Jeff Bridges Says Stick It

In Theatres April 28

So when he got the offer to play a girls’ gymnastics coach in Stick It, he thought it might be time to do a movie his daughters would like. “That was really a part of it and they certainly helped me in just being my daughters and me going into a situation where there were all those young girls there their same age,” Bridges said. “The fact that I had daughters really helped me, I think, a lot. I didn't even have to think about it. There are just certain things that just come with the package, like doing Baker Boys with my brother. We didn't have to think about how we were going to appear to be brothers. We didn't have to work on that. That was just a given and so this was a similar type of thing.”

As Coach Burt Vickerman, Bridges has to get rebellious Hayley (Missy Peregrym) into competition shape. They’re the perfect match because he has a checkered history himself. “He’s got some con-man stuff in him, and he’s probably a little like Missy’s character at his age, very pushing the envelope and testing himself, ended up getting hurt and that kind of dampened his spirits. When he got into coaching – this is all back story, this isn’t really in the movie, necessarily – but I figured he probably encouraged the girls to do it like he did it, as Missy did it, to push hard and he started to get some of his athletes hurt and get a bad reputation. He pulled a bit back, and started getting concerned with safety and giving the judges what they want rather than the athletes doing what they wanted to do.”

Bridges did not take his role lightly, spending his preproduction time studying real gymnastics meets, paying particular attention to the coaches. “I must have looked quite peculiar because I had my video camera and all these girls doing these amazing things, and I’m videoing the coaches – their hands, how they move their feet - but I got a lot out of that. Many ways of being a coach, what those guys look like. That’s what I was kind of hunting in the early days there to find out what was my coach going to be like. I saw there were some coaches who probably never stepped in a gym in their lives, you know, the beer bellies and not particularly graceful. Probably in their youth they had some talent. But I also found out that coaches aren’t necessarily gymnasts themselves. Bela Karolyi was probably the most famous coach. He wasn’t a gymnast, he was a boxer. That was kind of interesting to find out. So I kind of picked and chose. Of course, there were some coaches that were very fit and trim and looked like they could get up there and do the tricks themselves, so I took bits and pieces and made my guy.”

There was also a technical advisor on the set with Bridges every day. “There was a wonderful coach that we had on board who helped the girls, who I would go to all the time named Pat Warren. She helped me a lot. Specifically, I might go up to her and say ‘Pat, what am I looking for when they’re doing this trick? What looks bad? What looks good? What would I say?’ She would give me all those things and that was a big help.”

Even on the set of a teen movie, Bridges could not escape The Dude, as even the youngest girls quoted The Big Lebowski to him. “I’m happy about that because that’s one of my favorite movies, not only that I’ve been in, but just one of my favorite movies. It’s a great movie. Those guys, the Coen brothers, they’re real masters. It’s like the athletes in this movie, when you watch the Olympics and you see girls flippin’ around. They make it look easy. Then, when you do a movie like this, you see how difficult it is. Same thing goes for Lebowski. That script seemed so all over the place, you can’t help but watch and find out where the next scene is going. All of that, a lot of people always say, ‘It looks like a lot of improvisation,’ but oh no, every ‘man,’ every curse word, every ellipses, they were all on the page and we did everything we could to say it how those guys wrote it.”

Now the film’s cult status has spawned an entire festival, and Bridges was a special guest. “They’re wonderful. Two day festival of bowling, drinking White Russians, watching the movie, they throw it up on the wall, just partying. They invited me to come in and play some music, so that was a big plus for me. I’m playing to a sea of Dudes.”

With so many great lines in The Big Lebowski, even the fans can’t pick just one trademark catch phrases. Since he hears them all, Bridges thinks maybe one is the popular favorite. “‘The Dude abides’ maybe.”

See Bridges Stick It to you on April 28.