Pleasantly confusing

IN her review of “The Last American Hero� in 1973, Pauline Kael enthused that its star, Jeff Bridges, “may be the most natural and least self-conscious screen actor who ever lived; physically, it’s as if he had spent his life in the occupation of each character. Jeff Bridges just moves into a role and lives in it....�

Bridges, son of the late Lloyd Bridges and younger brother of actor Beau, is still one of American cinema’s most naturalistic, dependable leading men. He’s been nominated for four Academy Awards -- for “The Last Picture Show,� “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot,� “Starman� and “The Contender.� But he admits that he was uncertain about his acting career even after receiving his first Oscar nomination for 1971’s “Picture Show.� It was John Frankenheimer’s 1973 production of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh� that inspired the actor to stick with the craft. “It was with Fredric March, Lee Marvin and Robert Ryan. I had a wonderful time hanging out with all of those great masters.�

In the teen comedy-drama “Stick It,� which opens Friday, Bridges, 56, plays Burt Vickerman, a former champion gymnast who runs a girls gymnastics program.

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Is it true that you almost turned down the role of the pot-smoking the Dude in the Cohen brothers’ “The Big Lebowski� because you didn’t want your three daughters to think you were condoning drug use?

My daughters were at a very impressionable age. They were in junior high and high school. I was just concerned for them that that character was going to make them feel weird at school. I kind of ran it by them, and my middle girl, Jessie, after a long pause, said: “You’re an actor, and we know what you do is pretend. When you kiss pretty girls on the screen, we know you still love Mom. So don’t let that hamper your choice.� So they kind of gave their blessing. I appreciated that.

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Over the years you’ve worked with such well-established directors as John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, John Carpenter and Terry Gilliam. Is it the filmmaker that draws you to a project or the character?

Those are certainly important. A lot of it is picking the kind of movie I want to see, and those usually are movies where filmmakers are kind of ahead of the audience -- you think you have it figured out, but it’s something that you haven’t seen before and don’t expect.

Another element is if it is different from my last role. That is not a hard or fast rule, but I know that my father struggled with developing a very strong persona in his career with “Sea Hunt� and even later when he did “Airplane!� When he was doing “Sea Hunt� he got a lot of skin-diving offers, so I have tried to shake it up and make it more interesting for me. And hopefully, pleasantly confuse the audience so they don’t know what to expect.

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Well, “Stick It� is certainly unexpected -- a movie for the teen and ‘tween crowd.

That was one of the things that drew me to it. It was a genre I had never done -- a coming-of-age film for that particular audience. Then I was intrigued by the subject of girls gymnastics and playing a coach. At first I thought, “Oh, gee, it would be wonderful to play a coach.� My brother, Beau, was coached by John Wooden at UCLA when he was on the basketball team. He had wonderful stories about Coach Wooden -- I thought it would be wonderful to play a guy like him. But then after I read the script, the coach that I played is nothing like Wooden.�

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“Stick It� also examines how parents live vicariously through their children. I’m sure you’ve encountered a lot of stage parents when you’ve worked with child actors.

Yeah, a few. Some people kind of consider my father [a stage parent]. But his reason for encouraging me to get into acting was that my dad just loved it so much. That is probably the most important lesson I learned from my dad, was about his enthusiasm and enjoying the creative process. It wasn’t like he wanted me to go into the business so he could live vicariously through me, but he wanted to share what he got out of it.

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Jessica Bendinger is a first-time director ...

I have had great luck with first-time directors. Some of my favorite experiences have been with first-timers. Steve Kloves, who directed “The Fabulous Baker Boys,� comes to mind.

Jessica and the producer Gail Lyon did an interesting thing. They hired an acting coach, John Kirby, to help mainly some of the girls who were less-experienced actors. But I ended up using John myself a bit. The movie was a tough one even for an experienced director to negotiate all of those gymnastic tricks -- and you have a schedule you have to meet. Jessica sometimes couldn’t give me the attention I would be needing or whatever, and I could go to John and he could help me work through different questions.

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Before you made “Stick It� you reunited with “The Fisher King� director Terry Gilliam for the film “Tideland.� Is that going to see the light of day any time soon?

It has a distributor in England and will be opening up there. [The film doesn’t have a distributor in America.]

It’s a very weird, bizarre film, even for Terry. I think it’s his most bizarre film. I get to play a rock ‘n’ roller. I get to do the title song, “Van Gogh in Hollywood,� my friend John Goodwin wrote. For those who are interested, they can go to iTunes and download it!

-- Susan King