The Bill Simmons Podcast - Hayward's Horrific Injury + Jeff Bridges on Hosting SNL, King Kong, and 'The Dude' (Ep. 274)

Episode Date: October 18, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons reacts to the gruesome injury Gordon Hayward suffered in the NBA season opener on Tuesday night (5:00). Then, Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges joins (33:00) to discuss working with Clint Eastwood (38:00), the issues with shooting 'King Kong' (44:00), hosting 'SNL' with his brother (53:00), 'The Fabulous Baker Boys' (1:03:00), creating the character of "The Dude" (1:12:00), and his first Oscar (1:20:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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at Sonos.com to receive this exclusive offer. We are brought to you by theringer.com. That's where my football column goes every Friday. That is where we had NBA Previewpalooza for two straight days. We put up a ton of video. The Clatheism documentary, which I don't know. It might win a short film Oscar.

We're going to submit it. We'll see what happens. Whole bunch of great stuff. The team killed it. Jason Gallagher, Chris Ryan, all of our video dudes. Shea Serrano, Kevin O'Connor, Jonathan Charks was in town. All of our basketball peeps. Pretty awesome.

And by the way, if you're in LA, if you hear this in the next couple hours, tonight at Largo, we are going to be breaking down face-off a live Rewatchables podcast with me, Shea, Jason, Concepcion, and Chris Ryan. Supposedly, celebrity guest Zach Lowe is just going to be in the crowd. we might have to pull him up for a Q&A after so anyway Largo I don't know if tickets are available anymore but maybe there's some scalper

out there who knows hey we have Jeff Bridges coming up we taped it last week it runs for about it runs for a little bit under an hour it was awesome to have him he is a resource we played the IMDB game with him so that's coming Raped it last week. It runs for about, it runs for a little bit under an hour. It was awesome to have him. He is a resource.

We played the IMDB game with him. So that's coming up later. But we got to talk opening night. It was one of the most traumatic opening nights. I think it was the most traumatic opening night. Well, Pearl Jam will cheer me up for one second. Then we're going to talk about that. And then we'll get to Jeff Bridges right after this.

All right. Tate Frazier's here. We might call my dad. I don't know if he's home. I think my dad went into a coma last night, right around the time Gordon Hayward's ankle was facing the wrong way. That was awful. Here's my story for yesterday.

My son had a flag football game. I love watching my son play flag football. Taped the game, thought I would do the, go to the game, get back, skip through all the commercials. I swear this happened. Game ends. We're in Brentwood.

Get in the car. It's 10 to nine on the, you know, on Sirius, it says what the score is. Yeah. And they're in commercial.

We get in the car. We're talking about the game. And I'm like half paying attention. And then I'm like, wait. And the announcer's going, oh, no. Oh, oh, God. Oh, no. And it was Gordon Hayward.

Not only did I not get to see him play a healthy minute on the Celtics, I didn't even get to enjoy hearing a healthy minute. In five minutes, it was gone. And it doesn't look like he's coming back this season they're gonna find out after the surgery but he definitely fractured his ankle he might have fractured his tibia too they were saying it was a clean break that's what he said after when i think led low said that like the second time she came back with the report because fractured ankle was one thing but then the tibia i mean once the tibia gets about fractured ankle

he could have come back i was doing all the research last night when i got home you know it seemed like four to five months like he maybe could have been back for the playoffs but then the tibia bone gets thrown in but the bottom line is nobody knows they're going to do the surgery i think today and uh and they won't know till they get in there and they see what the damage is and how they can repair it and stuff like that uh it's just the only other parallel I have to this is Brady in 2008, eight minutes into the season, and all of a sudden it was over. And you go into the season, you have all this optimism. I mean, maybe some teams don't, but I think the Celtics did this year.

You have all this optimism, and it's like, oh, yeah, game one. Hey, new guy in the uniform, and you have all that. And then it's just gone, like, immediately. And it's one of the more bizarre experiences I think you can have as a sports fan, not to mention maybe the worst basketball injury I've ever seen in a game. I'm trying to think. Like, the Paul George thing was bad. Kevin Ware in Louisville.

I think the trauma of the moment, too, because when it happened live, they showed Hayward, and he was sitting down still. And you hadn't seen the other shots, so then they cut away to his foot. But it was confusing because he was just grimacing, and you're like, what's going on here? Yeah, pull his hammy or something. Yeah, because it was a lob. And then when they cut to his foot, I mean, it was like the whole building went silent because i think they saw the same shot and then kevin

harlem was just like oh no oh he broke his leg yeah and then the calves bench jumped backwards and that was the first shot they like ran yeah they almost ran away yeah oh i just every the whole crowd was it was silent i'm amazed i'm always amazed when these guys go up for lobs and they're going up and there's a sea of bodies around. I always thought it doesn't make sense why they don't land on somebody's foot more often. Or, you know, how LeBron, all the times he's ever jumped up, how one time he never landed forcefully on somebody's foot and like either twisted his ankle or broke it, something like that. This was like the all time worst case scenario because you had, you had the lob was a little bit behind him. You had LeBron coming over, you had Jay Crowder, who was, got beaten back door by the lob and he's coming in, he's got LeBron coming at him

and he kind of threw his arm out, which I'd love to see another replay of that because I couldn't tell if he knocked Hayward off balance just to foul him or whether he did it just because LeBron was coming, but he definitely knocked him off balance. Ball goes behind him and he just lands. I've never seen anybody land like that,

which is crazy because I'm older than you, so I've seen more basketball than you, but both of us have watched a lot of basketball i've just never seen that happen before it was an all-time fluke yeah and his toe like the tip of his shoe was straight down and it stuck yeah and then his body went this way his body just flipped stayed and it just i i mean it made me sick to my stomach watching it. Obviously killed the season for the Celtics. But, I mean, my mind's going to, is he going to be the same? You know, when you have that kind of injuries in his late 20s.

Paul George, I don't feel like, was the same for two years. Yeah, he was like 24 to 26. Now, he broke his leg leg i think it was higher um if it's just a fractured ankle and it fractured off the tibia i know nothing other than all the armchair googling i did last night it seems like that might be easier to heal than just breaking your leg in half but man i mean you think about how hayward, like that backdoor lob that ran for him was something Utah did all the time. You know, that was like one of his plays. He was like a shockingly athletic guy for, you'd think he's this kid from Indiana, white guy.

He's just a shooter, but he's actually pretty athletic. And it's, we'll see if it changes the way he plays. But for the Celtics, you know, you watch second half of that game tatum and brown like really showed up in the second half i i was amazed that celtics could even continue playing like they immediately was they had the lead when hayward got hurt by halftime they're down 16 18. and then uh second half they they kind of fought back and you saw the talent they had in the four and the way smart skinny marcus smart kairi horford tatum brown and then you think like you're watching them go toe-to-toe with cleaver like man if they had hayward like this really could have been a

conversation this did you how did you feel you're you're in i don't you don't care about either team no i just thought that whatever brad stevens said to that team at halftime he should be commended for to be able to get them back in the game because that was pretty much the response afterwards. Like, how do the Celtics play after this happens? Because even I said, I was like, Jason Tatum looks really out of sync to start this game. And everyone's like, well, he just had to deal with this traumatic injury

from his mentor. What do you expect? But they flipped it 100% in the second half. They really did. And that was impressive to me that they were able to do that. Tatum seemed nervous to me in the first half. Oh, absolutely. Which I understand. It was a LeBron TNT first game ever.

And his first shot, he gets just swatted by LeBron. A shot that he gets off in college 100% of the time, like a little baby floater. And LeBron's like not up in the air at CMBA. But I just thought Kyrie's reaction to Hayward because he threw the lob was so genuine. I felt horrible for him. Pretty close too, I think. And he took it on himself because he was like, I threw the lob behind him was how he reacted to it.

And I don't know, if I was a Celtics fan, I would be more impressed that they all galvanized around each other and made it because they could have just fallen apart completely. That falls on Steven's shoulder. And they could have won. Kyrie had a shot to tie the game. Wow. LeBron, the Derrick Rose three at the end of the third quarter,

which will happen once a year because he sucks shooting threes and it was a bad shot. It was end of the quarter heave that goes in. That hurt because it's outside a lot of momentum. But, you know, the Cavs went on a 7-0 run at the end. LeBron had two of, like, the all-time great LeBron travels. The one with eight minutes left when he changed his pivot food. He took like eight steps.

That was on the internet. But then the other one when he drove down to the left, did the full hop step, and then the full pirouette around. He just doesn't get caught for anything anymore. I don't understand how he gets away with that and also how no one says anything on the broadcast. Of all people. Oh, what footwork.

Yeah, for Reggie Miller, who is going to make fun of everything that ever happens on a basketball court, for him not to say anything, it'd be like, that's a travel back in my day or something. It's just crazy to me. Make one comment. LeBron, he's still so good. He does this thing that he started doing in the last finals game last year. It's this new bully ball move he has where he just kind of dribbles down. He backs the guy down going forward and then does this weird muscular spin move.

And it's unstoppable. I don't know where this came from. They thought this couldn't stop it. It's like Shaq. Yeah. It's what he looks like. Or like Hakeem Olajuwon or something. I don't know where this move came from.

