Jeff Bridges Recalls Struggle with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma While Shooting The Old Man: 'I Was in Surrender Mode' (Exclusive) 

Warning: This post contains spoilers from the season 2 finale of FX’s series Old man.

Jeff Bridges’ life-threatening medical conditions did not stand in the way of his powerful performance portraying the ex-CIA operative on Old man.

In a recent interview with PEOPLE, the 74-year-old actor talked about the series’ Season 2 finale, which aired Thursday, Oct. 24, and reflected on the health obstacles he overcame while producing the FX drama.

IN Old man the ultimate final episode of the season, lives hang in the balance. Marion (Janet McTeer) used Harold (John Lithgow) as a pawn to get to Angela, née Parwan (Alia Shawkat), Dan (Bridges) was tortured and left for dead before Zoe (Amy Brenneman) healed him. Meanwhile, in her final moments, Angela—now in possession of her recently discovered roots as the estranged daughter of Faraz Hamzad (Navid Negahban)—requests a favor from Dan: she wants to know about one of Dan’s previous identities, though it’s unclear why that particular alias is still has a major impact decades later.

“The whole plot, it just keeps getting thicker and thicker thicker,” Bridges, 74, tells PEOPLE, adding, “Dan, who so-called saved his daughter, is now turned on the table and she is catching him basically. His world is totally turned upside down.”

Jeff Bridges’ life in photos

John Lithgow and Jeff Bridges in ‘The Old Man’.

FX

Bridges points to a valuable lesson he learned from real-life CIA operative Christopher Huddleston, whom the actor consulted for his complex role: a four-step decision-making model called OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).

“The guy who can replicate those fastest kind of wins,” the actor explains. “So he is [Dan] was challenged to observe what was happening. ‘My daughter, oh, she has these cards. What should I do? Shall I run? I have to decide. … And then act. And then do what you decide to do and do it as quickly as possible. In this case, he has to go with the flow.”

On screen, Bridges seems to have mostly gone with the flow – delivering a knockout performance as a former spy of many names Old man for two seasons — but behind the scenes, the actor bravely battled non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of blood cancer, which he publicly revealed on X in October 2020.

After returning home from a trip to Montana in 2020 with wife Susan Geston — months after filming intense fight scenes for the first season Old man and after the show was paused due to the restrictions of the COVID pandemic — a medical examination revealed that he had a large tumor on his stomach.

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Jeff Bridges in the second season of ‘The Old Man.’.

“God, looking back on it, I really winced because I didn’t know it at the time, but I had a 9 x 12 inch tumor in my stomach – 9 x 12 inches! — while they were kicking me around and punching me in the stomach and stuff,” he recalls. “It didn’t hurt. There was no pain. But then I had a long break [from filming].”

Bridges underwent chemotherapy during the hiatus and even contracted COVID, which further threatened his health. The actor admits that it was an extremely difficult period, and then he wondered if he would survive and if he would “do a second season at all” Old man.

“While I was sick, I thought that not only would I not come back Old manI thought I might just kick the bucket. It came to that,” he admits.

“I remember one doctor saying, ‘You’ve got to fight, Jeff. you didn’t fighting“, adds Bridges. “And I had no idea what he was talking about. I was in surrender mode, just, ‘Everybody dies. This might be me doing it.’ And from that surrender, like I said, all that intense love came to the surface, and maybe that’s what made me survive, I don’t know. But I wasn’t thinking of a fight, more of a surrender.”

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Jeff Bridges in Los Angeles, California in September 2024.

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

His treatments combined with intense physical therapy also eventually helped Bridges get back into fighting shape. With the help of a physical therapist, the two set a “small goal” for the actor to be healthy enough to walk his daughter Hayley, 39, down the aisle for her wedding.

“I didn’t know how I could do it, but I said, ‘Well, let’s go practice. Let’s set that as our goal,’ he says. “So we’ve been working on it. And it turned out that not only did I walk her down the aisle, but I had to perform the wedding dance with her. Then I would rush to my desk and put on oxygen!”

Entering the second season old man Bridges’ tumor has shrunk to the size of a marble, and now that the season finale is behind him, his oncologist emphasizes that the actor has made incredible progress.

“I don’t know the exact size. I get an MRI and all that, but my oncologist says, ‘You look good, man.’ And I get all my blood tests and everything and everything is fine real good,” he says, adding that his “fascinating” health journey has taught him several key lessons.

Jeff Bridges Says He Didn’t Think He ‘Could Come Back’ Old man A Journey Through Cancer (Exclusive)

Taylor Hill/WireImage

“All your strategies for living, how you work – all of those that are increasing,” he continues. “And love, that’s the word that comes to mind. To see how much I love my family and my friends and the nurses and doctors who took care of me, and how much love is coming to me. So it just made the love worse, basically.”

Going back to old man several questions remain unanswered heading into the Season 2 finale, including what will become of Harold and why is Dan’s old alias so crucial to Angela’s international agenda? Bridges is unsurprisingly cryptic, but offers an answer that is clearly influenced by his health issues.

“It’s like life with these TV series, especially this first, the showrunner is in charge,” he says, referring to executive producer Jonathan E. Steinberg. “He gives me little hints about what’s going to happen, but I don’t know until I read the script. And that’s the task on this thing. You don’t understand everything. it is very as in life, you never know what will happen. I’m just into it.”

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Old man is available to stream on Hulu.

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Source: HIS Education