Jeff Bridges, The Dude, is coming to The Orpheum Theatre on April 16th with Stories, Pictures & More. A screening of The Big Lebowski followed by a moderated discussion. Get tickets this Friday at 10am.
Jeff Bridges is one of Hollywood’s most successful actors and a seven-time Academy Award® nominee, as well as a singer and producer. His 2009 performance in Crazy Heart deservedly garnered the iconic performer his first Oscar® for Best Actor. The performance also earned him the Golden Globe®, SAG® Award and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor. Bridges’ moving and multi-layered performance is one of many in a career that spans decades.
Bridges earned his first Oscar nod in 1972 for Best Supporting Actor in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, co-starring Cybill Shepherd. Three years later, he received his second Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in Michael Cimino’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. By 1984, he landed top kudos with a Best Actor nomination for playing the alien in Starman; that performance also earned him a Golden Globe nomination. In 2001, he was honored with another Golden Globe nomination and his fourth Oscar nomination for his role in The Contender, Rod Lurie’s political thriller, in which Bridges played the President of the United States.
In December 2010, his reunion with the Coen Brothers in the critically acclaimed western True Grit landed him his sixth Oscar nomination for Best Actor. In 2017, he received his seventh Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor as a retiring Texas Ranger in Hell or High Water. The critically acclaimed film, written by Taylor Sheridan and directed by David Mackenzie, premiered Un Certain Regard at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. He also received Golden Globe and SAG nominations for his performance.
He was last seen in 20th Century Studios’ mystery thriller Bad Times at the El Royale as “Father Daniel Flynn” for writer and director Drew Goddard. The film starred Chris Hemsworth, Jon Hamm and Dakota Johnson and was released in 2018. That same month he was seen and heard in the documentary Living in the Future’s Past, directed by Susan Kucera and co-produced by Bridges.
The actor’s multifaceted career has cut a wide swath across all genres.
Bridges has also been seen in the drama Only Living Boy in New York, and in the highly anticipated action/adventure comedy sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle, for director Matthew Vaughn. He co- starred opposite Josh Brolin in the action drama Only the Brave, directed by Joseph Kosinski. Before that, he was seen in the animated feature film adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s iconic masterpiece The Little Prince as “The Aviator” for director Mark Osborne.
In August 2014, Bridges starred in The Giver opposite Meryl Streep. Based on the bestselling novel by Lois Lowry, the film – which he also produced – was a passion project of Bridges for more than two decades and was directed by Phillip Noyce.
In 2010, he starred in the highly anticipated 3D action-adventure TRON: Legacy. Bridges reprised his role of video-game developer “Kevin Flynn” from the classic 1982 film TRON. With state-of-the-art technology, TRON: Legacy featured Bridges as the first actor in cinematic history to play opposite a younger version of himself.
In 2022, Bridges starred in and executive produced FX’s The Old Man. For his role, he received an Emmy® nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He is currently in production on season two.
He also starred in A Dog Year for HBO Films/Picturehouse, based on the memoir by Jon Katz and directed by George LaVoo (who also wrote the screenplay) and garnered an Emmy nomination; as well as opposite Robert Downey Jr. in the 2008 Paramount Pictures/Marvel Studios blockbuster Iron Man, playing the character of “Obadiah Stane.” He starred opposite Shia LaBeouf as “Geek,” a cantankerous and washed-up surfer penguin, in the Academy Award-nominated Surf’s Up, from Sony Pictures Animation. Prior to that, he was in Tideland, his second film for director Terry Gilliam.
He has starred in numerous box office hits, including Gary Ross’ Seabiscuit, Terry Gilliam’s offbeat comedic drama The Fisher King (co-starring Robin Williams), the multi-award nominated The Fabulous Baker Boys (co-starring his brother Beau Bridges and Michelle Pfeiffer), The Jagged Edge (opposite Glenn Close), Francis Ford Coppola’s Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Blown Away (co-starring his late father Lloyd Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones), Peter Weir’s Fearless (with Isabella Rossellini and Rosie Perez) and Martin Bell’s American Heart (produced by Bridges’ company, AsIs Productions). That film earned Bridges an Independent Spirit Award in 1993 for Best Male Lead. In the summer of 2004, he appeared opposite Kim Basinger in the critically acclaimed The Door in the Floor for director Tod Williams and Focus Features, which earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Male Lead.
He played a major featured role in The Muse; appeared in the thriller Arlington Road and starred in Simpatico, the screen version of Sam Shepard’s play. In 1998, he starred in the Coen Brothers’ cult comedy The Big Lebowski. Before that, he starred in Ridley Scott’s White Squall, Walter Hill’s Wild Bill, John Huston’s Fat City and Barbra Streisand’s romantic comedy The Mirror Has Two Faces.
In 1983, Bridges founded the End Hunger Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to feeding children around the world. He produced the End Hunger televent, a three-hour live television broadcast focusing on world hunger. The televent featured leading film, television and music stars in an innovative production to educate and inspire action.
He is currently the national spokesman for the Share Our Strength/No Kid Hungry campaign that is fighting to end childhood hunger in America.
Through his company, AsIs Productions, he produced Hidden in America, which starred his brother Beau. That television movie, produced for Showtime, received a Golden Globe nomination in 1996 for Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for TV and garnered Beau Bridges a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries. The film was also nominated for two Emmy Awards.
One of Bridges’ true passions is photography. While on the set of his movies, he takes behind-the-scenes pictures of the actors, crew and locations. After completion of each motion picture, he edits the images into a book and gives copies to everyone involved. His photographs have been featured in several magazines, including Premiere and Aperture, as well as in other publications worldwide. He has also had gallery exhibitions of his work in New York (at the George Eastman Museum), Los Angeles, London and the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. In 2013, he was the recipient of an Infinity Award, presented by the International Center of Photography.
The books, which have become valued by collectors, were never intended for public sale, but in the fall of 2003, powerHouse Books released Pictures by Jeff Bridges, a hardcover book containing a compilation of his photographs taken on numerous film locations over the years, to much critical acclaim. In 2019, he released Pictures Volume Two. Proceeds from the book are donated to the Motion Picture & Television Fund, a nonprofit organization that offers charitable care and support to film-industry workers.
In February 2015, Bridges released a spoken word/ambient album titled “Sleeping Tapes.” The collaboration was co-produced with musician Keefus Ciancia who also supplied the music. All proceeds from the album sales go to Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign.
In August 2011, he released his self-titled major label debut album for Blue Note Records. Multiple- GRAMMY® Award-winning songwriter, musician and producer T Bone Burnett produced the album. The critically acclaimed album was a follow up to his first solo effort “Be Here Soon,” on Ramp Records, the Santa Barbara, California label he co-founded with Michael McDonald and producer, singer and songwriter Chris Pelonis. In 2014, he released his first live album “Jeff Bridges & The Abiders Live” and has been touring off and on when he is not working.
Bridges and his wife Susan divide their time between their home in Santa Barbara and their ranch in Montana.
