'The Giver': Jeff Bridges on long journey from page to screen

Jeff Bridges is a really big fan of The Giver—so much so that he once filmed his own adaptation of the book, starring his dad, Llyod Bridges, as the title character and Bud Cort as the narrator. Bridges joked that if he ever found that tape, “it would be a good auxiliary thing on the DVD.”

Bridges told the tale of the “first” Giver movie Thursday, when he dropped by EW’s hideout at Comic-Con—along with Giver author Lois Lowry and Brenton Thwaites and Odeya Rush, who star in the film adaptation coming to theaters this August. The group talks about the history of the film’s production—which started before Rush was even alive—as well as the challenges of taking on iconic roles and living up to fan expectations.

Lowry and Bridges also went in depth on how Bridges first discovered the novel in a catalog, how Lowry deals with the legacy of writing the first big dystopian novel for young people, and her surprise that The Hunger Games and Divergent were made into movies first.