Jeff Bridges says he filmed fight scenes for 'The Old Man' with a large tumor in his stomach.
Jeff Bridges didn't let his cancer battle slow him down. The 74-year-old Oscar winner has been candid in the past about being diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2020 when he was filming his FX series, The Old Man.
During a Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour event this week, Bridges shared an update on his health with reporters.
"I’m feeling great now," Bridges said during a panel (via Entertainment Weekly).
Bridges plays retired CIA Agent Dan Chase in The Old Man, and recalled filming fight scenes while his body was battling a different threat.
"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," he shared.
Bridges' co-star, John Lithgow, who plays Harold Harper on the show, also spoke about the actor's drive amid his health setbacks.
"No, I never worry about Jeff," Lithgow 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."
Bridges shared in late 2021 that his cancer was in remission. During this time period, the Big Lebowski star was also diagnosed with COVID, saying that was a more difficult experience for him than the cancer.
"That made my cancer look like nothing, the COVID," Bridges told ET in 2022. "I had chemo for the COVID and that stripped me of all my immune system, so then I got COVID on top of it, that just wiped me out."
He added at the time that he was "feeling good," explaining, "It all feels like a bizarre dream. We started The Old Man three years ago, had two years off, and then come back into it. It was like we had a long weekend and I had this bizarre weekend. But I'm back feeling great."
Season 1 of The Old Man aired in 2022. Season 2 of the FX show is set to premiere Sept. 12.
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