Jeff Bridges Plays Bad Blake in Crazy Heart
December 10th, 2009The Hollywood buzz is, this could be one of the best movies this year…
Four-time Academy Award nominee Jeff Bridges stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in the debut feature film “Crazy Heart” from writer-director Scott Cooper. Also starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall, it is scheduled to be released in theaters December 16.
Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man’s crazy heart.
According to the New York Times, in Hollywood these days, an Oscar-handicapping conversation can’t be conducted without mentioning Jeff Bridges as the wrung-out country singer Bad Blake in “Crazy Heart.”
When Mr. Bridges was first sent the script, he wasn’t sure the role was for him. Though the pages were filled with descriptions of the smoky dive bars and broken-down bowling alleys where the onetime star has been reduced to playing, the actual songs Bad Blake would sing had not been written. A year later Mr. Bridges changed his mind on the film after receiving a phone call from his old friend, the songwriter and performer T Bone Burnett.
“He was like, ‘You know this movie “Crazy Heart”?’ ” Mr. Bridges recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Let’s do it.’ Then we both jumped at it.”
It’s rated R for language and brief sexuality.
Official Website: foxsearchlight.com/crazyheart
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Tags: Crazy Heart, Jeff Bridges
December 10th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
This sounds a lot like the real lives of Johnny Cash,George Jones, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and a host of others – starting of course with Hank Williams, Sr., who was the model for those named and many others.
I don’t think anyone has done a movie about Hank’s life — correct me if I am wrong — and that’s something I would really like to see. His grandson — who looks like his double — could play the title role maybe with Morgan Freeman as the old blues musician who taught him to play guitar.
December 10th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Yep. They did a good one on Johnny Cash in 2005, “Walk the Line” with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. She won the Oscar for Best Actress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_the_Line
Someone should definitely do a film on Hank Williams. Amazing no one’s thought of it to date…
December 10th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I saw “Walk the Line” and it was, in my opinion, an outstanding film. Reese deserved the Oscar – she channeled June Carter Cash. Joaquin didn’t quite channel Johnny, but he got close.