Jeff Bridges Confirms What We Suspected About A Possible Hollywood Retirement

"The Old Man" is hitting Disney+ internationally, and fans of legendary actor Jeff Bridges are in for a treat. The series follows retired CIA operative Dan Chase (Bridges), who has been living off the grid for 30 years in upstate New York. Chase reluctantly kills a home intruder and is forced into hiding. On his journey, he meets a woman who runs a motel, and the two must go on the run together. The Assistant Director of the FBI, a former colleague, hunts Chase and sends assassins after the retired operative. 

"The Old Man" premiered in the United States this summer and was met with positive reviews from critics. The series currently sits at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, with many top critics praising Bridges' performance, even when the show gets ahead of itself. The New York Times said Bridges carries the entertaining show and joins the ranks of Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, and Liam Neeson in portraying grizzled professionals with deadly skills. Critics agree that Bridges' work on "The Old Man" is outstanding, and the series's focus on real-world issues weaved into the spy-thriller is a must-watch (via Roger Ebert). 

With all the critical success "The Old Man" has received, it's hard to imagine Jeff Bridges retiring anytime soon. However, the Oscar winner recently gave insight into his thought process on calling it a career.

While doing press for the international release of "The Old Man," Jeff Bridges revealed to Variety that he almost retired once, which was very recently. When asked if he had plans to retire, like his character Dan Chase in "The Old Man," Bridges said, "I thought after my illness I didn't know if I was gonna go back to work. I thought I was retiring, very seriously. And I don't know. You know, my dad he worked right up to the very end. I don't know, I'm just leaving that up to the way it works out. I'm not sure."

Bridges tweeted in 2020 that he had been diagnosed with lymphoma and was immediately starting treatment. He told PEOPLE that after a weird feeling in his stomach, the doctor found a 12-inch tumor in his body. Once he began chemotherapy, the cancer quickly shrunk, and the actor revealed he had entered remission. Things took a turn for the worse when he contracted COVID-19 after his chemo left his immune system vulnerable. "I had no defenses. That's what chemo does — it strips you of all your immune system," Bridges told the magazine. "I had nothing to fight it. COVID made my cancer look like nothing."

COVID nearly killed Bridges, who was filming "The Old Man" at the time. FX put production on an extended hiatus as the actor recovered from both cancer and COVID, which put him in the hospital for nearly five months. Luckily, Bridges is alive and well after recovering from both diseases, but his situation was scary enough for anyone to consider retirement.