Thankfully the tide is starting to turn as “Knocked Up,” “Oceans 13,” and the movie that this article is about – “Surf’s Up” have all delivered the goods. People can now go to the movies and walk out satisfied.

Recently Sony held a press junket to promote their newest entry into the crowded summer market. While most junkets are held at a local hotel in Los Angeles, with the movie about surfing the studio decided for an exotic location and Hawaii was the lucky destination for a number of journalists.

At the junket I was able to interview a few people from the cast and this article is the roundtable interview with Jeff Bridges.

In the movie Jeff plays the legendary surfer Big Z. It’s his character who inspires Cody (Shia LaBeouf’s character) to take up surfing and in turn it’s Cody who ends up inspiring Big Z. For a better idea of his character and what the movie is about I recommend watching some of the video clips that I previously posted.

During the roundtable interview Jeff touches on a lot of subjects – his role in “Iron Man,” his upcoming film with Simon Pegg, his love of surfing, and even if Big Z is like the Dude. If you’re a fan of Jeff you’ll enjoy the interview.

And before getting to it, I’ve posted a lot of other things to help promote “Surf’s Up.” If you missed the red carpet video interviews from Hawaii click here. To see some photographs from the premiere click here. Finally, if you want to see some behind the scenes photos from my trip click here.

As always you can listen to the interview as an MP3 so click here if you’d like to download it.

Once again a big thank you to Sony for inviting me to Hawaii. “Surf’s Up” opens this Friday and it’s absolutely worth seeing. And with that… here is Jeff.

Question: Any parallels with the Dude?

Jeff Bridges: A-ha. Well, Dude does weed, Big Z’s into clams.

Question: What about the character appealed to you?

Jeff Bridges: Gee, you know what really got me on board was this whole surfing aspect of things and how well they pulled the water element of this film off. I said, “They’re going to do a surfing movie, how are the waves going to look? Is it going to be almost like a photograph?” Then they started to show me some of the footage they had worked on. Being a surfer myself, it was a thrill to be able to be a part of bringing to the audience what that feels like to be locked in the tube. That’s kind of what got me on board.

What’s the feeling you get from catching a wave?

Gee, I suppose it’s different at each level. I’m a pretty basic surfer. I stopped surfing about 30 years ago and I’m taking it up in the last 5 years again. I used to surf in high school all the time and it was pretty great. Now I’m kind of back to getting my balance back and getting my turns down. So it’s kind of challenging for me and I’m worried about hurting myself, my back and so forth. I’m in the process of taking it a step at a time these days to make sure I can surf tomorrow, the next day. But it’s a wonderful feeling whether you catch a wave or not. It’s a big like fishing. You’re out there, you’re part of nature, you’re sitting in ocean, looking at the land. Most other times, it’s the other way around. You’re sitting out and looking at the ocean. There’s something about it that gives you a different perspective on life. It’s a wonderful metaphor, catching a wave, for how you can look at other challenges in your life.

Did you renewed interest in surfing come about from this movie?

No, no. I started getting interested before that but it kind of all dovetailed together. It was fun to be a part of this one.

How far is Z from your own personality?

Oh, he’s pretty far. Pretty far.

Have you seen the movie with kids?

I haven’t. I haven’t seen the final. You’ve probably seen a more recent version than I’ve seen. I’ve seen a pretty rough one.

Your take on voice recording, disembodied?

Well, it didn’t feel like that. When we did it, I had done animated films in the past and that was kind of a lonely experience where you sit in the booth and you’ve got your sides and you’re reading the stuff and imagining what the other person is saying, or doing the scene to their playback, they’re not in the room. But in this instance, the characters were often all there in the same room. I did a lot of work with Shia who’s a wonderful improviser. We were really encouraged by the directors to do that as much as we cared to and we did a lot of it. There were cameras set up in the room that were capturing our movements and our expressions and that was all going to help the animators. So it was a lot of fun. It didn’t feel as lonesome and clinical. It was really a fun experience. Pretty loose.

Do you feel like you’re loosing some of your tools as an actor?

Yeah, but there’s always things like that in making movies where you- - little parameters that you have to fit in. That’s part of the game of it. An analogy I could make, just like you’re playing football, you’ve got to stay in the lines. You can’t just go over there, go up in the stands. Everything gets narrower and narrower and sometimes you just have to use the tools that you’re allowed to use. That’s part of the game. In this case, it wasn’t about wardrobe or makeup or any of that stuff, so you use what you have.

Has surfing ever been adequately represented in movies?

Well, I remember, probably the best are the documentaries, the old surf films. I just did narration for a wonderful documentary called Chasing the Lotus. That’s a lot of B roll from all of the old surf films. They interviewed some of these great old surfers and you really get a sense of what surfing’s all about. Documentaries I think probably more than the fictitious versions of it.

Point Break?

They all had some great elements, great parts in there. I think a lot of my friends were in there. They did good work I think. They all were surfers so they added a certain authenticity to it.

Been filming Iron Man, how has it been?

Well, let’s see. It’s been wonderful working with Jon Favreau who’s the director of the film. He’s a wonderful actor that I’ve admired for a long time. I remember first seeing him in Swingers. He wrote that, did such a great job. And Robert Downey Jr. We were talking about improvisation in this, well, we’re doing a lot of improvisation in Iron Man to discover scenes and getting off the written page and doing a lot of work like that. I know Jon is very interested in grounding it in as much reality as he possibly can. That’s kind of informing the whole thing. The suit for instance, I don't know if you saw the first suit, the primitive kind of suit, it looks like, oh yeah, maybe that could happen. It’s all plausible.

How far have the special effects come since Tron?

[Laughs] Man, leaps and bounds. I remember when we did Tron, we were so excited, seeing it and then I remember about a week after the opening going home and seeing all that technology in a commercial. Just boom, just made it passé like that. That’s the way technology is. IT happens so fast.

Are you still filming?

Oh yeah. Go back to work tomorrow.

How much longer?

June. Mid june.

Ever been to Comic-Con?

Comic-Con, no, what is Comic-Con.

San Diego convention. Have they asked you to attend?

No, no.

Are you into sci-fi/fantasy?

I used to read comics when I was a kid.

Including Iron Man?

You know, Iron Man, was he part of the- - he wasn’t part of the Fantastic Four, was he? He was in The Avengers, right? No, I wasn’t too much into Iron Man. I was more of a Superman, I was into Green Lantern.

Silver surfer?

Silver Surfer, no. I shouldn’t be saying that. Those are DC guys, aren’t they? Is Green Lantern Marvel or DC?

Have you worked with Gwyneth?

A little bit. We’ve got some scenes coming up but I haven’t worked with her too much yet.

Did you have any influence in the look of your Surf’s Up character?

Not too much. I tried to get the guy, I said, “Gee, Big Z is kind of a fat penguin. Can you give him a little more tone?” He said, “No, that’s going against the story.” I said, “Yeah, yeah.” But no, I didn’t have too much to say about his look or anything like that. I got a kick out of it. It was kind of funny.

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