Jeff Bridges gives health update, shares 'bizarre' feeling filming The Old Man fight scenes with stomach tumor

Jeff Bridges is back in action after a health scare.

The Big Lebowski star will return to the small screen in season 2 of FX’s The Old Man, after being diagnosed with lymphoma in 2020. He gave an update on his health during a Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour event Wednesday promoting the series.

“I’m feeling great now,” Bridges said during a panel Wednesday. “What is so bizarre, to me anyway, in the first season when I was doing these fight scenes, I had a 9-inch by 12-inch tumor in my body, in my stomach, that didn’t hurt at all. So that’s surprising to me."

Bridges announced that his cancer was in remission in September 2021.  "The 9" x 12" mass has shrunk down to the size of a marble,” he said in an update on his website.

The actor, who has published two books of his on-set photographs, noted at the TCA event that he hasn’t had as much time for his hobby since his diagnosis. “I went through this illness, and since then I haven’t picked up my camera as much as I used to,” he said. 

He also joked that it wasn’t much of a stretch for him to portray the elderly protagonist of the espionage series, former CIA agent Dan Chase.

“I’m an old man, I don’t have to play it," he said. "I bring that to the party without any trouble."

Bridges also discussed his relationship with his costar John Lithgow, who was also part of the panel and plays former FBI Assistant Director Harold Harper in the series.

“One of the things that we have so much fun talking about is our upbringing is similar. We’re both, you know, second generation from actors, our fathers. And we approach it the same way. You know there are a lot of actors who, you know, 'Please, only call me by my character’s name and let’s not have any contact. And we both work kind of 180 from that. We both really like to get to know each other since we’re playing old friends in the show, so we let that -- you know, 'Let’s be friends,'" he said. "'Let’s get to know each other and let’s do it fast and kind of aggressively.'”

Bridges went on to recall an amusing anecdote about his time bonding with Lithgow. "I remember we had this long scene in a car, and we were doing what we’re talking about here," he said. "And our mics are on and this happens, this is kind of a classic thing that happens in movies: You don’t realize that everybody in this crew is hearing everything you’re saying to each other."

Lithgow noted that he has no concerns about Bridges' abilities to perform in the wake of his illness.

“No, I never worry about Jeff,” he said. “I always knew he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t know he could do this. And it’s been one of the great and extremely moving sort of backstage dramas of these four years. His courage and persistence and his unbelievable philosophical nature, the way — nobody could’ve survived what he’s been through and going back to work the way he’s gone back to work. It’s been incredibly inspiring."

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The 3rd Rock from the Sun star also said that the distinction between two actors’ performing styles makes their collaboration sing.

“We’re very different actors… that’s part of what’s so interesting about putting us together,” he said. “I’m much more a theater actor who’s had to tone it down to work in front of a camera, and Jeff has a long, long history — he’s absolutely our greatest actor of his generation acting in front of a camera. I think it’s a very interesting combination."

The Old Man season 2 sees Chase and Harper set off to recover Chase's kidnapped daughter Emily (Alia Shawkat). The series, based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Thomas Perry, is created for television by Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine. The new season premieres with the first two of eight episodes on September 12 on FX.

Reporting by Debbie Day.