The Dude Abides: Bridges Stands By 'Thunderbolt' Eastwood

The Dude abides … on screen and off.

Jeff Bridges, the versatile actor perhaps best known as The Dude in “The Big Lebowski,” got the chance to address the Clint Eastwood RNC speech this week.

Bridges could have thrown the veteran actor under the bus as some of his peers did – along with “Inside the Actor’s Studio” vet James Lipton.

Bridges, who is attending the DNC this week in a nonpartisan quest to end child hunger, wasn’t having it.

Asked about fellow actor Clint Eastwood’s odd RNC speech in Tampa, Bridges said he actually didn’t see it. And he refused to knock Eastwood, his co-star in the 1974 movie “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.”

“I’m not going to say anything against Thunderbolt, man, are you kidding?” he said.

By Tuesday morning, it sounded like Bridges had seen the Eastwood bit.

“I thought his acting was pretty good. I thought, you know, it really seemed like there was somebody in the chair,” he said on CNN’s “Starting Point.” It was a little hardhearted. I don’t agree with his politics, but he’s a splendid actor, a great director.”