“The Old Man” on Star+: Jeff Bridges talks about the series that ‘brought him back to life’

“For me, going back to work after nearly dying was a dream.” This is how resounding the American actor Jeff Bridges appears before the press to present the suspense series “The Old Man”, which premieres this September 28 in Star+in which he plays a retired CIA agent.

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His latest work was “Bad Times at El Royale” (2018). And when he started filming the series, the problems began, recalls the 72-year-old actor, happy to be back, in a meeting with a small group of media, including EFE.

“At first we shot for just a couple of months and because of the pandemic we stopped, and then, because of my cancer, it lasted longer, and to return two years later already recovered, see the same faces, the entire team, the truth is that it was a dream. Also, I am very grateful that they waited for me, ”he assures.

In October 2020, in the midst of a pandemic and with the filming of the series stopped due to this circumstance, the actor from “The Big Lebowski” announced that he had been diagnosed with lymphoma.

The break had to last longer than usual, as the interpreter also tested positive for covid-19 coinciding with his chemotherapy sessions; he was left very weak and had to spend five months in the hospital.

Once recovered, he returned to the filming of “The Old Man”, the eight-part fiction that follows the story of Dan Chase, a lonely retired CIA officer and widower whose memory and body begin to fail him, a series based on in Thomas Perry’s book of the same name.

Between Dan’s remorse and survival instinct, and his eventual pursuer’s (played by John Lithgow) fixation on resolving old disputes, the plot combines family drama with action scenes that required Bridges a certain level of physical condition. .

“It’s a good thing we shot most of the fight scenes before he had health problems because otherwise I don’t know if I would have been able to do them. It was really fun preparing and choreographing them with state of the art stuntmen like Henry Kingi and Tim Connolly. It is the project in which I have had to fight the most in my life, ”he explains with a laugh.

But his health problems were not only something negative, acknowledges the actor, who confesses that his situation helped him interpret the beginning of his character’s Alzheimer’s.

“In moments like that, it seemed that all your philosophy and spirituality and everything that comes to you tests you (…) All of that has been made more mature by that experience. I have always approached life in the same way, ”he comments.

AN “INTERESTING AND ATTRACTIVE” PROJECT

For the actor of movies like “Valor de ley” (2010) or “Corazón rebelde” (2009), this series marks his return to television, after decades focused on cinema. He acknowledges that the project appealed to him so much that he couldn’t turn it down.

“My friend Tim Stack -he recalls- recommended this book to me about five years ago and I didn’t read it at the time. And then when the script came, I said to my wife, ‘This title looks very familiar to me.’ She said, ‘That’s the book Tim has been telling you about,’ and I: ‘You’re kidding.’ I read the script and it was interesting. And I read the book and it was interesting.”

And so, little by little, he began to feel “more deeply drawn to this project,” he admits.

The series, which premiered this summer on the FX channel in the United States, was liked so much that it already has a second season, which is scheduled to arrive in the middle or end of 2023.

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