Jeff Bridges is walking in his backyard, which consists of nineteen acres on top of a mountain overlooking the Southern California town of Montecito. Beyond Montecito, the Pacific Ocean opens up for thousands of miles, and beyond the ocean, the universe.

Just a few days ago, a long way from here, Bridges stood under lights at the Oscars and introduced the nominees for best actress, calling out their names in the voice of a loving God: Annette! Jennifer! Natalie! Bridges might have had reason to be twice nervous, because he'd also been nominated for his own turn in True Grit, but he looked happy and comfortable. He looked exactly like a man who was in the middle of one of Hollywood's great runs, a man in possession of an almost impossible certainty — a man who has reached such great heights, up on his mountain, that even his mistakes will look like genius.

"Acting, man," he says now. "Believe me, I like life to come at me a little slower than that. I was just playing the calm guy."

It was the last acting he will do until the end of this, his sixty-first year. He's decided that this year, he's going to concentrate on making music rather than movies. Just now, when he's as famous as he's ever been, when the scripts are piling up against his door like leaves, he's choosing instead to live inside the recording studio he's built next to his old garage and sing.

"But I am taking advantage of the opportunity," he says, smiling with his eyes and his mouth. He smiles a lot. It's his default expression. "Now's the perfect time for me to do something like this."

A thick fog rolls up the mountain and rain begins falling out of the low sky, but Bridges is a man of ritual, which means he must walk before he goes to work. He has worn a great tangle of paths across his nineteen acres, carried by instinct in every possible direction. Today, he's pointed north. He walks like a big man, long strides and slow, with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. He's wearing...