Jeff Bridges

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

Jeff Bridges has had a long and distinguished career. He has been nominated for three Best Supporting Actor Oscars for The Last Picture Show, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, and The Contender, as well as for Best Actor in Starman.

However, Bridges is about to embark on arguably one of his biggest and most unique roles yet. He plays villain Obadiah Stane, who transforms into Iron Monger, in the film adaptation of the Marvel comic book Iron Man.

We first asked the now 58 year-old actor what motivated him to play the role of a villain in a movie based on a Marvel comic in the first place.

'Well, I wanted to shave my head, because I thought that would be fun,' Jeff replies, 'I always wanted to. But what brought me to the party was wanting to play with Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr., those two guys, and I thought that in this comic book movie genre, I remember when I first heard about it and that Jon Favreau was going to be involved, that combination seemed so peculiar to me.'

'I was curious to see what Jon's take on it was and he told me what he had in mind, he wanted to cast Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man,' he continues, 'And that sounded so odd and so intriguing and that's why I'm here basically. And as far as what I didn't want to do, what I did want to do with it is I bring everything I have to the party and they get to pick and choose.'

What also intrigued Jeff about doing Iron Man is the uniquely rare combination of substance and spectacle that manages to cut across to an audience in an era rife with both confusion and political division.

'One of the things I liked about the movie in general is that it's full of interesting themes, but it's not shoving a message down anyone's throat,' Bridges says, 'People who have that anti-war sentiment will look at the film and say it's an anti-war film. Other people that are like gung-ho and pro war will say it's a pro-war film. So there is a lot to be seen and gleamed out of this thing and hopefully, it'll promote discussion.'

Jeff says he also brings that sense of moral ambiguity to his performance as Obadiah Stane.

'As far as my character goes, I didn't want to make it so clean,' he notes, 'We all have selfish and selfless aspects of ourselves and sometimes it's hard to differentiate which is the good guy and which is the bad guy. I think with Obadiah, he sort of thinks of himself as a hero in the sense, that, yeah, I'll be the bad guy, you can blame me and I'm the reason all this is in place.'

'I'm holding this altogether and you can blame me all you want and I can take it, because that's how tough I am,' Jeff continues, 'What's that expression that you need to break a couple of eggs to make an omelet' I mean he's enough of that, you know what I mean''

We asked the actor whether he believed Obadiah's motives in the film come from resentment against Iron Man's true identity, Tony Stark.

'There was kind of a competition,' Bridges acknowledges, 'It was a complicated relationship, I think. One of the things I do sometimes to prepare for a role and I did it in this one is write a history of my character. And I just let it flow out and I don't think about it too much. And what came out is that they had a kind of father-son or even uncle-nephew relationship.'

'What I had in my mind was that Obadiah sort of raised him as a surrogate father, probably got him laid the first time, taught him how to drive, took him out on adventures with him,' he adds, 'His father was too busy and would assign Obadiah to do that for his son, so they had a very close, close relationship. But there was also a lot of jealousy, too, there.'

Also starring alongside the venerated actor is Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and Terrence Howard. We asked Bridges how much he believed the casting played an essential role in getting Iron Man to work under the direction of Jon Favreau.

'Oh, yeah. That's a huge part,' he replies, 'I might have met him before, I don't think so. But that's a huge part, the casting is 95% of the whole thing. Who are the guys that you're playing with' That was major. He held the whole thing. He was such a great captain and being an actor himself, as well as a writer and a director, he knew how actors work and how they approach the work in different ways. And he respected everybody's approach and did his best to give them what they needed.'

'And the fact that he was an actor, there were days that while we had the story in place, we would often show up for the day's work and not know what we were going to say,' Jeff continues, 'It just wasn't figured out yet.'

Jeff also spoke of some of the unique methods Jon Favreau used to get great performances from him and the rest of the cast.

'We would meet in Jon's trailer and we would do improvisations and played and threw in different characters,' Bridges recalls, 'He would be Iron Man or Iron Monger. It was play, like you were a kid. We'd have a tape recorder and turn it on and hone it down and in the next few hours, that's what we would be saying, that kind of thing.'

'So that's Jon creating this relaxed, comfortable atmosphere for that to go down, because if you had somebody who was tighter or didn't have that skill, you wouldn't get this movie,' Bridges continues, 'He did a remarkable job, wonderful cast. I loved the relationship between Robert and Gwyneth. I think their thing comes off really cool.'

Finally, we asked the actor whether his children have seen the film yet and how they reacted to him as the villain.

'They haven't, no,' Jeff replies, 'Well, I hope they like (in deep voice) Iron Monger (laughing)! They are going to dig Robert, I bet. I hope they refer to me from now on as Iron Monk (laughing).'