Jeff Bridges Real Quotations

Making films is sort of like you're pulling off a magic trick. It's sort of like an illusion. It's not real but you want it to appear real, and all kinds of things go into that, from the clothes you're wearing to the make-up, to the light.

You have to find your tone and work within that to make it as real so the audience can really engage in the story you're telling.

"The Big Lebowski" is a real masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned. I suppose I'm a bit biased because I'm in it.

It's funny. You succeed, but now where are you gonna go from there? I've got to keep proving that I can laugh or cry more real each time.

I'm not real good at romance.

I love seeing somebody act real earnest and serious, like Jackie Gleason. He makes me laugh because he reflects back to me my own serious-mindedness and how ridiculous it all is. It's always easier to see somebody else in that position than yourself, and you laugh. It's like the classic slipping on the banana peel, or someone getting hit by a pie in the face. Why do those things make us laugh? Is it from relief, like: Thank God it wasn't me? Or is it something else: I'm being very serious now. I'm pontificating earnestly and solemnly about-POW! PIE IN THE FACE! The bust-up of certainty.

I think there's a real joy in going to see movies when you discover them yourself.

There's lots of good movies where you feel that the dialogue could be improvised, but very little was. The "Big Lebowski" was like that where people say "oh, you know, that sounds so..." and we'd always go back and get every man, every ellipses in there the way these guys write it. Because not only is it saying what Michael wants the character to say but the way they all speak kind of creates this tone because it's not exactly real.

Whenever I work on a part, I look at the world through the filter of the character and I pick things they might use through my observations of real life.