Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1533885
16 PROP CULTURE I SPRING 2025 JEFF BRIDGES: So here we are! Happy to talk to you about this. Congrats on your new mag! PROP CULTURE: Well, thank you very much! Forming the Property Masters Guild was a long time in the making, and we recognized the need for our own magazine as well. JEFF BRIDGES: Yeah, I checked it out. It looks wonderful. Really great. PROP CULTURE: I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to sit with me for this interview. JEFF BRIDGES: Well, it's great to hang with you. PROP CULTURE: With Prop Culture, our aim is to go beyond the typical industry trade magazine. We're striving to create something engaging and fun not just for Property Masters, but for everyone in the film industry and even film enthusiasts and fans outside of the business. JEFF BRIDGES: What you just mentioned about making the magazine of interest to a lot of people, not just Property Masters, things I didn't even think of. The Property Master may give me a pair of eyeglasses and say, "This is what my thinking was for your character." And I go, oh, I never thought of it that way. Okay, I'm going to go with your idea instead of my idea. I look at it the same way from a director. The director may have a different idea for a scene, and I will go with his idea over my idea because that helps separate myself from the character. PROP CULTURE: When you are still in preproduction, and the Property Master presents you with cases of watches and eyeglasses, even before you've seen the more substantial props, what's your initial reaction? Do you first consider what will look best on Jeff Bridges onscreen, what suits the character, or a combination of both? JEFF BRIDGES: Well, that's what's so wonderful about making movies. You are not doing it all by yourself. It's a group communal art form. We are all working together. I am fortunate to have a Property Master thinking about what prop best suits this guy and a costume designer thinking about what this guy would wear and the brings to mind one of the things that I love about our business. The blending. When I think of moviemaking, you've got all these different departments. You've got makeup, costumes, property, acting, writing, all these different things and they all kind of blend. Props and costumes are often so interconnected. It's the working together of all these different factions that respect each other coming together and working together. This is the way the world could work in a more beautiful way. PROP CULTURE: I think you can see that harmony in the final product. JEFF BRIDGES: There is a vibe and a tone that is created. It kind of trickles down, you know. Often people say, well, what does a producer do? On The Old Man, there were great guys like Warren Littlefield and John Steinberg and Dan Shotz, our showrunners. These top guys are setting the tone, right? They're casting not only the actors, but the cinematographers, the prop guys, you know, everybody. The task is getting out of the way. I'm not there to be Jeff Bridges. I'm being a character. I have to interact with things that may feel opposite from my natural impulses. That's what I count on from a Property Master, who will bring me CRAZY HEART