JEFF BRIDGES + LLOYD BRIDGES. BLOWN AWAY. July 11, 1994 (negative) photo by Yani Begakis
  • Golden Globe Awards

Oral History: Jeff Bridges Acting with His Father Lloyd Bridges

HFPA journalists interviewed father and son together for the 1994 movie Blown Away directed by Stephen Hopkins.

JEFF: “We worked together in Tucker: The Man and His Dream by Francis Ford Coppola a few years before this, but we had a lot more scenes to play in Blown Away, and I remembered something that I had forgotten, how much fun it was to work with my dad, because you become peers all of a sudden, especially if you approach the work in the same way, and you get back to that childlike thing of playing with each other, you become these two big kids and you get excited about ideas that you want to try. You are literally playing, and it’s great to do that with your father.”

JEFF: “On this last film that we did together, it’s not so much that he gave me advice, but I realized that something that I learned from my dad and I’m always learning is the joy he approaches his work with, and all the different elements of his profession, whether he’s doing a comedic scene or a very dramatic scene or whatever, he really does it with such zest and joy, and that’s something that I aspire to.”

LLOYD: “I guess it’s all in your genes, you have to have a zest for living each moment as fully as you can. Besides my family, which has really given me something to live for, I feel the same way about my work. I found something that kept me on my toes all the time and alive. An actor has a special chance of enjoying life, maybe more than most people in other business and professions, because to be able to play all these different wonderful, exciting characters that I’ve played, keeps you alive. I guess eighty-one is quite a long life and it’s not over yet, I hope it continues.”

JEFF: “My wife Susan is a strong woman. Especially in this business, you really require that, because you’re put through unusual circumstances, and to have a marriage work, both of you need to be strong. My mother, Dorothy, is a very strong woman. As a matter of fact, her nickname in the family is The General, and she really keeps us all in line. She has enough strength to see it all with a good deal of humor, which really helps us all, and my wife is another strong Virgo like my mother.”

LLOYD: “I don’t really feel ours is an unusual family. We have a woman, my wife, his mother, The General, at the head of all this and she sees that we’re getting together as much as we possibly can if there’s any kind of excuse, and that’s always been a part of our life. Beau is like his mother, he likes to express himself and talk a lot, and I’m somewhat of the same personality as Jeff, who’s a quiet dude and thinks a lot. Beau kind of took over my job with Jeff, because I was pretty busy with Sea Hunt, so he was more like a father and uncle to Jeff because he’s about seven years older. And maybe that was good, because there’s a very close bond between the two, and it was wonderful that they could work together on The Fabulous Baker Boys.”