Jeff Bridges interview: songs in the key of Oscar

By Marc Lee Published: 5:34PM GMT twenty-four February 2010

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Its a bit of a clich to contend of a quite absolute opening that the actress "inhabits" the role, that he "is" that impression up there on the big screen. But, in his new strike movie, that has done him prime for the Best Actor Oscar, Jeff Bridges is so definitely credible as a nation thespian that he unequivocally has turn one.

Crazy Heart facilities a small good onstage performances from Bridges. Theres an irritable rawness, an flawlessness about them, as if hes indeed sketch on a lifetime of lost love and difficult breaks ("I used to be somebody, right away Im somebody else," he reflects ruefully in one song). And his piece for one person marks are the highlights of the concomitant soundtrack album.

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In the movie, Bridges plays Bad Blake, a thespian once on the verge of stardom who is right away in his late fifties and marked down to personification bars and bowling alleys in parochial Texas. His usually analgesic opposite grave being is a every day overdose of Jack Daniels, until a light comes in to his hold up in the figure of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a publisher and struggling singular mom half his age.

When I ask Jeff Bridges either he had to dig low in to his own essence to have Bad come alive as a character, he dismisses the thought that that sort of thing is necessary: the all about the "magic trick" of acting, he says, and the approach your associate actors assistance to lift your diversion ("Maggie was only smashing to work with").

But there is no evading the approach Bridges has once some-more called on his gifted middle musician, only as he did in The Fabulous Baker Boys, that he done with his brother, Beau, and Michelle Pfeiffer at the back of in 1989 nonetheless lustful memories of that movie primarily put him off this ultimate project.

"[Crazy Heart] was a smashing script, a good story," he says, "but the club had already been set flattering high as far as creation movies about a musicians hold up with The Fabulous Baker Boys."

In that movie, Bridges plays a shining jazz pianist who has deserted the song he loves to have a vital with his hermit (played by Beau) as a piano-playing twin in the soulless bubbly beverage lounges of Seattle. Though the Bridges boys are fanciful together, it has to be pronounced that the majority noted impulse belongs to Pfeiffer as she covers herself opposite a piano to secrete a show-stopping version of Makin Whoopee.

"I had a good time creation that movie," says Bridges now. "It had such smashing song all those cocktail and jazz classics. And on Crazy Heart, whilst the book was great, [in the early stages] there was no song trustworthy to it, so I took a pass on it. But then, about a year later, my crony [the musician and songwriter] T-Bone Burnett pronounced he was meddlesome in you do the music, and I said, "Oh God, lets go! So a lot of the songs were created generally for me."

There are eight new songs on Crazy Heart, majority created by Burnett and five of them sung piece for one person by Bridges. There are additionally a handful of nation classics, such as Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way.

Bridges is so credible in the purpose of Bad partly given the movies director, Scott Cooper, approached the impression as if he had essentially existed.

"Scott pronounced that if Bad had been a genuine person, hed have been the fifth Highwayman. In the Eighties and Nineties they were this organisation of country-music icons Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. Scott pronounced Bad would have been the fifth one, that gives you a small thought of the standing of the man."

Burnett was additionally good at defining Bad. "He did a unequivocally smashing thing," says Bridges. "He gave me a relapse of the song Bad would have listened to flourishing up in Fort Worth, Texas, where T‑Bone grew up. It would have been Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen not only this slight [country music] thing. So Dylan was a purpose denote for me: I watched a small of his performances. And positively Kristofferson. I knew Kristofferson. I still know him: saw him not as well prolonged ago." Bridges obviously found the experience of creation song again in Crazy Heart a thrill: does that meant theres an additional manuscript in prospect?

"Yeah, Id similar to to do that," he says. "There was a total collection of good tunes that didnt have the movie, that were cut for one reason or an additional they only didnt offer the story right, or whatever. And theres a garland of alternative tunes Ive written."

Over a prolonged career, involving a extraordinary accumulation of roles, Bridges has determined himself as the coolest city slicker in Hollywood. Hes so laid back: it all looks so easy for him. But, come Oscar night on Mar 7, he admits hes going to be far from loose as he waits to sense either the assignment his fifth eventually snags him the desired Best Actor statuette.

"Can you suppose it?" he says, a slight restlessness in his voice. "Can you put yourself in that position? Its only odd. Its odd, the tense, and I dont similar to being tense, I dont similar to being anxious."

Not that he isnt gay to have been nominated. "To me, personally, the good to get the curtsy from the guys who do what I do. And it would be smashing to have that small bullion guy. That would be a cool thing. Id similar to that."

The movie has additionally captivated Oscar nominations for Best Original Song (The Weary Kind by Ryan Bingham) and Best Supporting Actress (Gyllenhaal). Bridges is unrestrained in his indebtedness for his co-star, but what did it feel similar to carrying an on‑screen event with a lady allied in age to his own daughters (he has three, innate in 1981, 83 and 85)?

"I thought about carrying a some-more age-appropriate relationship, but the story didnt lend itself to that somehow. It felt improved to be this way. As for how that felt well, I still think of myself as 25. I cant hold Im 60 years old! Come on!"

Its additionally tough to hold that the 38 years given his initial Oscar assignment for his purpose in Peter Bogdanovichs The Last Picture Show. Now, though, it seems that the approval of his peers might eventually be in sight.

The movement is at the at the back of of Bridges in the shutting stages of the race, quite given his feat last month at the Golden Globes mostly an denote that Oscar excellence lies ahead.

Youve been close on so most occasions, I say, how does it feel his time? Is he confident? "Well see, man," is all ruin contend in that evil saccharine drawl, prior to sauntering ever so coolly out of the room.

"Crazy Heart is on ubiquitous release. The "Crazy Heart soundtrack is accessible on New West RecordsBridges up for Big Lebowski supplement