And I don't know why people can't steal the ball from him as he's dribbling forward or how they don't jump for the charge. But every time it works. He pounds the hell out of the ball, too. He pounds the ball and he just moves the people back. He must be so strong. We must have no idea how hard it is to stop him. I felt bad for Jalen Brown. He had two or three times where he's right there,

and he's getting back down. I'm like, this is good defense by Jalen. Great defense, Jalen. And then it just, boom, get out of the way. It's a layup. The guy who cost him the game in the last two minutes was Kyrie. And I'm giving him a pass for a variety of reasons. It was one freaking game.

But also, I think he really was affected by the Hayward thing. But he drove on Derrick Rose at the end there and just got off a terrible shot. Derrick Rose was guarding him. but he drove on Derrick Rose at the end there and just got off a terrible shot. Derrick Rose was guarding him. You could score on Derrick Rose. On the other hand, Derrick Rose beat him a couple times. And then I thought he had a good look at the three at the end.

I don't know why he didn't shoot it right away. He hesitated. LeBron got in his head. He did. Jalen Brown had a good shot, too. It was an encouraging game for the young guys. I do think the Celtics just have a lot more talent than they did last year. But this Hayward thing, you know, they constructed this whole team around these.

Kyrie Hayward, Jalen Tatum, Smart, and obviously Horford from last year. But I just don't think they're a contender now. I think they could beat anyone in any game, but I just don't think they have enough people. I think it's going to be a blessing in disguise for Tatum in a weird way where he's going to have to have some onus on himself to be the guy to score. He's going to have to have games sometimes

where he has to have 25 points. It's a baptism by fire. Exactly. He has to, there's a best case scenario in this where Hayward miraculously comes back in April. And these guys have gotten five months of reps without them. And I would say the odds are probably 2%,

but you know, that that's where my head, I went to so many dark places last night. Like I, the darkest I went to was, I was like, is this karma for the Isaiah for how karma for what they did to Isaiah? You start thinking about that stuff.

Is this like the basketball karma guy's going, you fucked over Isaiah. This is now what we're going to do to you. Obviously, that's ridiculous. But you go to all these weird places and then you start mapping out the season and you're like, man, we're not going to win the title. I didn't think this team was going to win the title.

Now they're definitely not. And then this guy that we're all excited to watch is gone. And there's just no experience like that. It's almost better off to go into the season with a shitty team versus the potential of a good team. And then all of a sudden it's gone. Not to mention, I just felt bad for the dude. I can't even imagine how much that hurt. It seemed like it hurt so much he couldn't even feel the pain.

Like, he seemed fine as they were carrying him off. He's like, hey, thanks, guys. He must have, like, his whole leg must have just been completely numb, right? Yeah, I think that when everyone ran away from him and he was on the ground, I think that he felt something, and then he saw it, and then he was in shock. And then as everyone else saw it it just like it like reverberated through the entire arena as everyone got a glimpse of what was going on i don't know how he sat there without any i mean that dude is a tough son of a you know

i mean he's a tough dude to sit there with this foot the other way and just be able to get up and get carried out because i would have been screaming to pass out. I don't know how. Especially if his leg broke, too. Man, I just don't think we'll ever see a worse basketball injury unless somebody lands on their head and gets paralyzed or something. That's got to be the worst lower body injury that can happen. Shawn Livingston was really awful. Shawn was bad, yeah. Baron Davis, when he was on the Knicks, he made a cut and his whole knee basically just exploded. So we've seen knee stuff like this.

Part of me wonders the high tops versus the low tops. He was wearing the low tops yesterday. Kobe started this low top revolution like five years ago. And I was thinking about if he has high tops on, does that happen? Probably anyway, right? The way his toe landed, but maybe, I don't know. He had so much force going the other way on the foot. I don't know.

It just, I can't, it was like his shoe stuck to the ground. Like the tip of his shoe dragged on the ground and then it just completely, his body, his weight went the other way and it just was a freak act. I don't know. I don't think it would happen if you did that 10 times, that same play. I don't think that would have happened.

And it just happened in the one in a million time. And it was terrible. I mean, after the game, they were talking to LeBron and he's talking about his ankle. And he talked about his ankle for three minutes. It was me, me, I, I, me, me. And then she was like, what about the result the Celtics showed?

And he started talking about the Cavs. It's like, what result did the Cavs have? And then they finally asked him about Hayward and he goes, first, me, me. And then she was like, what about the result of the Celtics show? And he started talking about the Cavs. It's like, what result did the Cavs have? And then they finally asked him about Hayward. And he goes, first of all. I'm like, no, you've already talked for six minutes about yourself. It's not first of all. I mean, Gordon Hayward, I would hope, would be the first thing that's at your mind when someone's talking about an ankle injury.

But it was terrible. It was a tough night. Stevens was great afterwards, too. People were asking if I was going to call my dad today. I don't think my dad's going to be able to talk for like a month and a half. He was so fired up for the season. And the Brady flashbacks were definitely there. It was very similar to, oh, no.

Wait. Is our season over? Like, you think that, and then you feel bad for the guy and man um quickly we should talk about the other game i don't my instincts all summer were that this chris paul james hearted thing was was a weird fit because they both needed the ball because chris paul played a certain pace and the rockets played at another pace and then everybody kind of gradually talked me into the ball because Chris Paul played at a certain pace and the Rockets played at another pace. And then everybody kind of gradually talked me into the Rockets.

And, well, they're always going to have an awesome guy on the court. KOC thought they were going to win 60 games. Maybe they will. Offensively, this makes them more devastating. I wish I had stuck to my guns because just the eye test of watching that game, I know it's game one, but the pace that he plays is three gears lower than everybody else on that team and how they're going to play to succeed.

And I don't think it was an accident the last few minutes they took him out and all of a sudden the pace quickened. They just seemed like they were attacking more. They were better defensively. Is this an overreaction? That's where Chris is not Chris anymore. They were better defensively. Is this an overreaction? That's where Chris is not Chris anymore.

It's on the defensive end. He was minus 23 at one point last night. He and Ariza both. He kind of neutralizes Ariza on the offensive end because he's sort of in the way. And Trevor Ariza is like, I'm going to the corner and I'm shooting a three because James Harden's going to drive and kick it out to me or he's going to finish a layup.

It was like Chris didn't know where to go on the court. He just took a lot of weird spaces. He was like 30, a couple of plays, he was like 35 feet away from the court. Not even a factor in the play because he didn't know where to go. Yeah. When he won, like one time they had a rebound and Gordon, Eric Gordon started the break and Chris sat back, like, give me the ball. I'm going to run the offense.

And Eric Gordon's like, no,. We run the primary break every time. It was like watching. I remember when I used to play pickup with the college kids. And there were certain groups that they would just go. And either you ran with them or you shouldn't play with them. It's a different class. I don't think Chris Paul has fully realized yet that he's not in the Clippers anymore. And it's like, if you're going to be in this team, go full tilt,

even if it means you've got to play 27 minutes instead of 37. But Harden said something after about Chris Paul's knees already hurting. Or is it in that postgame? He said, well, Chris's knees bothering him. It's like, Chris's knees bothering him? It's game one. It felt like that was more of a, like, I'm trying to get ahead of this whole story where we're going to talk about what's wrong with Chris Paul,

because he was so bad last night. He did get Steph Curry in foul trouble, which is, you know, his calling card against the Warriors. But PJ Tucker was the best addition they had to the team last night. He was tough. Got a bunch of big rebounds.

Gordon looked like he was in better shape. Yeah. And he was, he was like, he was like, I'm the sixth man of the year. Give me the ball. I'm ready to go.

I don't know. I've never seen Chris look that out of seat on the court. This was coming for two years, though, because one of the myths of Chris these last, at least the last two years, was how great defensively he was. He wasn't. He could, on a specific play or a specific two-minute stretch, could do it. But he couldn't do it for four quarters. And the faster point guards in the league were, you know, you could see it when like John Wall came to town or Westbrook or whoever, all of them were like, I'm attacking.

Chris can't keep up with me. That was their attitude. And now it's year 13. All the point guard history says that this is when you start tailing off a little, which is I think, I don't know whether the Clippers intentionally or unintentionally factored that in, but I think it's something Houston, I'm sure they thought about, and they just didn't care.

I think the big mistake Chris made was not locking down that five-year deal, unless Houston already gave him a wink-wink. But by the way, if Houston has to give him a five-year deal starting next summer, if he's going to continue going a certain thing because if he can't be a spot-up point guard if he can't find that second part of his career like jason kid yeah get the i'm shooting three spot up three pointers you kick it out to me james harden you're basically an awesome passer i'm moving the ball around every once in a while slash but like if i'm you're you're you you love curry you're rooting for golden state

last night i was yeah i was rooting for steph you were ecstatic every time chris paul was going one-on-one to settle for an 18-foot two-pointer that was the best outcome if you're the warriors every time please keep doing that they wanted to they baited him into some of those oh yeah and they know him very well that was was the thing about Chris playing the Warriors. He has this huge chip on his shoulder against that team because they basically stopped the Clippers from being able to win two titles. Yeah. And last night, it was like Chris was fighting his own personal demons,

and the Rockets were trying to play a game. I don't know. It was strange to witness, really. Yeah, I'm trying not to overreact. It's one game. I just didn't. And they won, which is crazy. And they won.

