Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images Entertainment

Some have said Jeff's portrayal of Bad Blake felt effortless. Jeff says he just had the right mojo. "Acting is kind of like a magic trick. It's an illusion," he says. "There's the kind of sleight-of-hand magic, and there's that alchemy magic. You kind of [mix] a combo of those things and just finally let it rip and there it is."

Jeff says the music also made the role. "I got to play with all my buddies—[producers] T. Bone Burnett and Stephen Bruton," he says. "The music for that movie really started 30 years ago [on the set of the western film] Heaven's Gate. That's where I met T. Bone and Stephen Bruton."