How Meryl Streep quickly became Jack Nicholson’s acting “idol”
You can ask plenty of actors or filmmakers their favourite period of American cinema, and I can guarantee that a large percentage will say the New Hollywood era of the late 1960s and the 1970s, which changed the industry forever.
A new crop of actors emerged who stood in opposition to the classic stars of the Golden Age. These stars simply appeared more real, the kind of people you might have known and gossiped about in school, suddenly thrown up on the big screen – something you could grumble about with other disgruntled classmates at your next school reunion. Hollywood was no longer strictly defined by archetypes like femme fatales and ingenues. Cinema was shifting towards a greater sense of truth, and more violence and grittier storylines began to be injected straight into the mainstream vein.
Jack Nicholson was a defining figure of this period, with every project he took on seeming to strike pure gold. Look at his credits as he rose to success – Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – it appeared that few actors could turn in a terrific leading performance on the same level as Nicholson.
The actor just seems to have an innate talent for embodying a character so fully. When you watch him on screen, it’s hard to comprehend that he has ever been anyone else – that he has played other characters and lived other lives. He can do horror as well as he can do romantic comedy, and really, it’s this versatility that has secured his enduring success.
Nicholson was arguably one of the first proper New Hollywood stars, having started his career as an actor back in the early 1960s with roles in indie productions, often in collaboration with Roger Corman. However, as his career progressed, he found himself inspired by an actor who didn’t make her film debut until 1977.
The actor once cited Meryl Streep as an “idol” of his, and you can’t blame him. Nearly every actor who has emerged since Streep began her Oscar-nominated tirade over Hollywood has called her an influence. Nicholson was delighted to get the chance to work with Streep in the 1980s, and he treasures the experience – even if the movie wasn’t as successful as other projects that the respective actors were part of during this era.
Talking to Vanity Fair, Nicholson revealed, “She’s my idol. That rapport was great and almost instant, like my first tough scene. I sort of thought I blew it when I did it; I don’t think I even knew the name of my character yet. It’s the scene around the fountain, kind of later. But Meryl was so good in it.”
Nicholson had worked with many seasoned actors before Streep, but there was something about her approach to acting that he had no fucking clue about. “I mean, it’s a very different feeling when you’re acting and someone else is carrying you, and that’s definitely true in that scene. I was all at sea; I was floundering around, but I could see that we would be fine because she was doing great. You do fall in love with…With certain…creative situations,” he added.
It seems like Nicholson really enjoyed working with Streep, so much so that they reunited just one year later for Ironweed, which earned both of them nominations from the Academy. Clearly, they’ve got great chemistry, perhaps they can find time to reunite for one more film together. Well, you’ll have to drag Nicholson out of a retirement he seems to be enjoying a bit too much, but if anyone could convince him, it seems like it could be Streep.