The positives are just having Chris on the team. It seemed like it pushed Harden to another level. I thought that was my favorite Harden game I think I've ever seen him play yesterday. He was going hard on both ends. Yeah, he's like 100% getting to the rack and finishing last night. He looks like he's in awesome shape. He's like a hundred percent, like getting to the rack and finishing last night. He was, it looks like he's in awesome shape. He's never been more confident.

He, he knows his weapons now. And when they had Tucker and Ariza and Gordon and, and, uh, who's playing center Capella. Capella. Yeah.

Down the hole. Who was also, who was also minus 27. I think they had Ryan Anderson in there too. They were just, yeah. With those three wing guys that they had, whoever is the fifth guy, Harden really...

P.J. Tucker is just a good player. He was a great addition. That was a nice team for him. He had some hard fouls early that I liked. He threw down Durant pretty hard, and everyone tried to give him a flagrant. He was like, look, I'm just playing basketball. And I was like, this is great.

This is the P.J. Tucker I want. From a Warriors standpoint, it was a bizarre coaching performance by BS Report Hall of Famer Steve Curry. I did not understand the lineups down the stretch. I did not understand. Durant was kind of floated through the game. Yes. It was one of these, it was like we just left the finals Durant was the

best offensive player in the league I thought we all agreed like you guys have this unstoppable high screen now with Curry and Durant and then in that game it was like they forgot he was there it was almost like a sign to say we're saving our guy like the all four of them being on the bench at one time they had those shots it was just the four of them and it was nick young putting up 20 points on the court it was like nick young pat mccall this like young lineup of guys and it's like that is so strange now that they're just basically like these are the guys that we're going to run out there keep us in the game and then we'll come in to close it and they just didn't have enough to close it i can't believe

that durant and curry would not be one of them wouldn't be on the court in a TNT game at least. In the season opener, yeah. The Sean Livingston signing was the one thing they did that I didn't totally understand last summer. Kind of expensive. I thought that that was one position that they could have patchworked their way out of. I never really loved the fit with him on that team.

I think he had good moments. But he's still a mid-range point guard. He's a mid-range point guard, and he's fine. I just think that if you're trying to put together this super team and you have to make a cut here or there, that might have been where I did it. I might have just tried to roll the dice with a couple minimum point guards or waited until February when you get the buyout, guys.

I didn't really understand the Livingston thing at all. Yeah, it was weird. I mean, he had a strange game, too. It seems like he's trying to... It felt like the Warriors didn't know... Like, they didn't look like they were in sync and they knew what they wanted to do with their whole game plan last night,

which is strange for a team that just won the finals and seemed to be so secure in who they were. Well, then they're really relying on Draymond. Yeah, and when he went down, that's when the game flipped. More than ever. I thought they learned last year, just move Durant to the five and play it that way and go. But then like Looney was out there.

I thought it was a very strangely coached game. And I thought Houston stole it, and it probably doesn't mean anything, but I look at this Warriors team every time they lose, it's their fault. It really is. Especially at home. They should never lose ever. I didn't like the energy they had. Maybe, maybe the rings and, you know, the ceremony before, but like even when Durant hit the game winner,

the reaction was weird. It seems like they need a little more intensity was my takeaway from that game. Take the season a little more personally. Yeah, it felt like preseason almost with the way they handled it. You're in TNT. You just got your rings. Go out and beat the Rockets.

Can we talk about that ceremony and how the... Everybody in the organization got one? Except for James Michael McAdoo. Where was he? And where was Ian Clark? Yeah, I know. They didn't even get a mention.

Well, maybe they do it when they show up. I know, but I just wanted... I think they should get a mention. But I thought it was crazy that Durant was the fourth guy. Yeah, what was that? Before Zaza Pukulia... Yeah, it was like they brought Durant out to get it out of the way.

And finals MVP, Kevin Duran, as if he was one of the five guys that had a great fight. He was like Iguodala at that point, basically. We were texting, and you made the point that I agreed with wholeheartedly, is that it does feel like this Warriors season, they're pushing the team toward Curry. And this is like the, we just paid Steph all this money. Steph is our guy. KD was the finals MVP last year. Thanks, KD.

You brought us the title. This is kind of Steph's team. That was the vibe I got last night. I don't know if I'm overreacting or reading too much into it or whether I was in an emotional spiral from the hair injury. They gave him center stage. Center stage and a half. Yeah, and he got the microphone.

I mean, when he was the last guy up, he kind of ran to get right behind Klay so it didn't feel that way because he was trying to definitely make it so he didn't say this. And then he gets the microphone, does the whole speech. But last year in April, it was Durant that was going to the new stadium site giving the speech to everyone. And everyone's like, this is Kevin Durant's team now. Then he wins finals MVP and everyone's like, this is Durant's was going to the new stadium site giving the speech to everyone and everyone's like this is Kevin Durant's team now then he wins finals MVP and everyone's like this is Durant's team now and then he has this weird summer where you know he's getting questioned everyone's trying to figure

out what his identity is and then it's like the the Warriors have just pivoted back to like okay Steph this is your team we know it's your team it's always been your team you're the anchor you're our leader you know hold us down and it's been a weird shift in things and it seems like duran even i don't know it's it would be interesting i want to watch that play out katie and steph together should have done the banner thing yes i thought it was weird i really did i was like whoa and he's like four guys mvp he's like four people down the line and he's not even in the shot. It's just it changed so quickly, and I don't know if it is Durant being that way, as he's saying. He's being weird.

He's called himself the servant before, and he said that he's not the star in Oklahoma City. Russ was, and he's trying to do that. He said when they were in China, he said, Steph's the leader of the team, not me. Well, the big winner last night was OKC, because if I'm OKC and I'm watching that game, I'm like, we can get that team. We can go.

We can go full-fledged at them. We can play a certain pace. And we can be super intense. And we can attack them. And we have no pressure on us. Yeah. No one expects us to beat these guys. It's a why not us, nobody believes in us thing.

And the Rockets. I mean, if you watch that team and you're the Thunder, you have to say, well, I'm necessarily not worried about them as much as I was heading into the season after seeing Chris like that it's like if I'm Westbrook it's like okay Chris Paul I the Chris thing has moved way up the top of the ladder for me on most fascinating season subplots because if he's gonna play in third gear and they're all in fifth gear I don't know how that works and by the way I felt that way, and I'm like, am I overthinking this?

And then inside the NBA after, that was all they talked about. And I thought Reggie Miller and Marv just really, really missed that angle last night. First of all, Chris sitting on the bench in crunch time, I would have shown him on the bench. I thought he got hurt. I didn't know if he fouled out. I had to look up. He had four fouls.

I would have shown him on the bench 40 times. What are the producers doing? I don't know. Where's Chris Paul? Hey, there he is. He's wearing a sweat jacket. They did the Weber thing, too, where Weber didn't want to talk about him. Weber is the perfect caping for everyone because he wants to cape for himself.

C-Web's like, look, I know about this appearing in the last three minutes, Marv. Here's how it feels. The ref, so Chris Paul says he gets fouled on the three. The ref gets hurt, and Chris Paul after yelling at him goes over and tries to cheer him up, like, what's wrong? What's going on? The ref goes out of the game because he's hurt.

That was weird, right? It looked like he pulled his rib cage or something. And then freaking Chris Webber comes on and goes, you got two ref refs now now it's time to throw the cheap shots they can't see everything i'm like god you're such a dirty player also that's not how he played he was soft everybody used to do that to chris weber it was so ridiculous like marv was like okay chris thanks for that oh man chris chris weber's revisionist history of basketball is one of my favorites. He's telling his own story live on the air. It's great. Yeah, it's the best. These guys that go into media, though, they can really spin it.

Yeah. It's the Tracy McGrady. He got in the Hall of Fame for it. That's great. All right, Tate. Gordon Hayward, there's no reason you're listening to this, but on the one in a million chance you are. We're thinking of you. We're thinking of you. Everyone at the ringer wishes you the best. Hope you can miraculously come back this year, but more importantly, hope you come back healthy. What a bummer. The Celtics team will keep chugging along.

That's what Brad Stevens does. Jason Tatum, Rookie of the Year odds look really good right now. So do the Kyrie scoring title ads. Toronto plus 400 in the Atlantic Division. Cleveland. I mean, Gonzalez said this in our Slack yesterday, John Gonzalez, new ringer hire, by the way, that this might have been the biggest first month injury we've ever had.

