“Neither One Of Us Really Wanted To Make A Kind Of Doomsday Movie”. Interview With Jeff Bridges, Narrator For LIVING IN THE FUTURE’S PAST

More often than not, films about the environment and the irreparable damage caused by the human species appeal to viewers for their information, but focus on the attempt to guilt viewers into changing their behaviors. With Living in the Future’s Past, director and writer Susan Kucera and her team successfully manage to find the balance between knowledge and positive encouragement for change. Where others point their finger in disgust, Kucera takes a moment to provide understanding into why we do the things we do, enabling us to make the choices on what we an do to help.

I was able to speak with Jeff Bridges, narrator and producer for Living in the Future’s Past, diving deeper into his involvement with the film and how he contributes naturally to create the future he wants to see.

Stephanie Archer for Film Inquiry: I wanted to start off by asking you today, you have narrated a variety of documentaries in the past. What was it about Susan’s film Living in the Future’s Past that attracted you to not only narrate the film, but produce as well?

Jeff Bridges: I love our planet! I love my children, I love my grandkids, their offspring that aren’t even here yet. And I have to do everything I could to make sure that our planet, where they are going to live, is as beautiful as it can be. When I was invited by Susan Kucera, the writer and cinematographer, to be a part, I was just curious on what their take was and it turned out both were very much on the same page. Neither one of us really wanted to make a kind of doomsday movie. There’s a lot of good movies that talk about what dire straits we’re in. We didn’t want to do another one of those, we wanted to take a different angle, almost like a hologram. It was many different angles of the same object kind of brings it more into focus. We wanted to take a different angle for our evolution and how we’re wired and just bring that to light. So that got me very excited about it.

The film itself has so many areas of science and psychology and evolution that played into its messages. How much knowledge of all of that did you have on this subject matter prior to joining?

Jeff Bridges: Not all that much. I had some, you know, philosophically I have kind of been that way, what the movie kind of proposes. I’ve learned a lot myself. I was fascinated learning about emergent behavior, for instance. You can see birds flocking together, in fish schools, and how they all moved together, there’s no real leader, but something’s going on there. What is that phenomenon? How it can change so fast. And then looking at our super organism of humanity, what is that doing. And the individual affects that.  I’m a big fan of Bucky Fuller. Do you know who he is?

No, I don’t actually.

Jeff Bridges: Bucky Fuller – he’s a scientist, an inventor, a philosopher. His most famous intention is the geodesic dome, which you see all over the place. He found that the engineers who created these big ocean liners, oil tankers and stuff, they found it very challenging to create a rudder for these big ships. They found that it took this giant rudder to move this giant ship, but it took too much energy to turn the rudder. So they came up with an ingenious idea, very simple, to put in a little tiny rudder on the big rudder. And that little tiny rudder turns the big rudder and the big rudder turns the ship. And that little rudder is called a trim tab.

And Bucky said this is a great metaphor for how the individual is fixed, society in our culture. That we were all in fact trim tabs, that we may seem like, oh, we’re not much by ourselves, but we can attach ourselves to organizations and groups that are heading in the direction we want to go and we can influence them and they can influence the society and the culture and we turn the ship. And Bucky Fuller said that each of us are in fact are trim tabs, on his tombstone he has inscribed, “Call Me Trim Tab”. That was his message. So, I’m hoping that the film will inspire people to realize their trim tabness. [laughs]

No, that is such a great metaphor. It’s very applicable to the to the film. Within Living in the Future’s Past, everyone discussed a need to not only keep fossil fuels in the ground, but to change our habits overall. Was there anything as a producer that you were able to change or contribute to the film in regards to making it more eco-conscious?

Jeff Bridges: What I brought to the film was my notoriety, kind of what I am doing here with you. You know, each person has something unique to bring pretty to this challenge of ours. I’m an entertainer, so I make movies and I talked to you –  the press – that’s kind of what I bring to it. I know Susan, for instance, all the editing was done Solar powered.

Oh yes, she had said that.

Jeff Bridges: I would bring people that I knew, that were friends with. One of my dear friends, Mark Plotkin, who is the head of the Amazon conservation team. He came to the party and had something to share. You share what you have, share your strength.  I can’t think of anything, you know, hardcore ecologically, like about the kind of clothes I wore or the belt that I used.

No, that’s a great answer. Have you had to handle any naysayers that may continue to disagree with the film?

Jeff Bridges: Those guys are valuable. They’re all part of the answer. You want to be tested and questioned. That’s how we can come up with the good answers with this thing. You don’t want to exclude. You want to bring everybody to the party to try to figure it out.

Film Inquiry would like to thank Jeff Bridges for taking the time to speak with us. 

Living in the Future’s Past will be released in the US on October 5, 2018. For all international release dates, see here.