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THE OLD MAN SECRET AGENT ON THE RUN

Jeff Bridges spent 11 months playing an EX-CIA agent on the run in this thriller before cancer intervened. On screen his character’s battling to survive, while away from the cameras Jeff was left fighting for his life for real.

‘I was diagnosed with the blood cancer nonhodgkin lymphoma during the 2020 lockdown, after I’d filmed roughly half of The Old Man,’ explains Jeff. ‘The show was on hold anyway, because of the pandemic, and I had chemotherapy which stripped my immune system. When I then caught Covid it got pretty tough and I almost died.’

After a two-year gap, much of it spent under medical supervision, Jeff resumed his role as Dan Chase (above) in February. ‘Returning to work was a surreal experience,’ he says. ‘Same cast, same crew, all there on the day I got back – just separated by two years!’

The Hollywood veteran, 72, says playing an action character was challenging even before his health issues. But amazingly he was able to do stunts.

‘They had to be done. When I got back on location, I wasn’t thinking about my health or my illness, just about who I was in the show and how we were going to

do the fights, the escapes. I was in shape to do them and the action scenes looked good once we’d figured out a way to put them on screen.’

Jeff’s character was a respected secret service agent who went AWOL from his job more than 30 years ago, and has been using his CIA survival training to live off grid. ‘He did something the people around him didn’t appreciate and it has come back to haunt him,’ explains Jeff, who won a Best Actor Oscar for Crazy Heart in 2010. ‘The series is about consequences and how there are people keen to catch Dan and make him pay for what he did.’

Leading the hunt for Chase is the FBI’S Harold Harper (John Lithgow), a man with whom he crossed swords in the 90s.

Expert help for Jeff came from the CIA’S Christopher Huddleston, who visited the set of The Old Man in Los Angeles, and gave him insight into life undercover. Meanwhile, dog trainer Sarah Clifford looked after the five animals who play Chase’s two Rottweilers, Dave and Carol.

‘Each animal had different skills they could bring to particular scenes so they alternated on screen,’ explains Jeff, ‘although I did have a favourite among them. That was Freya and when we were on our extended break from filming Sarah gave me a beautiful blanket with her name and face on it.

‘While I was ill, I could look at Freya and say, “I’m coming back, we’ll see each other again.” And we did!’

Tim Oglethorpe From Wednesday, Disney+

This series is about consequences and how there are people keen to catch Dan and make him pay for what he did