I don't know. I'd have to go through all the seasons. I hadn't researched that, but it definitely knocked a contender out it's completely changed how Cleveland has to approach the season now now it's like 54 wins to get the one seed 53 it's basically like last year and they might not even care if they get the one seed

like they didn't last year. Now it's like, we're going to have to practice. We'll rest dudes. Let's just get through the season. Let's try Derrick Rose. We'll give him some stuff. The one place you did want to have home court advantage or not have home court advantage against

was the Celtics in the Garden, and now you probably don't have to worry about that. Tatalizing. I think this is a better celtics team i really do i think they had so many more weapons and the jalen tatum upside i mean jalen was a man last night he figured it out he's like i'm shooting from the corner i have a lot of jalen stock so i was pleased but uh but yeah all right fantasy football fans listen up it's not too late to join the 450,000 people that have already downloaded Draft this season. You get to play in a real live snake draft.

You're done in under five minutes. They last for just one week. Join right now for week seven. Play for cold, hard cash. Your chances of winning are 80% better than on the salary cap sites. All new players get a free entry into a real money draft and make your first deposit. You have to use the promo code TheRinger.

That's right. Play a real money game for free just by using the promo code TheRinger, and it gets even better. Draft.com is so sure that you'll love it that they're even offering our listeners a money-back guarantee up to $100. Just search Draft in your app store or go to draft.com. Come play free right now with promo code TheRinger. Before we get to Jeff Bridges, I wanted to mention I am on two podcasts this week. On The Ringer NBA show, Haral Bob and I did a season preview. Haral Bob Valgares, a steam gambler.

And then on Tuesday, I went on Against All Eyes with Cousin Sal and Joe House. We did a bunch of NBA futures. So if you missed those, those are available wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Jeff Bridges came in. It was a thrill for us. He was the best. We're playing that right now.

All right. One of my favorite actors, Jeff Bridges. Hey, Deb. What a pleasure. Great to be here, man. You're in the tour. You're doing Evolving the Brave coming October 20th. Pushing a good movie, yeah.

How are you feeling about it? Really good. Yeah? Yeah. I saw it for the second time a couple of nights ago. Went to a big premiere. And it was really wonderful. We were honoring all these firefighters and first responders.

Yeah. That night they were all there. And also the family of the brave guys who perished in the Yarnell Hill fire. 2013. Yeah. And now that, I mean, we're taping this the week of the 10th and there's all these fires that are going on. Can you believe it? Oh, man.

All this stuff. So, I mean, you read these stories. It just goes like, boom. All of a sudden, acres are going in a heartbeat. It's frightening. I know. I was up in Montana not too long ago. My daughter, Jessie, was marrying Kevin Rodriguez up there.

We had a big family affair in our ranch up in Montana. Fires all over the place. Jesus. They're all over the place. They're just popping up everywhere. So you've been making movies now for, we're midway through decade five. So you're on the set. You do your scenes. You send it out.

What's your process after? You're just like, I hope that's good. You're sitting in the screen and going, oh, I hope they didn't screw this up. You never know. You always have high hopes when you sign on in a movie. And often you're lucky enough to have a great story, a great script, a great director, a great cinematographer, great actors.

And still, the thing comes out crummy. That happens. And every once in a a while you get all those great ingredients and the thing not only comes out cool but it transcends all of your expectations you know and that's what was the best example of that well this is a good example of that really lebowski you know i mean i've been i've been lucky i've you know, I mean, I've been lucky. I've, you know, Last Picture Show, Fearless, there's some really, you know, Baker Boys, Fabulous Baker Boys. Fortunately for you, we're going to go through some of these. Oh, cool.

I do this trick sometimes when I have people who have had great careers. We kind of go through the IMDb because I have a lot of questions because I'm an only child. So I've seen probably every movie you've made or at least 80% of them. Oh, man. Oh, wow. But I love this stuff. And I feel like it's like having a resource in the studio.

So Last Picture Show, that was your big break. Yeah. Youngest guy ever to get nominated for an Oscar. Is that right? I think you were, yeah. 22 years old. That record has been beaten more than I've seen. I think you should brag about that more.

Yeah. It's almost as impressive as winning the Oscar. No, I didn't win the Oscar. You didn't win it, but you got nominated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bogdanovich. I would think there are younger guys than me that have been nominated. Really, to this day?

I think that when you got nominated, you were the youngest person who had ever been nominated. But then I think the Kramer versus Kramer kid blew you out of the water. Oh. He was like nine. Oh, yeah. Oh, oh, oh. There you go. Well, kids, man.

Yeah, come on. Kids shouldn't count. They should have their own category. They should be learned from kids, man. Watch how they do it. So, last you go. Well, kids, man. Yeah, come on. Kids shouldn't count. They should have their own category. Well, they're masters. We learn from kids, man. Watch how they do it. So, Last Picture Show, what do you remember from that all these years later? Oh, man. Well, you know, the cool thing about Picture Show is 20 years later, we did the sequel,

Texasville. Yeah. And we got the same guys, you know, together. You know, Timmy Bottoms and Cloris Leachman. Peter Bogdanovich directed it. And it was such a great group of that original movie. You know, Ben Johnson

was no longer with us, but God, what a great actor he was. He was in the original. I think he beat me out for the best supporting actor. Yeah, yeah actor yeah deservedly so he was so terrific in that but uh you know it was a uh we were all you know pretty green at the time and uh you know wonderful cast ellen burston eileen brennan um when that movie's out in the I mean that's been out 47 years if it's on

like you're great writer I mean you know you're home you're flicking channels and it's on do you stop and watch five minutes of it I do yeah I watch a little bit of it yeah get like weird flashbacks yeah well you know that's an aspect of watching

my movies I've been in there there's a home movie aspect to it. You're seeing yourself all these different ages, haircuts. Yeah, and you remember all of those things. Like your picture show, when I see that, I can remember having lunch with Ellen Burstyn and Eileen Brennan and Tim Bottoms and Sybil Shepard. And we're sitting there. Peter, that was his second movie. He did a movie called Targets with Boris Karloff shortly before that. And he was very young, I think in his 30s, you know.

And he wouldn't let any of us go to the dailies, you know, the stuff. We hid you from the dailies. I would do that if I was a director. Yeah. Stand in my dailies. Yeah. And, but I remember, you know, having lunch with all these young actors, you know, pretty green.

And we said, something is happening, isn't it? And he said, yeah, something feels like, you get a feeling, you know. And it turned out to be a really, a special, unique film. I can't think of any movie that it's like, or no movie that's like it. It just kind of sits there by itself. Such a cool time for movies from like 69 through 78. It's just all these young directors coming in,

completely changing. I watched the Spielberg documentary on HBO, and I didn't even realize that there was him and De Palma and Scorsese, and there was five or six guys, they all like hung out yeah and they just like talked about movies you know I mentioned Larry McMurtry yeah he wrote a series of books based on those characters from the last picture show and they're Texasville is one of those books yeah and there's three more books so I'm hoping are you ready okay huh you're? You're ready for another one? I don't know. I'm never ready.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot I saw in the theater. I think I was five. Clint Eastwood. Yeah. Was that the only time you worked with him? Yep. What'd you learn from Clint Eastwood? He was older than you at that point? Yeah. Oh yeah. A good 15 years older? Yeah. He'll always be older than me.

Clint it was really that was a wonderful experience. I was shot up in Montana, a state that I really fell in love with, that state on that movie. Oh, that was it? You stayed after that? Yeah, and I did a couple more movies after that up there, and I just fell in love with the place. And I can remember, it was Michael Cimino's first movie. Yeah.

Another movie I did up there years later with him was Heaven's Gate. We're going to talk about that one. And so, you know, he's kind of famous for, you know, lots of takes and being very, you know, extravagant with things. But Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Clinton was giving him his, you know, his first break as a director. He had written another script for Clinton. Was it Magnum Force?

I can't remember the other script that Mike had written for him. But Clinton was giving him his big shot to direct this thing. And Clint is famous for only wanting to do one or two takes, right? Right. So I was the young punk kid who would go up to Cimino and say, Mike, I've got an idea. Can I just do one more thing? And he's like, I'll have to ask the boss. Clint would say, yeah, give the kid, go on. Give him one more.

Go on, give him another one. And then it was so kind of ironic that we do the Heaven's gate and it's, you know, everything's different. So Quinn, Quinn scarred him emotionally. Now he went, I don't know. I don't think, you know,

there's, there's a, I think there's values to this. There's a value to both, uh, you know, short, you know,

just a few takes and then doing a bunch of the ideal number of takes. Well, you never know. I always thought it'd be interesting to do a movie where you have, you only do what you're only allowed one take. that's a one shot it's like a play yeah yeah that's like a one shot thing you ever see the movie a time code yeah wasn't that a cool thing where they split the deal in four you know i worked i talked to uh tony houston who was an actor on that, and the way they did that movie is that they would shoot the entire movie

twice every day with using four cameras. It's almost like a Broadway musical or something. Well, it was weird. They would have four cameras going all the time, and if an actor in the scene left the room that camera would follow them and it would follow you know the different characters and it would project on the screen all four cameras simultaneously for the audience so you would follow the people and then you would

lead which one to look at which image to look at by the sound, which one was, you know, clear. But that, and then, so they shot it, you know, two weeks, the whole thing, they shot, you know, the movie twice every day. You'd come to work, you'd shoot the movie once, all in real time, have lunch. While you're having lunch, you're looking at the dailies and you're saying to your buddy, you know, now, when I come around that corner, just wait a little longer because I want to pull out this gun, you know, just for a second, you know, and then you would do it again after lunch. And then you would pick, at the end of the whole process, you pick the one version of that movie that you did that you're going to put up there.

