#665 - Jeff Bridges

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von

Jeff Bridges shares heartfelt stories from his life, love, and career, reflecting on marriage, vulnerability, and finding meaning in a seemingly purposeless world. The conversation blends humor, philosophy, and deep personal insight.

Key takeaways

• Love requires courage and surrender, not just emotion.
• Marriage thrives on intimacy and consistent emotional practice.
• Meaning is not given—it's created through choice and presence.

Transcript preview

You know America's 250th birthday is coming up. Whoo that's gonna be a big cake and I who's who's even gonna blow out the candles I wonder probably maybe Thomas Jefferson will come down from the clouds and huff and puff a few out maybe Betsy Ross or Frederick Douglas I don't know somebody he's gonna come on down and just huff and puff them cake candles out happy 250th America and an iconic summer like this deserves an iconic drink. I'm talking about Mountain Dew. Yep, an American original. From their beginnings in the foothills of Tennessee, yeah? That's where they started. To the biggest 4th of July yet, the refreshing Citrus kick of Mountain Dew is the perfect companion to your American Summer Adventures. USA, baby. And you know I get that taste of Mountain Dew in me and it just, oh, just makes my ankles start talking to each other. God, I love it. Enjoy the refreshing kick of Mountain Dew, an American original, tasting great since 48. Look for American Dew, limited time packaging, or find it in stores near you at Mountain Dew.com. That's Mountain Dew.com. Today's guest is a legendary actor, The Big Labowski, true grit, crazy heart, if you haven't seen that one. Tron, many more. He's got a new movie, The Big Labowski, True Gritte, if you haven't seen that one. Tron, many more. He's got a new. He's got a new. He's got a new. He's got a new movie. minions and monsters it's in theaters July 1st I had quite a time with today's guest Mr Jeff Bridges You got 2.5s? What are you rocking? No, once? These are prescription, man. These are my reading glasses, but I have. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see how I'm looking. Let me see how I'm looking. Let me see how I'm looking. Huh? No. No, a little off, right? You're not bad, but. Yeah, this is better. Nothing. I don't want to pick a wife out with those on, you know. Are you getting close? I mean, I'd like to be married. Yeah, I'd like to be. But sometimes it's out of your control, you know? Yeah, anything close? Oh, I'm not that at the moment. Have you been close? I think I've been close, man, and I just wasn't like, uh, just like my heart wasn't in the right spot, my brain wasn't. I was touring a lot and I wasn't ready to like, um, yeah. I had two wheels out of town, you know. her or a little both. She, yeah I've had them, they've all kicked me, they've all at a certain point kicked me, but I deserve to be kicked. Yeah, I know that to me it's tough. I resisted it as long as I possibly could. You did? Yeah, well you've been married, you've had a... We just had our 49th anniversary. Oh man, I was making a movie called Rancho Deluxe in Montana. And we're shooting in this place called Chico Hot Springs, but they used to do brain surgery there a hundred years ago. It's like a hot spring place. For sure, warm water, that's where I want to be cut open. Exactly, ma'am, yeah. And I'm sitting there in this hot tub with Harry Dean Stanton on one side and Sam Waters down on the other and we're doing a scene. Yeah, look across and I see this gorgeous girl with two black eyes and a broken nose and that juxtaposition of that disfigurement and the beauty you know that you know part of the trouble with these interviews like this because I've done a bunch now is I end up telling them the same story I want to tell the story okay but it's one of my favorite stories so I don't mind but it feels a little funny because I told it so often you know so I think I imagine people say don't tell that fucking story man I never heard it man so you know I've never talked about love and so you know first of all with two men. Oh and I'm going to show you something I think I got it I usually don't have the thing that goes along with it but I think I got it my satchel here so I'm sitting in there with two guys here and Dean Stan Waterston see this gorgeous girl with a broken nose and two black guys I finally get up my nerve to ask her out now you know asking somebody out it's tough isn't it man oh it's hard to get your nerve because your nerve sometimes it feels like it starts at your feet at your feet and you got it's And I'm young now I'm in my 20s man. So you're Viro. Yeah, I'm Viro but I'm not I'm unpracticed you know. Yeah unrehearsed and I go up there and I say would you like to go out with me maybe have dinner or something? No. I say really she says yeah it's a small town maybe I'll see year round you know and her prophecy proved true and at the rap party of this movie she showed up and We danced and that was the done deal. Now we cut 30 years later. We're married. Have three kids and I'm going through my mail on my desk and I get this letter from the makeup man on the show where I met this my now wife. Wow. And he says I was going through my files and I found something that might interest you. It's you talking to a local girl. So I have a photograph that I'm going to show you right now. I think I have it. Let's see it, huh? This is a shot of the first words ever spoken between my wife and myself. Oh, this is a thing, hieroglyph of love. Isn't this a wild thing, man? Yeah, of course it is. I got it right. Dude, thank you, bro, that's cool. And this is my prize possession. Let me see if I can find it all my. shot here is the moment and you can see look