True Grit (2010 film) True Grit (2010 film) True Grit is a 2010 American Revisionist Western film directed, written, produced, and edited by the Coen brothers and executively produced by Steven Spielberg. It is the second adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968 novel of the same name, which was previously filmed in 1969 starring John Wayne and Glen Campbell. This version stars Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross and Jeff Bridges as Deputy U.S. Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn, along with Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Barry Pepper. Feisty 14 year-old farm girl Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) hires Cogburn, a boozy, trigger-happy lawman (Bridges) after an outlaw
True Grit (1969 film) he has a restaurant, his wife Nola leaves him because of his degenerate friends, and has a clumsy son named Horace), calling it "about the best scene I ever did." Garry Wills notes in his book, "John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity", that Wayne's performance as Rooster Cogburn bears close resemblance to the way Wallace Beery portrayed similar characters in the 1930s and 1940s, an inspired if surprising choice on Wayne's part. Wills comments that it's difficult for one actor to imitate another for the entire length of a movie and that the Beery mannerisms temporarily recede during the