And that was it. There's a lot of ways to skin the cat, you know. Wasn't Tommy Lee Jones legendary for One Take Too? I thought he was nicknamed One Take Tommy. I don't know. Tommy and I did quite a few takes. I know. We did Blown Away.

So King Kong, 1976. That was like, here's Jeff Bridges. He's going to be a big star, everybody. Here's the promotional machine for it. That was like your big break as an A-lister, right? I can't remember. I don't know. I wouldn't promotional machine for it. That was like your big break as an A-lister, right? I can't remember. I don't know. I wouldn't label it that way. The machine, when your career is kind of

going this way, there's always that one movie where they're like, this guy. You know what I mean? You got my thing there? Let me just look at this. I picked some favorites. So you had 76 was King Kong. What was before that?

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot I had was like the... Because that was a big movie in 74. Yeah, well, Clint, you know, Clint's so huge. By the way, your IMDb is like seven times as long as this. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just saying what was before. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, Last Picture Show.

That was big for me. But Kong, that was a wild experience, man. I think we worked on that for nine months, I think. My God. Giving birth to the monkey. And it was successful, right? It was like one of the first big budget movies? I think sort of.

I mean, you know who really was incredible? And it was Jesse Lang. You know, Jessica Lang. I thought Jessica Lang and Charles Grodin really hit the tone of the movie. You know, tone in movies is so important that everybody's kind of in the same world, you know. And I felt that one was a little uneven tonally, you know. So you didn't take it seriously, tongue in the cheek. But Jessie, you know, I don't know, she was so great in it.

She was, that's when people were like, wow, that's a movie star. Jessica Lange, beautiful. I remember a couple of stories that pop into my head. We shot it. The monkey didn't fall off the Empire State Building like the original. It fell off the trade tower. And they were still there.

I remember showing up for the big scene with the monkeys on the ground. He's just fallen. And we just come to work. And this little guy comes up to me. He goes, do you like my temple? My temple? I say, your temple? He says, yeah, my temple.

I live over there. I come here. I praise the Lord. I walk in your temple. He says, yes. I'm Philippe Petit. I say, oh, you're the guy who walked across. He says, yes, I'm Philippe Petit. I said, oh, you're the guy who walked across. He says, yes, I'm a friend of Jessica Lange.

We used to perform together in Paris. And I walk across. And it happened just, I think, the year before, maybe something like that. Yeah. And he says, do you juggle? And I say, no. And he taught me how to juggle in about five minutes. And then for the rest of my stay there in New York, I would watch him.

You'd see him on the street. You'd be walking down, doing your business. You'd look down the street and you'd say, am I seeing things? Is there a guy on a unicycle holding onto a taxi cab coming down the street. And you say, it is. And it would be Philippe Petit. And he would come out, and he'd have a big rope on his shoulder. And he would be like, he wouldn't speak at all,

kind of like a mime kind of thing. But he would get some strong guys together, and he'd tie the rope onto a lamppost or something, get these guys to pull on it. And he would leap up there on that rope and he would perform. This is what he was sentenced to do. You know, the judge, you know, because he was found guilty for breaking the law. And they said, we sentence you to perform free for a year in the park or something like that. And so he'd get these guys to pull on the rope and he'd jump up there and perform. And then after a couple of minutes, ten minutes, he'd jump off, get everybody lined up facing

each other, curl the rope up on his shoulder and take his hat, tip his hat and time it perfectly, go right down the line, waving to all the people and catch a cab on the side of the cab and take off again. Magical. King Kong. Special effects have not aged well for King Kong. 1976 was rough.

I've been a fan of King Kong. I used to pretend to be sick to stay home from school to watch it on the original. Oh, yeah. But they're really getting that monkey down now, man. Wow, I've seen the last two. They're really looking good.

Planet of the Apes is another one. Ours was just terrible. You know, we had, who was that famous stunt guy? You're just like a doll on a string on the top of a fake building. Oh, well, it was so, they had, you know, they had, who's the great stunt guy. You're just like a doll on a string on the top of a fake building. Oh, well, it was so... They had... Who's the great stunt guy? I can't remember his name. In the suit. The gorilla suit.

They had that version. And then they had a giant 70-foot stiff as hell version like this. I remember their scene where Jessica is sitting in the palm of the monkey's hand, you know.

And they made a terrible mistake. They made two left hands. What? So that pissed the director off, who was quite a volatile cat. And so the scene is, Jesse's in the monkey's hand. The monkey's supposed to you know

gently kind of be caressing her with their fingers or whatever and uh there's the the monkey's hand was made in italy and so there was an italian guy assigned to each finger right to manipulate the finger oh my god the director didn't't speak Italian and the guys on the fingers didn't speak English, so there had to be an interpreter between the two, you know. And that didn't work well at all. It was too much lag time.

So the director just raised his hand and he says, just look at my blimmin' hand! Just watch my hand! And so you got these Italian guys working the fingers looking at the guy's hand and they practically killed jesse and they you know oh you're hurting me oh my god oh there's so many wild stories from that jesus 1980 heaven's gate you mentioned it yeah which has now the reputation is that you know one of the most expensive, biggest bombs

and all that stuff. When you were on the set, did you realize that? I thought you were going to go another place. Now it's considered a classic masterpiece. It's had a come around. But when it came out, there was so much animosity for our

director, Clint Eastwood, not Clint Eastwood, not Clint Eastwood, Michael Cimino, that they just killed it with the reviews. And I mean, I have my theories about what happened. I think- Let's hear it. Well, we were, you know, it was a time when MTV was just coming out and fast editing, you know, and digital editing was just coming in and people were

getting used to that speed and heaven's gate was very slow kind of almost like the russian director tarkovsky you know he would just sits you know and deer hunters like that too first hour super slow yeah and you gotta you've gotta with the filmmaker's rhythm and not try to you know, it's like going to a dance and they're playing a waltz and you say, no, I want a cha-cha, man. Cha-cha. No, it's a waltz. Dig the waltz. You've got to get with

the guy's rhythm. So I think that was one thing. And then the other deal is that Cimino, you know, he was the darling after Deer Hunter. Yes. Of Hollywood. And, you know, everybody said, oh, whatever you want to do, Mr. Cimino.

He said, well, I want to make this epic Western story. And it's an amazing story about, you know, back in those days, you know, in the 18, you know, 18, what is it, 70, probably something like that, mid-1860s, there was just a handful of men, cattle barons, who owned all the cattle from Texas to Canada. And it was at the same time when immigrants were coming into our country, splashing on our shores. And they'd get out to Montana and Wyoming. And it'd be freezing. And there were all these hamburgers walking around. You know, cows walking around. And they're starving. So they started to eat these cows.

And the cattlemen said, oh, no, you can't do that. We're going to hire 100 Texas gunmen to come in there and kill all the people, the immigrants who were doing that. And they wrote an official paper that was signed by the president of the United States authorizing the whole deal. That's one element of the story. Have you ever seen the movie? I saw it when I was in high school. It's really a classic. It's been 30 years. It's really incredible. It's long.

I mean, it'll be on TV sometimes, and it'll be like the channel guide block is just Heaven's Gate for four hours. Yeah, yeah. But it's really worth it. But you gotta get with the guys. Just one other thing about Heaven's Gate. We were

shooting a scene where I'm killed out in front with Isabelle Huppert. And I was walking killed out there. I think it might be two in front of this cabin. And we were just finishing that scene. And Mike gathered the crew around and the cast. And he said, the owner of this land is going to burn this cabin down because he doesn't want it on his land anymore does anybody want it and i raised my hand and i said yeah i'll take that that cabin and because i had bought a

ranch in montana yeah a few hundred miles south and it was was the hog ranch, which was the horror house from Heaven's Gate. And a beautiful barn. And I numbered those logs and moved it down to my place. And that's where I live in Montana. In the horror house from Heaven's Gate. Heaven's Gate. Kevin. Yeah, man.

I'm going to skip over Tron unless you want to. If there's anything. Because I know we're pressed for time. Okay, it's your show. You do what you like. Tron, though, I was a video game kid. I was excited for Tron. I saw it on the date of first weekend.

And then it had a belated resurgence. The original, yeah. The original, 82. Yeah. And then it had a belated, it didn't do well. And then it was a little like Heaven's Gate where people kind of came around on it. All of a sudden it has a sequel. Now it's sort of kind of kitschy and weird.