at the look of my face I'm totally co-cocked here man look would you like to go out with me no click the pictures taken there it is man you are smitt dude how you know even from a side angle you can see I'm done that it's over you know full smit uh... and so but i resist it because uh... you know we don't want to lose our autonomy man we'd like to you know And there's so many beautiful girls all over the place. But do you think even while you're saying that so do you think thank you for showing me that and congratulations too man. Yeah I was having love for that long you know I think people sometimes don't think that when they get into a relationship what they do get out of it if they work it well as they get love. Well you know people forget about that part of it. I mean they may also get other stuff too. But do you think that's one of the things that keeps a guy from asking a woman out sometimes in their autonomy without even thinking about that. Yeah, so. Because you usually think it's just general fear, right? Because I never thought about it like that like what you're saying like because I think about oh I'm like I feel like if I'm gonna ask you a lot of like okay I'm nervous right but I've never thought that the nerves are really just like a deep internal feel like it's your autonomy showing up and be like no we're gonna lose it. You think that could be true? You think that could be true? Oh, you know, you know, you're You know my career was on the rise all these beautiful women are around and I felt it was like literally like the cartoon where the eyes go out you know I was boom at love at first sight I was and it was frightening to feel like that yeah but and so I was torn and so I was torn and uh... well I'm you know the high that we're looking for I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and uh... you know the high that we're looking for I was looking for I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I was torn and so I'm looking for is intimacy, right? That's what marriage, that's the playing field of intimacy. You know, you can, you're committed for the whole shot and you say, and I'm just lucky that I found somebody who's, I'm so attracted to and the intimacy seems to grow. But what you, your question triggered, you know, we lived together for about three years and the on again and off again. And she says to me, hey I know you love me and that you have a bullia. Now a bullia is a disease, mental disorder that my mother used to tell me which I have a hard time making decisions. Oh yeah. You're slightly joking with me both my mom and my wife. But I'm going to go back up to Montana where you found me because my biological clock's going off. Wow. You know And I finally worked up. I guess it was courage. I don't know what it was I know I prayed on the I got down on my knee that said Okay, marry me, you know, and I had this image of a handful of sand there was one little diamond in there and that was Sue, you know, I know I know if I can't let that diamond go. And I gave myself a caveat. I said, you can always get a divorce. That's true. You know what I mean? So that was my caveat. Now we cut about a week later because Sue says, when do we want to get married? I said, oh, how about this weekend? Because I don't know how long I can hold this thing, you know? That's a good point. A lot of people put the wedding way too far out. Oh, man, that told and torture. So we invite a bunch of our friends over to our little. house up in Malibu up in the hills there and to get married now we cut to Maui with the seven sacred pools we have our honeymoon there and I'm looking at this gorgeous scenery but all I can do is smell the rotting man goes man I'm a pouting car yeah and she goes what's wrong I'm going nothing nothing she goes oh let's I know this I said no no it's just bad fruit She put up with that shit for years. Really just that bad, just recognizing the, recognizing the rotten mangoes, huh? I feel that, bro. Oh, oh, and thank God she didn't kick me to the curb and that I finally got with the program. I say, nobody fooled me. What made you get with the program? Well, the, you know, I have mentioned intimacy, you get so intimate, you go through so many bad times and good times, and every time you go through a tough time, you either. you know if you give it up or you your love and intimacy connection have to grow to hold that weird thing that was threatening it. One thing you said it was like you're like I had like a handful of saying and there was like one diamond in it. It's crazy how many times in our lives I mean and really I'm just speaking for myself I think and I don't want to speak from like a negative or like downer place but there's been times in my life where I've had a handful of sand and like one diamond that was like a special person and I chose and I chose and I chose and I chose the and I chose the saying and I chose the saying and I chose the saying. I chose the saying. I But sometimes I think it was fear or it was like... Well, as we're talking about the metaphor, it's not so much choosing the sand for me, but it was, I'm gonna choose this handful of sand, sand being all the bullshit, because there's a diamond in there. You know, so I said, I'm okay, I'm gonna take, you know, it was a, I'm so, it was an unconscious decision on that side, although I felt it was so I felt it was so strong with that I'm, that I gave myself that. caveat which is a weird thing to go into a marriage saying you can always get a divorce man but it's that's a not a bad call I guess not man but you it's you need yeah it worked it worked it worked and obviously if it lasted this long was there one of them were like was there like a more pressing moment that came in like yeah what's because one of my