But if, say, you've watched The Big Lebowski a hundred times, it's just surreal hearing "Hey, how ya doin', maaaaan?" from Jeff Bridges, who sounds uncannily like his Lebowski character, The Dude. Of course, the guy has been in so many iconic films including King Kong, Tron, Against All Odds, Iron Man, Crazy Heart and True Grit, among many others. But, by his own admission, of all his roles, he's most like Jeff Lebowski (or the Dude, or His Dudeness, or Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing).

So, you get on the phone with him, and you have to remember that your job is to talk to him about his new live album, simply called Live.

When music journalists interview actors about a music project (such as 30 Seconds To Mars' Jared Leto, or She and Him's Zooey Deschanel or Minnie Driver, for instance) it's kind of understood the subject will be their music, not their filmography. But Jeff Bridges' backing band is actually called the Abiders; Live features his cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Lookin' Out My Back Door" - which was featured in a classic Lebowski scene. So clearly, he's kind of OK with blurring the lines between his movie and music careers.

During our twenty-minute phone conversation, he chatted happily about both, including some of his other film roles, and also his commitment to No Kid Hungry, an organization dedicated to ending child hunger in America. And also about a few wild rumors.

Radio.com: Lots of actors who move into music like to keep their careers very separate, and don't like to talk about their films when they're promoting an album or a tour. You kind of diffuse that covering "Lookin' Out My Back Door" and also doing songs that you sang as "Bad Blake" in Crazy Heart. And you named your band "The Abiders." Was that a conscious choice to diffuse that, and say, "Yeah, I'm the guy from Big Lebowski"?

Jeff Bridges: Yeah, I think it was. We were sitting around trying to think of the name for the band. Titles are supposed to draw attention, I guess, to the guys who are playing. Like you say, a lot of people know me from Lebowski, I happen to love that movie, I loved the experience of doing that film. The guys in the band kind of wanted to call it that, she I just said "What the heck, let's do it!" I don't mind when people are wearing Lebowski shirts to the shows and stuff. We had a great time playing the Lebowski Fest in L.A. We had a wonderful time doing that.

It must be a bit surreal to be performing a concert, and seeing all these people who look like you, or think they look like you, or are trying to look like you, in the audience. It's pretty surreal, yeah. It's kind of a wonderful thing, I'm so pleased that movie means so much to the fans. It's one of my favorite movies, and it would be even if I wasn't in it. Those guys, the Coen Brothers, they just know how to do it.

I'm wondering if you relate to those fans on some level: I know you're a big Bob Dylan fan - you cover "The Man In Me" at your shows - and you co-stared with him in his film, [2003's] Masked and Anonymous. Oh, gosh, that was a dream come true. We did a little pickin' while we were shooting the film. Just working with him as an actor was so much fun. I think he really enjoyed it. He's certainly good at it.

If you're a fan, you must have had so many questions for him. Did you go overboard with asking him about The Basement Tapes or whatever? [laughs] I think I kind of "fan-ed out" probably. I'm a fan of his just like everybody else. I didn't go on too far. But I did get to tell him how much I loved his most recent stuff, which I was a big fan of.

Did your role in Crazy Heart help you in your music career; you sang live in the film and on the soundtrack. You were so believable as Blind Blake. Yeah, I think it really set fire to it, at the beginning of that whole run. Years before, when I did Heaven's Gate [in 1980], Kris Kristofferson was the lead in that film, he brought a bunch of his buddies, Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett among them, to the set. We jammed all the time and wrote music together, and I kept a relationship with Stephen and T-Bone all these years. When Crazy Heart came around, I originally turned it down, because there was no music written for the film yet. And then when I found out that T-Bone was involved, I was like, "Let's go, man!" I knew we'd be in good hands, musically, with him. And Crazy Heart is dedicated to Stephen Bruton [who passed away in 2009], he was with me every day on the set, giving me guidance and helping me make it as real as possible and giving me guitar lessons and stuff like that. That experience helped me to say, "Gee, if I ever want to get this music thing going and take it to the next level, this is a good time." So, shortly after Crazy Heart, I got with T-Bone and we did some more tunes and put out another album, and then started touring with my hometown guys, the Abiders.