Costco Connection

Top: Bridges as his Academy Award–winning character, Bad Blake, in Crazy Heart.

Above: Bridges with co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal.

The Costco Connection

Crazy Heart, in standard and Blu-ray DVD formats, is available on Costco.com and in warehouses. Other Jeff Bridges films—The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Last Picture Show, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Starman and The Fisher King— are available in warehouses only.

my interest was.” Other artistic endeavors include painting, ceramics and photography. He has published a book of photos he has taken on movie sets, titled Pictures. Some of his backstage photos are on his official Web site, www.jeffbridges.com.

“I didn’t make a conscious choice about
my career until kind of late in my life,” he
adds. “I’d maybe done 10 or 12 movies
before I decided to be an actor, make that my
main career.”
Unlike some of the Hollywood stories
that grace the supermarket tabloids, Bridges
grew up in a loving, cohesive family unit. His
parents had one of the longest marriages in
a business not known for marital longevity.
He credits that as one of the reasons for his
own long-term marriage but doesn’t take his
relationship with Sue for granted.

“We’re in love,” he states. “That’s a good
thing. And then we practice love. We’ve been
married 33 years. Life can be a challenge. You
come up against things where some people
will say, ‘I’ve had it; that’s too tough.’ But if
you stay with those feelings and try to under-
stand the other person’s position and really
be there for the other person, your love gets
to expand. I guess it’s almost like working out.
You work out and it becomes easier and you
start to enjoy it.”
Bridges claims his own parenting skills
have mirrored those of his parents.

“My mom was really the center of our
family,” he recalls. “We called her ‘The
General,’ and she held it all together. My
wife, Sue, has kind of taken on that role in
our family. And my father was very loving—
we had a very, very close relationship, all
lines of communication were very open—
but, like me, he was traveling a lot. My wife
told me that, over the last 14 months, I’ve
been away 11, so that’s tough.”
The importance of being a father—to his
three daughters—rivals his artistic ambition,
but he was determined to spare them the
career advocacy.

The next chapter

During our conversation, Bridges is on his way to take on the role of Rooster Cogburn in the Coen brothers’ version of True Grit, a film memorable for John Wayne’s only Oscar-winning performance, as Cogburn.

“The Coen brothers are referencing the
book, as opposed to the movie,” Bridges
clarifies. “So that’s what I’m doing too. John
Wayne was a wonderful actor, but I’m not
trying to copy him.”
He is also days away from the Academy
Awards presentation and trying not to think
about it.

“When people talk about it, I can feel
myself kind of tighten up a little bit,” he says,
but he finds a more selfless way to look at it.
“These awards bring attention to the movie
and put people in the theaters. That’s what’s
really gratifying about this.”
After the award ceremony, The
Connection reconnected with Bridges via
e-mail to get his take on the win.

He wrote, “The image of a magic slate comes to mind—you know, that thing you used to draw on when you were a kid. And then when you went to wipe the slate clean, you lifted this plastic sheet and everything you had previously drawn was erased. So that’s what it felt like: like cleaning the magic slate.” And then, sounding a bit like The Dude, he added, “It feels like some sort of cosmic chiropractic adjustment.” C