Jack Nicholson names the movie screening that “turned my life around”
After making his mark in the 1960s, Jack Nicholson went on to portray one iconic role after another, dominating genres such as horror, drama, and indie films. Like all notable creatives, there was a pivotal moment when the actor’s hard work paid off. Nicholson vividly recalls the exact moment when he saw the silver lining, marking the beginning of his breakthrough.
Nicholson had a hard struggle to the top. He lived through a tough childhood, finding out that the woman he’d grown up with as a sister was actually his mother, making his journey to Hollywood feel even more unlikely without solid family support. But when he did eventually make it there, no doors really opened beyond a few small cameo roles.
By the mid-1960s, the actor had basically resigned himself to the fact that his ambitions of being a performer would never work out. So he began looking for other ways to be involved in moviemaking, trying his hand at scriptwriting instead.
They say opportunity comes knocking when you least expect it or right when you’d given up looking. As Nicholson gave up on acting and cast off big-time Hollywood, instead writing the screenplay for the countercultural film The Trip, it landed on the desks of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. He impressed the pair greatly, so when a role opened up in the 1969 decade-defining film Easy Rider, they knew who to call.
Easy Rider is a fascinating phenomenon. What started as an independent movie about the 1960s countercultural scene, made on a tight budget of only $400,000, became a huge global success that made over $40million. Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and, in turn, Jack Nicholson were suddenly some of the biggest working actors around.
But it especially changed Jack Nicholson’s life. His portrayal of George Hanson, an alcoholic lawyer, earned him an Oscar nomination and shot him to notoriety. Biography John Parker wrote that Nicholson was the “overnight number-one hero of the counter-culture movement”, becoming the face of a new and exciting era of cinema.
Nicholson watched it happen. He remembers the moment well as his years of work suddenly came to fruition. Even in the 2010s, after a lengthy career, when The Talks asked Nicholson what the highlight of his life was, it came back to this moment.
“The first screening of Easy Rider in Cannes,” he said, adding, “When I was sitting in the screening I realized that I was actually going to be a movie star.”
By the time the film got to the Cannes Film Festival, Nicholson still believed he needed to find something else to do as acting wasn’t going to work out for him. “When I was over there I was pretty much already thinking about directing because I had been doing movies for 10 or 12 years by then,” he said.
While he had a good reputation, he’ll be the first to say that that doesn’t help too much, adding, “everybody said I was good, but being known and not having a big film success is almost tougher than being completely new.”
But when Easy Rider premiered in May 1969 at the iconic film festival, everything changed. “It just kind of turned my life around and was definitely a highlight,” the actor said.
The film was nominated for the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest accolade. It won ‘Best First Work’ for Dennis Hopper’s directorial debut. It made Nicholson a star, finally bringing him the hard-earned success he’d been chasing.