friends I was talking with Jared Leto he and our buddies we met at the uFC fights and I was just randomly messaged him and I said hey I'm gonna be talking with Jeff bridges and he said a lot And then he said, yeah, how was he had so much luck in love? Like, how does, like, why does he think his marriages lasted so long? It's like, yeah, are there, like, yeah, like what was one of the tougher moments, like that you had to evolve, because it sounds like, like you're saying you get to these moments, and you either choose to kind of evolve and it adjusts, like the volume of your like intimacy, or you choose not to to. Well, and a lot of us choose not to at times, you know, because it feels safer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's something that I call, what do I call it, our primal battle, our primal war that we have. And it's basically, you don't get it. You don't get what it's like having a relationship with somebody like you. You don't get it. You don't get what it's like having a relationship with somebody like you. You don't get it. You don't understand me at all. And there's such truth in that. the other person, really, you know. And what we'll do, we've started doing this in the air, it's happened now as the years going less and less, and I kind of almost miss it, it just happened recently, I said, oh good, we get to do it again. We'll sit a little closer than we are here and facing each other. And we'll take turns, you know, whoever months ago first can go first, and the person just says all their feelings. other person just listens. They don't think of their rebuttal. They just, their task is to just receive what that person, get its intimacy, man, try to get that, get that. All their feelings about them, about everything? About everything. Got it. And we try not to use, you, you, you, you, you message. We try to say, this is how I feel. This is what I feel. And then the other person, it's their side, and the other person listens and we go back and forth. That. That often really scratches in a beautiful way, sometimes it doesn't. But it's a really a cool strategy to deal with the basic thing that you don't understand what I am, what I'm going through. And marriage is a great, like a playing field or a game board to really explore all of those emotions that are so real for all of us. all separate people, but we're similar and that we're human beings. We have feelings. Yeah, and that's the closest we get. I mean, that's one of the closest relationships that you have. I think to be able to do that with any relationship is pretty cool. But to really look at, to look at love as like a playing field, to look at like a relationship with someone else is like a playing field and let's try this out. Like, let's try out some things to see like, just how brave can we get with like our vulnerability or with learning about ourselves, it's like in certain tribes I don't know which there's one I'm thinking of specifically but they would have these kind of dance off things like partners would and they would like try to like they would dance in front of each other like kind of process their energies toward each other it's kind of related to something like that a little bit. Well also you know saying it's like a playing field or a place to practice relationship you know overflows into my work and making a movie or just being here with you, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I noticed stuff like that. You used the same thing. Now I would think what you do and I'm not as familiar as I might have been with what you're up to, but I Googled you you know before I showed up today. I said God Look at with this guy's really into some great interviews. I saw your interview with Mike Tyson. Oh Yeah. but he was also the most in his mind exactly he and and louis c k and he's one of my heroes so you had some great and you get intimate on these things and that I bet when you finally find a girl or a guy whoever which way you're leaning to connect with in that deep way hope it's a woman you know if it's a guy I'll say this if it's a guy I'm gonna be shocked bro a guy dude I'm gonna be I'm gonna email my mom but yeah dude I you know I like talking about stuff like that and it's important and some of these people like Louie is one of my dearest friends in the world wow man he's one of the deepest people I've ever met him my whole life so yeah I got to be at a I went to a party recently and him and Bob Odenkirk were there have you ever got to meet Bob Odenkirk no but I admire him yeah he's it and he was just like and they were talking dude and I just got to sit and I just got to sit and I just got to sit there It was like yeah that was something pretty special But yeah it is interesting like because this is the playing field that we get You know sometimes we forget that this is like Whatever it is like whatever like God has intended or the world or the energies of whatever like that put us here to we have this like like a fish come into like the edge of the glass and being able to like See just just get like a peek out into the universe This is it. Yeah man So all the things that we want to do we have to try them while we're here. And don't you find, I don't know about you, but I'm addicted to comfort man. I like to be comfortable. Yeah. And the problem with comfort, and maybe it's not even a problem. It's kind of both a problem and the solution. When you're comfortable, you're not growing, you're not, you're just be, you're just relax and being comfortable. It's a coffin, man. It's a kind of like, yeah, it's a coffin. It's cozy. And all these little challenges of life and I resist these like marriage. I resist this shit because I don't like to be challenged. I don't want to be uncomfortable. But I notice everyone's