Going by the book in 'True Grit' remake

The last time Jeff Bridges consorted with Joel and Ethan Coen, it resulted in "The Big Lebowski," so if anyone's looking for a link between that 1998 cult comedy and the Coens' new "True Grit," Bridges is willing to help. "In this movie," said the Oscar-winning actor, "my character is first heard inside an outhouse. In the first scene of 'Lebowski,' my head's in the toilet.

"You can find comparisons in anything, I guess."

The bigger comparisons, of course, will likely be made between Bridges' performance - as the leathery, ornery U.S. Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn - and the man who created the role and won a best actor Oscar for doing it - John Wayne. But Bridges, who seldom sounds capable of worry, doesn't sound worried.

"I was curious why they wanted to make 'True Grit' again," he said of the Coens, who won several Oscars two years ago for "No Country for Old Men." "And they said, 'We don't. We're not referring to the movie in the least. We're looking toward the book by Charles Portis.' And after I read the book, I saw what they were talking about. It's a wonderful story, and reads very much like a Coen brothers script."

Wanting justice served

The story, as anyone knows who's read that book, or seen the Henry Hathaway-directed Wayne movie, is about the single-minded, 14-year-old Mattie Ross, whose father has been gunned down and who wants justice served. To help her serve it, she hires Cogburn, a hard-drinking, one-eyed lawman whose pragmatic morality clashes with the Old Testament-flavored deportment of his preadolescent employer.

Although the standard-issue Western devices are in play - there are guns, and they go off - the heart of "True Grit" is in the Mattie-Rooster relationship, with a side order of LaBoeuf, the Texas Ranger who joins their hunt for the mangy Tom Chaney, played by Josh Brolin. (Matt Damon plays LaBoeuf in the Coen movie but, unlike his predecessor Glen Campbell, he doesn't sing.)

While the 1969 movie had 21-year-old Kim Darby as Mattie, the Coens cast the more age-appropriate Hailee Steinfeld of Thousand Oaks, Calif., who, if nothing else, shares with Mattie a certain degree of focus. "The minute I started reading the script," said the 13-year-old actress, "I completely saw myself as Mattie; I saw scenes playing out in my head, and saw myself in the role. And no one else."

And while she didn't know Joel and Ethan Coen, the whole experience turned out to be great. "I didn't know what to expect," she said. "I guess I thought they'd be intimidating. But the minute we met, it was the complete opposite. They're just so easygoing and so soft-spoken and fun, to be honest. They're geniuses, is what they are."

And being in a Coen brothers film at the age of 13, is, like, OK?

"Are you kidding? It's huge!"

Bridges, not unexpectedly, is more laid back about the whole thing. But when you're a 61-year-old actor, with a nearly 61-year screen career (he first appeared as an infant in 1951's "The Company She Keeps"), it takes a lot to ruffle the feathers. Not even a best actor Oscar, which he won last year for "Crazy Heart," does it.

"It made me more famous," he said, matter-of-factly, "and then I can direct that fame to whatever I want to. If you're fortunate to be fortunate, you get to spend it, and there's nothing like spending it on making the world a better place."

'The upside of fame'

While there will be inevitable comparisons between Wayne and Bridges, between Rooster and Bridges lies a fathomless gulf: Rooster is hard-bitten, taciturn and seemingly misanthropic (although, once he gets on the trail with Mattie and LaBoeuf, he can't seem to stop talking). "He gets a captive audience," Bridges said with a laugh, "and he explodes with personal details."

But that's why they call it acting. On one recent trip to Manhattan, Bridges appeared onstage at the Beacon Theatre and held his own among other performers on the Speaking Clock Tour, which featured Elvis Costello, Elton John, Leon Russell, Gregg Allman and others on behalf of arts education in public schools, hooked to the release of the education-themed documentary "Waiting for Superman."

"It's the upside of fame," the actor said. "You can bring attention to things that concern you. There's a lot on my plate, I know, but you never know what's going to bloom."

Bridges has become the national spokesman for No Kid Hungry, which is all about ending childhood hunger in America by 2015.

"We currently have 17 million kids, one in four, who live in food-insecure homes," he said, "and No Kid Hungry is all about working with the governors and mayors, state by state, five states each year, to turn that around."

Re-creating Wayne's world

'I didn't have to worry about stepping into John Wayne's boots, or anything else," said Jeff Bridges, regarding Joel and Ethan Coen's decision to base their remake of "True Grit" on the original Charles Portis novel, rather than the 1969 Wayne movie that came out of it. "It was a fresh role."

It also was probably wise: The Duke's boots are so large, there's no telling where they'll take you.

Like him or not, Wayne casts an intimidating shadow over American movies. The number of Wayne films that have been remade is small, which presents something of a paradox: Without remakes to prompt the reissuing of his older films on Blu-ray (one follows the other), his prominence may diminish naturally over time.

This also has meant the actor who has most often re-created a Wayne role is Wayne himself: In 1959, he made the Western "Rio Bravo" for Howard Hawks (for whom Wayne gave one of his best performances, in "Red River"), and the movie's sheriff-under-siege story was so successful, it was remade twice - by Hawks - as "El Dorado" (1966) and "Rio Lobo" (1970), both of which starred Wayne, and all of which are essentially the same movie, with different actors playing Wayne's dubious sidekicks.

When it comes to historical characters, of course, it's a different story: Wayne played Davy Crockett in his critically unsuccessful directing effort, "The Alamo" (1960), and has been followed in that role by any number of actors, including Billy Bob Thornton in the 2004 movie of the same name and Brian Keith in a 1987 TV movie, "The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory."

The most notable attempt to remake a Wayne film was the 1966 version of "Stagecoach," the 1939 classic that made Wayne a star. Cast as the Ringo Kid - the prison escapee who helps a group of travelers negotiate hostile Apache territory - was Alex Cord, aka the former Alexander Viespi of Floral Park. Cord is perhaps best known now for TV's "Airwolf," but in '66, he, Ann-Margret, Bing Crosby and Red Buttons were trying to reinvent an iconic Western. (It also was remade as a 1986 TV movie starring Kris Kristofferson as the Ringo Kid.)

By the way, Wayne wasn't above taking on another's role: In 1948, he stepped into old-time Western star Harry Carey's boots for "3 Godfathers," a remake of a 1916 silent film that was being remade by - you guessed it - John Ford.