I mean, it definitely feels very early 80s. Doesn't it? Oh, yeah, man. And that music, Wendy Carlos, that music is so great. So Saturday Night Live, 1983, you hosted With Your Bro. Yeah. What do you remember about that? I remember being in a room with all the writers and uh you know bo and i we jammed and

had some great ideas what we wanted to do and being in the room pitching those ideas and we're laughing and our faces are all animated and the guys just have this in they're staring you down implacable expressions with nothing It's the weirdest feeling man You know you're pitching something and it's just nothing But Bo and I had a great time And my father was in it too I think you can google it You can google

All three Bridges You can google Bo and Jeff Bridges Saturday Night Live And you can see this scene that Bo and I did With my dad A big fight that we do and we had a great was eddie murphy in that had he left by then he might have been there yeah and then bo and i had this trip where a skit where i'm playing a gay masseuse what was my name uh i am oh yeah my name was Sandra

and you know I'm preparing for a massage and the door my door knocks and I open up and he says

Bo is there and he says I've come for my massage I'm looking for Sandra and I say I am Sandra please come in

please and I get him down there on the on the bed you know and I'm oiling my body first before I play. And I put oil all over him, and then I, you know, basically molest him on the table. And I couldn't resist knowing that it was live TV. I couldn't resist pulling down my brother's pants.

At the end of the thing is the coup de grace. And I exposed him. Was he mad? No, I mean, you know, he, you know, it was a payback for teasing me all those years, you know, he was eight years older than me. And the guys came down, the, what do you call it? The guys who don't allow you to swear or whatever. Oh, the FCC.

Yeah, they were probably upset. Oh, they were, they say, we were going to cut this, but we figured you, you boys were brothers. And that didn't make any sense. Like, you know, incest was okay, but it was bizarre. But we had a good time. We should mention your dad, who, because I was younger, for me, he was the airplane. I picked the wrong time to stop sniffing glue guy.

Like, for the young, young generation,, airplane was such a big movie in 1980. Yeah. That he was like, oh, that guy. Wait, he was in other movies? Like I had no idea. I was a kid. Well, he. I mean, he had a phenomenal career.

Yeah. He was very, very famous in the 60s for a TV show called Sea Hunt. Yeah. Where he played a skin diver. But before that, he was in High Noon with Gary Cooper, did a bunch of movies before that, but he had such great success with Sea Hunt that people, it was kind of the ultimate

compliment. They thought he was a skin diver. That's how well he pulled it off. And that was great and wonderfully financial, wonderful know, wonderful. You know, we got a lot of money for our family. We moved to a bigger house.

Yeah. But it was disappointing to him in a way because he was such a versatile actor. And from that time on, he kept getting all of these scripts for skin divers. I didn't even know there were that many scripts for skin divers. Yeah. Well, all these, you know, skin divers, I didn't even know there were that many scripts for skin divers. Yeah, well, all these skin divers, he turned them down because he had developed this strong persona

and that's what people wanted him to... A pigeonhole. Duplicate what it was. And then he did Airplane and Conchita. I remember I did a movie with him called Blown Away. Yes. In Boston.

In Boston. And I talked to, you know, the producer when we were starting out. I said, you know who would be a great actor to play my uncle? Would be Lloyd Bridges. Do you know? Have you heard of him? And he laughed. And he said, yeah, your dad's great.

He says, but he's really more of a comic. I said, what are you talking about, man? He says, yeah, you know, with Airplane and stuff. And I think people will, you know, I say, oh, shit. You can make him read for the part. And he said, what did he read for the part? I said, oh, man. Oh, my God.

So he came in and he read. And he, of course, knocked it out of the park. And he's my, you know, he was my uncle in that movie. Against All Odds, 1984. You play. I don't think you really did a traditional sports movie. This is the closest you did because you're a receiver on the Dolphins. By the way, a very convincing receiver because I like this movie.

I've watched a couple of them. You're convincing. It looked like you had actually studied the pass routes and stuff. I'm trying to think of the guy that I studied. It looked like you'd had some training. Yeah, there was a great guy. You were like a young Wes Walker. Old Wes Walker.

Yeah, he was, I can't remember. Oh, Chandler, Bob Chandler. Bob Chandler from the Bills. OJ's friend. Yeah, probably so. Was he in the Bills? I thought he was in the Outlaws. He was originally in the Bills.

Anyway, this guy, I remember I had dinner with him or something, and he was basically like a crippled guy. He couldn't sit down. He was like this, and he goes, yeah, I'm going to play one more season. I say, what? You can't walk. You can't walk. He says, oh, yeah, I know, but I can still do it.

I say, what are you talking about? He says, yeah, I show up three or four hours before the game, and they shoot me up with a bunch of stuff. I say, well, why are you going about? He says, yeah, I show up three or four hours before the game, and they shoot me up with a bunch of stuff. I said, well, why are you going to do that? He says, catching that long ball, nothing like it, man. Nothing gets you that. Oh, that's awesome. He says, I have to do everything I can to stop myself from just weeping

after I catch that ball from ecstasy. So that was an interesting movie. Against All Odds played the Phil Collins song. That was like that era when they started promoting it with the song. I was so upset with that they didn't let him sing it on the Academy Awards for some reason. Why? Did it win

the Academy Award? I think. Probably. It at least was nominated. It also, if anyone's ever watched it on cable, phenomenal car chase scene near the beginning. You and James Woods are like having this seven minute car chase. It's really great. That was right by my mother's house on sunset. You weren't driving it, right?

Oh, yes. I was driving. Oh, man. Oh, my God. Oh, me and Jimmy Woods. We were driving that thing. And like you were really doing the actual like. Oh, yeah. completely, everything.

We were all, and we had the traffic all blocked up going east, you know, going into town. Yeah. But there were, you know, a lot of traffic going to the beach. The other way. Yeah, going, you know, going the other way. And we'd be driving along, and somebody, you know, driving to the beach would say, you know, I don't think I'm, this traffic, I'm just going to hang hang a ue and we'd come right into the shot sometimes oh that's a good one you know there's a that's based on a movie called out of the past that was really an incredible movie we're

gonna take a quick break to talk about gillette i keep telling you this the tip of a gillette razor blade is measured on an atomic scale that means their blade edges are thinner than a single brain cell tater you shaving yet you shave i do like well you know once every two days or something like that you're gonna have this steph curry thing where all of a sudden i think i identify with steph curry because we have the same facial we have a baby face and the facial hair just hadn't quite come in yet. Once I start taking steroids, you'll start seeing this scraggly beard. Hey, Steph Curry might take that the wrong way. Steph Curry is 26.

All of a sudden could turn the peach fuzz into a goatee. So how old are you now? I'm right there. Yeah, I'm right there. All right. There you go. All of a sudden you might have this full beard going. Looking at you, Nike.

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Pricing applies to select products and is at the sole discretion of the retailer. And while we're here, from a gambling standpoint, we are going to remember the 2010s as the decade when live betting took off. Where you're betting at is just as important as who you're betting on. So here's an idea. Go to mybookie.ag. They've been in the business for years. Their reputation rocks solid. They do 100% cash bonuses. Off the bat, you're making money for practically doing nothing. And they have the

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Starman. Not only a great movie. It actually should be a Netflix series. I think they bring Starman back. I think I want to spend like 12 episodes with Starman. They did that. They did that after the movie came out. They did it on network TV, right?

Yeah. I need the Netflix 12-hour, 12 episodes. It was such a great idea. And it's all set up. She's pregnant, and I gave her one of those silver balls. It's all set up for something. Did you keep any of the silver balls or no? I did her one of those silver balls. It's all set up for something. Did you keep any of the silver balls or no? I did.

I got some silver balls. You got like three left? Yeah, I had an operation put them in. And I heard that they're going to do another version of it. And I thought, my God, it was too bad they didn't make it. I don't like remakes. Yeah, too bad they didn't make it. Too bad they didn't make it. And I thought, my God, it was too bad they didn't make it. I don't like remakes. Too bad they didn't make it. My thing with remakes

is if I can watch the movie and it's still really good, like if I can watch it with my 12-year-old daughter, be like, watch this movie. This is a good one. And it holds up. Don't remake it. Well, I'll tell you what where I disagree with you, man. True Grit. But True Grit is... where I disagree with you, man. Okay. True Grit.

But True Grit is... It's a total remake, man. But that was too dated, though. What do you mean? It was like from 55 years ago. You said, I'm just right. Am I right? Yeah.

I was ready for the True Grit remake. 50 years. Especially for your 12-year-old girl. I mean, you got Haley Seinfeld in there, who's so great in the movie. She's a big fan of hers. So show her True Grit, man. By the way, I don't know if you saw her in Edge of Sev in there, who's so great in the movie. She's a big fan of hers. So show her true grit, man. By the way, I don't know if you saw her in Edge of Seventeen, but she's a really good actress. Oh, I know she's a good actress.

She's going places. Oh, yeah, she's great. Singer and everything. Jagged Edge during this mid-'80s era of, it's like this thriller era. Do I trust person X? Is he really the killer or is he not? It's a good one. You and Glenn Close. You turn out to be the killer.

Spoiler alert, 32 years later. Was that the first time you were the killer in a movie? I think I killed some people in Heaven's Gate. But you weren't like a murderer. No, I wasn't a murderer. Was that my first murder? I don't know, maybe.

You just went full murder i saw there was a guy we're doing heaven's gate i told you being shot in front of that cabin right yeah and chimino's famous for many many takes so i had 16 suits made with a hundred squibs in the suit oh my god my gosh. 100 shots, explosions with blood bags all done. They had 16 of them. And we went through those suits three times. They reloaded them, and we did that scene that many times. Hurt.