in a while I'll do these experiments on myself and I say, okay, you feel this way. Now why don't you just go against that and do something adventurous and challenging, you know, and see what happens just to fuck around, you know. So I'll do that on the other side of that 99% of the time I say, wow, I got off, man, that was cool. Yeah, I'm something other than I thought I was. I didn't think I could do that. I know. Isn't that wild thing? Yeah, we forget that like this is a school, I think. We forget that this is a school, you know? And you kind of just get used to the recess of it. Yeah. That's something I remember. I never went to college, but I thought, gee, I think I'll put my, I'll be the dean of my, you know, and I didn't do it to the degree that I didn't do it to the degree that I didn't do, you know to the degree that I want to the degree that I want to the degree that I want to the degree that I want to the degree that I want to do, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you self-assignments, you know, you play guitar? No, I don't. But I, you know, I play guitar, but I say, I should take, you know, I'm always jealous of my friends who did that wood shedding, you know, and learned all that stuff, you know. I said, you know, I noticed I don't do it, but I could, I could put myself through, you know, a college course of guitar, it's all online, it's all online, And it's one thing that Louis C. K does too is he's a great sculptor. People don't know that and I don't know if he cares if I share that or not, but like you'll go to his to his apartment and he has like all these crazy sculptures that he's made and it just it just like he reminds me of like just creativity it's not stuck in one spot it's not your just this that you can use it in different ways that you can use it in different ways it's like a spaghetti like you know of yourself against the wall of like the wall of like the world But you seem to have done that a decent amount with like music acting and with also while I've seen some of your can you even bring them up Nick some of the sculptures that you have yeah oh oh yeah my heads yeah I make you know I'll do a pot or something and then I always have a little piece of clay left over and I just let my hands go and say you know and they come up with these heads man I don't know the aspects of my or what the hell they are but that guy definitely I'm gonna say he was Italian at one point but yeah beautiful group there I find you've been these are you to give these away for charity or something um or do you prize them because I guess they're like they're kind of pieces of you in a way well they were for it's sort of a semi-abandoned project I say semi- because I still may kick this project off it's kind of dear to my heart project called Head for Peace. Oh yeah. I already. I support it, probably. And I'm a, dude. I don't want Head for Peace. Yeah, exactly. I'm saying, dude. I will be the lieutenant governor of the project or whatever. Yeah, yeah, good. Well, I'll be on the front lines of Head for Peace. It was for, I got very tight with a cat named a Bernie Glassman. You know that guy at all. Is that name ring about? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No Zen master. He was, he's no longer with us. And I was at a party, you know who Ram Doss is? Yes. So I give him, it was Ram Doss's birthday. Oh, damn, what do you even get him? So I go, well I talk, this is what I get him. I say, Ram, can I call you Ram? I always wanted to give you a little head, man. guy, you know. And he goes, hi, I'm Bernie Glassman. I go, oh yeah. And he says, I really dug Lebowski man. And I say, oh yeah. And I say, oh, yeah. And he says, yeah, he says, I'm a Zen master. I don't know if he actually said Zen master, but he made me sound really into Buddhism or something. But he turns out that this guy was a he's a Zen master. Uh-huh. And he says, Lebowski, it's filled with Zen co-coons, like a heavy, like, like, like, like, you know, like, you know what a kowon is, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, what is the sound of one hand clapping that's kind of a thing okay so it's like a question that you don't have a certain answer you just have to kind of give you a vibe or trigger something to you you know let's see that real quick yeah you can yeah there you go yeah a Zen kowan is a short paradoxical story or dialogue used in Zen Buddhist practice rather than riddles to be logically solved they are meant to exhaust the rational mind allowing the practitioner to break free from the habitual binary thinking reality directly. Some examples are the sound on one hand clapping. Yeah, yeah. So that anyway that's a perfect great definition. Got it. So Bernie says yeah I really dug Labowski he says it's filled with modern day coons and I'm all about bringing Buddhism up to speed with modern day times. I said what do you mean it's filled with modern day coons? He says well look who wrote and directed it to Cohen brothers. another example he says yeah he says the dude abides that's very budistic right there I say give me another one he says well my favorite one is that's just like your opinion man that's it and that is it that's my favorite one at least he came with three if he'd only had no he when he goes on I said give me another. Shut the fuck up Donnie that's another one you know they're just it was filled with these things and I said that's are pretty good he was Let's write a book man I say what do you mean he says yeah we'll write a book about about this you into it and I thought about it and I got such a hit from this guy you know how you get a hit kind of immediately well yeah you know boom you know some people are fascinating it's like meeting a cool pet in the street you just boom yeah