  The always friendly actor, Jeff Bridges, stars in director Terry Gilliam’s Tideland. (Stan Behal, SUN)
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TORONTO - Jeff Bridges' part in Tideland is short, extreme, bizarre and brutal. He is not even the star. As a junkie, he plays a support role to child actress Jodelle Ferland.
The British-Canadian production was directed by Terry Gilliam, a mad genius who is not always in synch with audiences. Tideland is freaking people out in the Masters program in the festival (with a repeat screening next Wednesday).
And the story line -- the junkie takes his daughter on a road trip to Saskatchewan, where they hole up in an abandoned farmhouse near other lunatics -- veers towards insanity.
"Oh yeah!" the amiable Bridges tells the Sun yesterday, "Those are all the reasons I wanted to do this film." He is enjoying the fuss that is being made over Tideland.
"I guess it's out on the edge but it's a wonderful edge to play out on. And, with a playmate like Terry, it makes it all the more enticing."
Gilliam -- whose past works includes Brazil, The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and the current release The Brothers Grimm -- always collaborates with his actors and welcomes their fresh ideas with enthusiasm, Bridges says.
"So that makes it fun and exciting to know that you're going to give your ideas and you're not immediately going to get a door slammed in your face. Not that Terry rolls over with every one of your ideas, but the ones he likes he's excited about.
"And Terry enjoyed this movie for a number of reasons, one that it was low-budget. Remember the Our Gang comedies with the Little Rascals? That was kind of the feeling: 'Let's make a movie!' Make it up and have fun. Then Terry's personality is so inventive and his laugh is so contagious. You've talked to him. You know what I'm talking about. He's quick, sharp."
Gilliam gets marginalized in Hollywood. Bridges says the reason is obvious. "Because he makes the movies he wants to make. He makes the movies he wants to see.
"I kind of relate to him because it's my method, too. I like to make movies that I enjoy watching and those are the movies in which the directors are surprising you, they're ahead of you, and they're movies you haven't seen before. It's not paint-by-numbers."
Everything in Tideland is surprising. "But it's tough what we're doing here -- selling a movie," Bridges says. "I like to know to as little as possible about movies that I'm interested in seeing."
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