Feels like little pricks or what? Well, no, here's the thing. It was in the days, it was a little kind of primitive how they did that thing, and they had like a, to do those shots, there was a board with wires attached to these nails and the people i would run a nail across it and it would set off all these shots on your body and i was talking to the guy who was doing that and i said now you're going to shoot me once in the shoulder i'm going to reach for my shoulder holster, a pistol in my shoulder holster.

Let me get that out. I'll get a couple of shots. When I get one, two shots out and now let it go, right? So the first take, you know, boom, I get shot in the shoulder. I go for my shoulder holster and before I get the gun out of the thing, boom, and he sets one off right under my right under my arm. And I say, oh

I've actually been shot. I'm bleeding now. And then boom, boom, boom, boom. And I fall down and I say, well I've been shot in the arm. I'll just lay there and die on screen. You know, bleed out. And I wasn't dead but I looked at my arm and a huge

bruise on my arm and I go over to the guy and say let me get my gun out before you set the things off and he goes oh yeah I'm sorry my bad every time man he screwed up every time maybe he didn't like it boom boom boom like this

it was just so sad now we're doing this is many later, and we're doing Jagged Edge. And my stand-in, Lloyd Catlett, who's been my stand-in through about 70 movies. I met him on The Last Picture Show. He's like your permanent stand-in? He's been my stand-in all this time. And he says, at the end of Jagged Edge, when I'm going to go kill, coming in and kill Glenn Close, I'm going to pull out my knife and then she's going to shoot me. And he says, look who's the special effects guy who's going to pull the trigger on your thing.

And it was this guy. It was that same guy, man. I go, oh, no. So I go over to him. And Heaven's Gate was 15 years before or whatever. And I say, Bobby or whatever his name is, I say, wait till I get my knife out, man, before you shoot me. And he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry about that. Boom!

Right under my arm. Oh, no. Same place. And I took that knife and I threw it down on the ground. And it magically flipped up in the air and landed right by the guy's head. I could never figure out if he was doing that on purpose. Did I insult him some way? I don't know.

We got to skip over some 80s thrillers. I'm telling too long stories. No, this is exactly what I was hoping for. 1989. My favorite Jeff Bridges movie, The Fabulous Baker Boys. Oh, gosh. You know what's cool about this movie? It's almost been 30 years.

It's still 100% rewatchable. It feels like it could kind of come out now. It's not that much different. Pfeiffer at the perfect point in her career. You're at the perfect point in your career career you got all this stuff with your brother i never knew like why because i didn't know that much about the history of you and your brother like how much of this is yeah it's kind of tapping into real stuff versus not real and her and the piano it's just i'm a huge pfeiffer fan and then you had uh you know this great director, Steve Clovis. He wrote that in his 20s, man, and directed it.

I think he was still in his 20s. It's a fucking awesome movie. That's his first movie. That's his first time out. Wow. So what do you remember about that one? You could play the piano, right? Like you would from years ago.

You knew how to do it. Well, a little bit, but not like that guy. Yeah, right. Dave Grusin who who you're hearing played the piano but i told steve our director i said look we can pull the illusion you know because movies is all about illusion he's like we gotta pull the illusion that i play we just do it one or two times and that'll be it so um i uh i set up some video cameras when Dave was doing the score, one kind of far back so I could see his body movements

and the general position of his hand, another one right over the keyboard to really look at his hands. And then I asked Steve to give me the bars of music where they're going to go from my hands to my face or vice versa. And I learned those bars. I could play those bars, you know, and I, so I, I could play a little, I could play enough to learn those bars. And so I, you know, learned them. And then when we shot it, I had a little earwig, a little speaker that you put in your ear. So I could hear Dave, what Dave was playing. We muted my piano, but I'm actually playing the keys that you put in your ear so I could hear what Dave was playing. We muted my piano,

but I'm actually playing the keys that you're hearing, and so the illusion worked pretty well. Usually when people play piano in the movies, they're trying too hard. They're throwing their whole body into it, and the ones that actually work are the ones, because real people who don't play the piano don't do that.

They're cool about it. The movie has a nice vibe. It's they're cool about it. Yeah, yeah. That movie has a nice vibe. It's a really interesting rewatch, too, because of, you know, you could tell she was a little nervous about singing in real life, and it translated into the role, and it just worked. There was a song, you get the soundtrack, and they left out, my favorite song that she sang was More Than You Know. Do you know that song?

Yeah. It was the song that she auditions for the brothers. Yeah. More than you know. So beautiful. And that wasn't in the soundtrack? And that's not in the soundtrack. I don't know why.

Wow. Fisher King, you worked with Robin Williams. Yeah. Gosh. Everybody loves him. Or everybody loves working with him. Such an incredible cat i was nervous um doing that one because he was you know he was he's such an amazing comedian yeah and i had some

serious stuff i had to do in that movie i had one monologue i had to give uh to him his character in the coma his character was you know completely unconscious but I had this fear that Robin would be you know screwing with me you know all during my big you know serious monologue you know trying to break me up and the app the antithesis of that actually happened he was so supportive you know and it's it's odd how can somebody be supportive if their eyes are closed and they're not moving but somehow just the vibe you know he was he was so um so supportive uh in that scene and and i it made me understand that comedy was just a tool in his kit bag he was a masterful actor you know didn't you dig him and um whenever when he played he had a series of about three

movies he came out where he played the bad guy you know about yeah well insomnia he was really yeah yeah yeah yeah so good was this right around the time when you felt like you could do any movie you wanted because after baker boys where your choice the choices you were being offered were at a different level or did that happen earlier because Because there had to be some point where you're like, I'm Jeff Bridges, I want to do this role. And they'd be like, oh, cool, Jeff Bridges wants to do it. It's never been like that. No?

No. No, I'm... There must have been a point where you had more power than you used to have with... I never thought of it that way. You know, I try to resist making movies as much as I can. You know, I'm not going out and trying to. I've done it a couple of times, movies that I've produced, you know,

that I've really been proud of and, you know, worked hard at getting made. But normally I do my best to not engage in making movies because i know what it takes you know it you know for one thing you're you're away from your family right that's one of my regrets in my life that i can you know missed a lot of my kids growing up and you know that it's you know i can get depressed about that um and uh there's you do one movie then you're not going to be able to do some other movie that might be coming down the pike that you're not even aware of you're committed yeah you're committed and i'd like to do i got a lot of other stuff i music and paint and i got a lot of other stuff so i'd really try hard not to engage and so i end up doing movies that I just can't resist.

There's just a story that's so cool or a movie that I'd love to see or some other artist that's just too great and that will suck me. Yeah, you never had your run where you're like, I'm going to do a Bourne Identity trilogy. Yeah. Just bang out movies in Amsterdam. This one's going to shock you. I love The Vanishing, which I'm sure you get, but it's like

one of the all-time cult thriller movies. But have you seen the original? But that's the thing. It always gets compared to the original. It's like, can I just like the one with Jeff Bridges and Cooper Sutherland? I've got to say, the original's better, man. You think so? Oh, man, yeah. For a lot of reasons. But what's interesting, directed by the same guy.

Did you... George Schleiser. And and he wanted in the american version he wanted my guy the bad guy to get his comeuppance barney barney but hello jeff yes you had that weird accent yes and you talk very deliberately that was one of the things that George Slyzer said to me. He said, Jeff, I am the real Barney Jeff. Oh, so you're doing a George Slyzer impersonation? So I just said, thank you, George. And so I just ripped him down. I'm going to talk like this. Yeah, and then his first bit of direction for me, he says, Jeff, I want you to write an essay on Barney's past, his life. An essay?

An essay. And I said, oh, George. I said, okay. I said, it's like a homework assignment or something. But I started to do it, and it just started to flow out of me, and it was a great exercise. I can recommend it to other actors, and I've done it for other parts.

What you do, and you almost do it like I was, at at the time I was working on a book called The Artist's Way. Have you heard? Do you know about that? I've heard of that. I didn't read it. One of the things in Artist's Way is these morning pages where you write stream of consciousness, which means you don't stop writing. So if your mind is saying, I don't know what I'm going to write. You say, I don't know what I'm going to write.

I don't know what I'm going to write. I know I'm not supposed to stop moving my hand, so I'm going to keep writing. I don't know what I was writing. I think, yeah, yeah. And so you, so, and what happens is that your mind starts to just spill on the page, you know, rather than trying to figure out something precious or pertinent or, you know. Well, The Vanishing is a good movie. So you just let it flow.

And so I'm writing this. I said, how am I going to, you know, how did that work? And it turns out that the accent was a total affectation, that the guy was from the valley, you know, here. And I could, you know, we don't have enough time to tell you what the backstory of Bondy is, but it was quite remarkable. But the accent was a total affectation.

Well, it's on cable all the time, which means people like it. Check out the original. Anytime it's always on. I don't think you like the original more. Blown away Boston. I was living in Boston when you filmed this movie. Oh, no. It was a huge deal.

