“For me, going back to work after almost dying was a dream.” This is how resounding the American actor Jeff Bridges is 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 last work was “Bad Times at the El Royale” (2018). And when he started shooting the series, the problems began, recalls the 72-year-old actor, happy to be back, in a meeting with a small group of media, EFE among them.
“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 coming back two years later already recovered, seeing 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, since the interpreter also tested positive for covid-19 coinciding with his chemotherapy sessions; he was very weak and had to spend five months in the hospital.
Once recovered, he returned to filming “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 the book of the same name by Thomas Perry.
Between Dan’s remorse and survival instinct, and his eventual pursuer’s (played by John Lithgow) fixation on resolving old disputes, the plot blends family drama with action scenes that required Bridges to have a certain level of fitness. .
“Luckily we shot most of the fight scenes before he had his health problems because otherwise I don’t know if I would have been able to do them. They were really fun to prepare and choreograph 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 principle of Alzheimer’s in his character.
“In moments like that, it seemed that all your philosophy and spirituality and everything that comes to you, puts you to the test (…) All of that has been made more mature by that experience. I’ve always approached life the same way,” he comments.
AN “INTERESTING AND ATTRACTIVE” PROJECT
For the actor in films such as “Valor de ley” (2010) or “Corazón rebel” (2009), this series marks his return to television, after decades focusing on cinema. He admits that the project attracted 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 sounds very familiar to me.’ She said, ‘That’s the book Tim’s been telling you about,’ and I said, ‘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 attracted to this project”, he admits.
The series, which premiered this summer on the FX channel in the United States, was so popular that it already has a second season, which is scheduled to arrive in mid- or late 2023.
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“The Old Man” on Star+: Jeff Bridges talks about the series that ‘brought him back to life’