Cancer-Stricken Jeff Bridges 'Needed Oxygen' Upon Work Return, Had Massive Tumor and Nearly Died From COVID-19 During Treatment

Jeff Bridges has opened up about his harrowing battle against non-Hodgkin lymphoma and navigating returning to the set of his demanding action series, The Old Man, RadarOnline.com has learned.

Bridges, 74, spoke frankly with PEOPLE alongside his co-star John Lithgow while promoting the Sept. 12 release of Season 2 of his Hulu series during the Television Critics Association (TCA) Press Tour in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Bridges, who first shared his diagnosis in October 2020, told the outlet that when he came back to work for his role as Dan Chase in The Old Man, "Everybody was so considerate about my condition, but I don't remember that as being particularly difficult."

"Even the fight scenes after I came back, I can't remember being upset about that," he said of his role in the grueling action series.

However, Lithgow, 78, said, “Everybody was watching Jeff. I mean, he needed oxygen occasionally,” particularly in the early days of his return.

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“You just do your best and that's all you can do,” Bridges replied. “It's something so great, actors working with actors, being a fraternity, a sorority ... You're looking out for each other.”

Bridges admitted that initially he didn’t think he’d be able to come back to the show, particularly after revealing to PEOPLE in 2022 that after contracting COVID-19 in 2021 during his cancer treatment, “I was pretty close to dying.”

Bridges went on to say, “The doctors kept telling me, 'Jeff, you've got to fight. You're not fighting.' I was in surrender mode. I was ready to go. I was dancing with my mortality.”

He also told the TCA panel that he recalled the "bizarre" feeling of filming the first season of the show while sick, "I was doing these fight scenes," he said. "I had a 9-inch by 12-inch tumor ...in my stomach that didn't hurt at all."

Today, though, Bridges, who announced he went into remission in September 2021, added at the panel he felt great and declared of his return to The Old Man, “I'm coming back for more punishment.”