Jeff Bridges’ acclaimed new film Hell or High Water tackles guns, poverty and the law

JEFF Bridges, who is being tipped for an Oscar nomination for his latest film, on guns, cowboy boots and being a certain age.

THE prospect of retirement doesn’t spook Jeff Bridges nearly as much as it does the ageing lawman he plays in his latest film, Hell Or High Water.

But that’s largely because Bridges can’t see it happening any time soon.

“Actors can work till we are on our death bed,’’ says the Hollywood veteran. “We don’t have a mandatory retirement (age) like the Texas Rangers do.”

Since Bridges, 66, is already being tipped for an Oscar nomination for the beautifully-weathered performance, the job offers aren’t likely to dry up any time soon.

Jeff Bridges at the Los Angeles screening of Hell Or High Water on August 10, 2016. Picture: Frazer Harrison / Getty

Written by Taylor Sheridan (Sicario) and directed by David Mackenzie (Starred Up), Hell Or High Water flips the “criminal who reluctantly agrees to one last job” motif on its head.

This time, it’s Bridges’ hard-bitten lawman who is determined to catch two last bad guys before he retires.

The bank-robbing brothers in question (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) might be amateurs, but they have planned their crime spree well.

Chris Pine and Ben Foster play the baddies in the new film Hell Or High Water. Picture: Madman Films

Marcus Hamilton (Bridges), however, is a wily old-timer with a lifetime’s experience under his leather belt.

And the years have intensified his tendency towards doggedness.

Since the death of his wife, there is no one and nothing waiting for him at home.

“To have such an adventurous and exciting life suddenly stop must be very disconcerting,” observes Bridges, who married his wife, Susan Geston, in 1977.

“It’s like the military, you almost get addicted to that kind of action.”

Despite the tempting range of roles being offered to him, Bridges says he has flirted with the idea of “changing things up a little bit” on occasion.

“Sometimes I feel like I would like to put on a set of new tyres, like re-tyreing, and heading off-road to a new set of adventures. That’s kind of appealing to me.”

Jeff Bridges in a scene with Dale Dickey in the acclaimed Hell or High Water. Picture: Madman Films

In fact, Bridges did exactly that on the back of Crazy Heart, for which he won an Oscar in 2010 for his performance as a broken-down country singer who turns his life around.

“I performed before Crazy Heart but (that film) really set fire to my musical dreams. I figured if I was ever going to get a band together and develop that, now would be the time.”

As Hamilton, Bridges wears the iconic Texas Rangers’ uniform — high-crowned stetson hat and Cuban-heeled cowboy boots — as if he has done so his entire life.

In some ways he has.

Father Lloyd Bridges starred in a number of high profile westerns, including High Noon (1952), with Gary Cooper and the 1953 film The Tall Texan.

“I always loved it when he was making a western. He’d let me dress up in his wardrobe. It would be a great treat.”

Of course, Bridges has plenty of gun-slinging experience himself — most recently as the grizzled US marshal in the Coen brothers’ 2010 western True Grit, for which he received his fifth Oscar nomination.

But it was the real-life lawman his character is based upon that made the biggest impact on this performance.

“What surprised me was kind of the sweetness and gentility about him. He was a very open and gregarious kind of guy, but you could see a kind of coldness in his eyes. It was an interesting juxtaposition of qualities,” Bridges says.

Guns at the ready for Gil Birmingham and Jeff Bridges in a scene from Hell or High Water. Picture: Madman Films

Not many westerns spark a debate around gun control — but one scene in Hell Or High Water in particular has generated a lot of discussion.

“It’s a very interesting theme in America right now,’’ says the actor, who doesn’t own a gun himself.

“It’s a bit like the cold war where you have got a bomb and I have got a bomb, and because we have both got bombs, the thinking is that nobody is going to blow each other up — which seems kind of dangerous to me.

“But the cow is out of the barn, there are so many guns out there, what do we do?”

Bridges’ response was to join an organisation that focused on gun laws and gun safety.

“You have got to have a starting place to chip away at the problem.’’

SEE Hell or High Water opens today

Originally published as Jeff Bridges’ acclaimed new film Hell or High Water tackles guns, poverty and the law