We got in trouble, man. We blew out a bunch of windows. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. it was a huge deal we got in trouble man we blew out a bunch of windows and oh yeah oh man there's there's some as somebody who spent a lot of my life in boston there's some continuity issues with the with the last 10 minutes you're just going downhill for nine blocks there's like no point in boston they cheated the location all of a sudden in san francisco yeah yeah and do you see an explosion from the four seasons there's no way to see but but i i still it's it's San Francisco. Yeah. And do you see an explosion from the four seasons? There's no way to see. But I still, it's an important Boston movie

because I think it was like the first, hey, this is in Boston. Yeah. They're making it here. Jeff Bridges is here. He's staying in a hotel here. And it was like a big deal. To me, it was so great

because I got to work with my dad. Yeah. And also Tommy Lee lee who's one of my favorite actors it was great it's it's a good one it's on a lot uh we got to go lebowski which you've talked about a kajillion times and then there's this whole crazy lebowski fan base that and this became like an alter ego for you the dude man yeah got the the lebowski fests you know and you've embraced it. Absolutely.

Oh, God, I'm proud of being involved with that one. That's a great movie. Did you know that at the time? You're filming it? I knew that, you know, I was a big fan of the Coen brothers. So I knew that we were in good hands. But this was a case of I had high expectations. And then when the thing came out

those expectations were you just went transcendent you know it was just much better than i thought i had high hopes and you know it was better than i ever thought i mean that's a great you know that you're talking about seeing movies of mine on tv now that movie will come on. I'll say, well, I'll just watch a couple of scenes, wait until Turturro licks the ball, and then I'll spin to another channel, and he'll lick that thing, and I'll say, oh, I've got to hang in, I've got to see this. And then I'll stick with that whole movie,

because the scenes are like popcorn. You can't stop, man. The more you see it, the more you get out of it and i'm fascinated by the well-made movie yeah i'm fascinated by the tale of it because usually with comedies they belong to like a certain generation right like my generation loves caddyshack but i'm not sure under 25 that they care about caddyshack that way big lebowski is just like people hit 17 18 19 whatever and they get sucked in, and that's it. It just keeps going and going.

My theory is that it's just a great movie, well-made movie, where each scene leads to something else that's surprising. Roger Deakins, the cinematographer, it's so beautifully shot. And like most things, not most things, i said some things and things that i i really admire that are really well done uh it's not in the the the beauty of it's not in your face it's like um it looks effortless you know well and uh you know we're almost out of time so i gotta okay okay i gotta do two more. The contender, you're up there in conversation for greatest movie presidents. If I was like, could I take a movie president and actually have them run the real country?

If I did a bracket, I think my final championship game would be you versus Kevin Kline and Dave. All right. Good, good. I don't know if anyone else has any other candidates. Yeah, good idea. You were just a good president you felt like the president yeah did you did you know that that was going to be i mean that was an important movie you got nominated for i think joan allen did too yeah rod lurie wrote and directed that movie and he was a very interesting guy he was a um kind of a polarizing guy well he was well he was a uh and i don He was a... Kind of a polarizing guy.

Well, he was a... I don't know if you'd call him a critic. I guess you'd call him a critic, but he was more like Truffaut or Bogdanovich, who both were film historians, gave film critics, but they only wrote about movies that they really liked, basically,

and they gave the viewers more insight into it. And Rod, he would interview filmmakers for the reason that he wanted to be a filmmaker himself. So he would always ask very pertinent questions. And it turns out that I was his first interview that he ever did. Isn't that bizarre? And if I ran into other, uh, interviewers,

I said, do you know Rod Lurie? And they were eyes would roll. I said, why do you say, Oh, he was always asking these, you know, questions, you know, just how camera moves and stuff. But anyway, he, uh, he wrote this great script and, um, uh, he, he, he was really into politics, really knew about Washington. And then Joan Allen was going to play. And she's incredible. She's incredible. And I'd worked with her and Tucker years before. Yeah, another good one.

And so I thought, oh, man, this is going to be a good one. And then Rod loved the fact, because I had just played the dude maybe a couple of years before. He says, I love the fact the dude's going to be the president you know i love that and that that really played into my whole thing during that especially that time of my career taking a cue from my father i didn't want to develop too strong a persona in any kind of thing so so you know doing the dude and then doing the press you know that was a nice juxtaposition. I enjoyed that. I would say that's your best characteristic as an actor is the versatility, you know?

Yeah. After all these years, you just sit back and be like, you're the vanishing guy. You're the president. You're the dude. Like, you're able to move all these different places. So you finally win the Oscar, Crazy Art, 2009. You've been in the business at this point, I mean, since you were a kid. Yeah.

But you'd been making movies for almost 40 years at that point. Was it everything you hoped it was going to be? It was another one of those transcendent things, you know, where I thought it was going to be good, and it turned out better than I imagined. So you weren't thinking when you did that script, this is the one, I'm going to win thecar for this no no no no when you know i turned that script down for about two years yeah because there was no music attached yeah and uh you know in my heart i always wanted to make a movie you know about a musician you know and do that because that's something i you know i love playing music and it would be you know wonderful uh but uh in a way you know it's things are safe when you keep

them in the dream world you know you're not you you you don't you're not gonna there's no danger of failure or anything because you're just dreaming you're just thinking but now when it starts to come real you know it's kind of frightening because we were talking about that wide receiver with that ball. And when you're throwing that perfect pass, man, all your dreams could come true. Please, God, let me catch this thing. Whenever my sweaty hands slip this thing. Oh, man. A lot of anxiety, you know, fop sweat and stuff.

And so I was kind of relieved when there was no music in the script. I said, wow, I can keep it and just dreaming about it. And then I'm walking down the street one day and I see my buddy T-Bone Burnett, who we met on Heaven's Gate. Yeah. And he says, what do you think about this script, Crazy Heart?

I said, oh, I don't know, there's no music. And he says, oh, that's the easy part. I said, why are you interested in doing it? He said, well, I'll do it if you'll do it. I said, you're kidding me. And he says, yeah. I said, what about the music? He says, we're going to handle that.

I said, OK. So off we went. And we wrote those songs. And I mean, I could tell you lots of stories about it. It was such a wonderful experience working with my dear friends. Yeah. And making that movie. It was Scott Cooper's first movie.

He wrote the script. And now he's become a big-time director. He's got a movie coming out now called hostiles that's supposed to be terrific i haven't seen it yet so you were last question you've worked with so many people over the years i know actors hate this question but who do you think's the best actor or actress you ever worked with was there anybody where you were like wow that person's so talented i can't tell you this uh this movie that's coming out, Only the Brave, has got some good performances in it, man. Jennifer Connelly.

Woo! Josh Brolin. Incredible. Miles Teller. So great. Wonderful. Taylor Kitsch is in it. Just great, great actors.

I can't name one. No. I get knocked out by people's performances. Have you dug Bloodline? Yeah, the Netflix show? Yeah. Bo's in that. My brother's in that.

There's a slew of good actors in that. Man, I'm watching that stuff, huh? Aren't they good? Oh, man. You might have to. It sounds like you want to do one Netflix show at some point. Well, there's some great stuff is on there now. It's kind of all switched around.

All right. Hey, people out there, Jeff Bridges is ready. He's ready to read an awesome script. Oh, man. Yeah. This was really fun. I really was. If this had been four hours, I think we could have done it.

Yeah, I think so, man. But you're busy. You're promoting stuff. Too many stories, man. man it was awesome a long-winded mother it was awesome thank you all right thank you bill good hanging there thanks again to jeff bridges thanks to tate frazier thanks to c geek for 20 off your first c geek purchase on nfl tickets use promo code bsnFL and for $30 off your first secret purchase on NBA tickets use promo code NBAPALOOSA thanks to Gillette a Gillette razor blade thinner than a single brain cell

that's the product of many brain cells at work from the thousands of men and women at Gillette they're always working harder to make your shave better two years from now they'll be working harder to make Tate's shave better now you can get Gillette blades for less at GilletteOnDemand.com to make your shave better. Two years from now, they'll be working harder to make Tate's shave better. Now you can get Gillette Blades for less at GilletteOnDemand.com.

Gillette, the best a man can get. Pricing applies to select products at the sole discretion of the retailer. Thanks to Sonos. Their Playbase adds dynamic pulse-pounding sound to whatever's playing on your TV, streams music, and practically disappears beneath your TV for a limited time only. Sonos is offering listeners of this podcast 10% off one order of $2,500 or less for any product on Sonos.com. This offer cannot be combined with other discounts or promotions. Use promo code Simmons10 at Sonos.com to receive this exclusive offer. Hope to see some people at Lager tonight for the Rewatchables Face-Off podcast.

We're back on Friday with somebody we have never had on this podcast and who had never done a podcast. It's a good one. And if more NBA stuff happens, I'm going to hop over to the Ringer NBA show on Thursday or Friday and chime in. So if you haven't subscribed to Ringer NBA show, I would do so. And by the way, the Ringer NFL show has been fantastic.

Not just TM Street with Tate and Lombardi, which has gone to another level, but I listened to Maize and Clark yesterday. They're on Tuesdays and Fridays. It is just a great football podcast. I'm really proud of the Rainer NFL show. I think that feed has become indispensable. So check it out.

That's it. Back on Friday. I don't have a few years with him on the wayside on the first of November I don't have a few years