vanity Fair below.