Jeff Bridges gave an epic acceptance speech upon
receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2019 Golden Globes (1/6/19). It made me smile. Among other things, he said he was lucky
to work with Michael Cimino. Bridges reported going into the first time
director’s office before shooting, and saying “Man, I’m so sorry, but I think
you made a terrible mistake. I’m not feeling this guy at all. I feel so
inadequate. I’m giving you late notice, I know, but please fire me.” Cimino’s
response: “Jeff, you know the game tag? ...You’re it. You are the guy. You couldn’t make a mistake if you wanted to.
You know, the life of this character is coming through you. It’s a done deal.”
Bridges went on to say it was a
wonderful vote of confidence and a great perspective. Jeff Bridges says he used
it in the film — and in all the other movies as well as in his life. “You know,
I’ve been tagged. I guess we all have been tagged, right? We’re all alive.
Right here, right now! This is happening. We’re alive!”
Globes
In a way only Bridges can, he added: “One guy, he had nothing to
do with the movies, but I’ve taken a lot of direction from him. That’s Bucky
Fuller. Bucky, he’s most famous for the geodesic dome, but he made a great
observation about these oceangoing tankers.” Fuller noticed that the engineers
were particularly challenged by how to turn these huge vessels. “They got this
big rudder, it took too much energy to turn the rudder to turn the ship. So
they came up with a brilliant idea, to put a little rudder on the big rudder.
The little rudder will turn the big rudder, the big rudder will turn the ship.
The little rudder is called a trim tab. Bucky made the analogy that a trim tab
is an example of how the individual is connected to society and how we affect
society. And I like to think of myself as a trim tab. All of us are trim tabs.
We might seem like we’re not up to the task, but we are, man. We’re alive! We
can make a difference! We can turn this ship in the way we wanna go, man!
Towards love, creating a healthy planet for all of us. So I wanna thank the
Hollywood Foreign Press for tagging me, and I wanna tag you all. You’re all trim tabs. Tag, you’re it! Thank you!”
Note: I have paraphrased Bridges a bit here, but I think you
get the gist. We can all be trim tabs!
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