Jeff Bridges names the scene that gave him the greatest joy of his career

Posted On September 24, 2024September 24, 2024

Given his towering physical stature and deeply attractive baritone, it is sometimes surprising to think how long it took for the Coen brothers to finally cast Jeff Bridges in one of their existentially comic crime dramas.

Bridges began his career way back in 1951 when he first appeared on screen in an uncredited role in The Company She Keeps. After a few more, mostly unsuccessful, stints on the small screen, the first major breakthrough came for Bridges in the form of Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show. The film, which was a stunningly visualised, deeply felt, melancholic ode to small-town living, saw Bridges grab his first Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in the film. Subsequently, he went on to work in major blockbusters, including the 1976 remake of King Kong, before becoming an acting force to reckon with in the industry.

Meanwhile, the Coen brothers were in their initial years of working as a creative duo, filming low-budget screenplays written with their characteristically caustic sense of humour. Following critical successes with films like Barton Fink, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991, and Fargo in 1996, the brothers finally made their first independent crime drama film. For this, they cast Bridges.

The first of two significant collaborations between the director duo and the actor, the Coen brothers cast Bridges as ‘The Dude’ in their sleeper-hit, cult-classic The Big Lebowski. The film follows the story of the Dude who gets assaulted after being mistaken for a porn kingpin. In a series of progressively hilarious incidents, Dude is now set with the task of saving his namesake’s wife from a gang of criminals after securing their ransom. Despite not earning overwhelmingly positive critical acclaim, the film is touted as one of Bridges’ best performances across his cinematic oeuvre. In a conversation with Film Scouts, the actor also recalls the opening dream sequence in the film as being “the most fun” scene he has ever shot in his life.

The sequence Bridges refers to opens the film and is a testament to the audacious directorial vision the Coen brothers can sport every step of the way. Populated with phallic images of bowling pins, it sees an unwitting Bridges float down a checkered floor and dance with a group of cheerleaders, who sport the most ridiculous bowling-pin-shaped plumes on their backs. The crude sexual humour of the film and its leading man is then visualised through a sequence where Bridges floats down a corridor, staring into the skirts of the women lining the road with their legs spread apart.

Recalling the day they shot the scene, Bridges says, “Well, that day was on the schedule as the dream sequence, and I thought it would be the Busby Berkeley where I dance down the steps, you know? That seemed cool, so I invited my wife and kids to come on set that day because they like to see us making the movies and all, y’know?” Planning this bring-your-family-to-work day with great joy, Bridges did not see what was about to come next. “But the Coens switched it and did the other imaginary sequence, and I thought, oh god, what’re my kids going to think when I turn over, and I’m staring up at these girls’ dresses?” he says.

Things took a turn for the comic when all the dancers, along with Bridges’ body double Lloyd Catlett and his wife, pulled a prank on him during the shooting of the sequence. “As I float through there and turn and look up a dress, I see this big – well, tufts of hair coming out everywhere – and it’s the same under the next girl’s skirt. And they all seem to have – well, y’know? It turns out they’d put these big wigs under their leotards between their legs, hidden by their skirts, so only I would see it. But that’s why I have that weird smile on my face in the picture,” says Bridges.

But despite this, there was one more person who was more shocked than anyone else on the set at that moment. “But the expression on my 12-year-old daughter’s face was just as weird. She didn’t know what to make of it,” adds Bridges.

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