Cowabunga Dude – Surf’s Up for Jeff Bridges: “I play a penguin in this movie called Surf’s Up. The description doesn’t do it justice, but the guy showed me some stuff that hooked me. I’ll tell you how he hooked me: the premise of this cartoon is kind of a mockumentary, sort of like Spinal Tap, like a Chris Guest film.
The conceit is there are these penguins that actually surf - and that’s it. It sounds kind of crazy, but it kind of works. I play this penguin called The Big Z. The way they hooked me is they illustrated me in this scene in The Big Lebowski where you have me saying ‘You can call me The Dude.’ They had me illustrated and the penguin doing the scene, so they got me. It was a dirty trick.”
Bridges continued. “He’s not too much Dude-like in other ways, but he’s kind of an old surfer who’s now kind of a recluse who teaches the young surfer penguins how to surf the big waves. It’s [with] Shia LaBeouf and Zooey Deschanel.”
Is There Any Role Bridges Still Yearns to Do? “Not really, but yeah there is one and I’m drawn to it in the way I’m drawn to characters - kind of like a repulsion at the same time. I’ve been trying to get this movie off for nine years, so I think the attraction is probably more. It’s based on a book called The Giver, a Lois Lowry book. I would be playing the giver. It’s kind of a challenging role and I’ve never done a movie like that, but I’m really excited about it. We got this wonderful writer/director, Vadim Perelman, the guy who wrote House of Sand and Fog the film and also directed it. He’s going to be doing the screenplay and directing this one.”
