The one thing Jack Nicholson would always “hate” on set
Broadly regarded as one of the greatest actors of his generation, Jack Nicholson has led a long, fruitfully varied career. Thanks to his bold, pointed eyebrows and devilish grin, the actor has been cast by several top-flight directors as the perfect villain, whether it’s Frank Costello in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed or Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
Nicholson’s scope has also allowed him to flourish in more complex roles of moral balance, including those in Miloš Forman’s 1975 drama One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Roman Polanski’s noir mystery of the previous year, Chinatown.
In Vivian Kubrick’s documentary Making The Shining, Nicholson explained how an open approach kept his acting style fresh and malleable through the years. “When I come up against a director who has a concept that, maybe, I don’t agree with it […] I’d be more prone to go with them than my own because I want to be out of control as an actor. I want them to have the control. Otherwise, it’s going to become predictably my work. And that’s not fun.”
Continuing, the Hollywood icon suggested that actors shouldn’t have just “one set of theories.” He added: “You can go for years saying, ‘I’m gonna get this thing real because they really haven’t seen it real’ […] and then you come up against someone like Stanley who says, ‘Yeah, it’s real, but it’s not interesting.’”
Many actors complain that method acting, as championed by Daniel Day-Lewis and Christian Bale, can be somewhat distracting or intimidating on set. However, with Nicholson, his legendary status and caricatured, iconic countenance were enough to stir apprehension and imposter syndrome in his cast mates.
In a 2011 interview with The Daily Mail, Nicholson opened up about his own apprehension on set. Despite his towering legacy and three Academy Award wins, the actor admitted that he often felt inadequate for his roles. Most of all, he despised being treated differently from his fellow actors.
“I hate it. I don’t want to be treated like the Medusa or the Lincoln Memorial,” Nicholson reflected. “People have an idea of me, which is not the reality. On set, I’m an actor like every other actor. Most times, for every part I play, I can think of other actors who would be better.”
Continuing, Nicholson addressed a surprising lack of self-confidence. “I worry from the moment I take a job,” he revealed. “I worry about how I’m going to do it if I can do it. I try to work out what I have to do on set and how I do that.”
Later in the interview, Nicholson discussed his reputation as a womaniser. “If men are honest, everything they do and everywhere they go is for a chance to see women,” he opined. “There were points in my life where I felt oddly irresistible to women. I’m not in that state now, and that makes me sad.”
At 86 years old, Nicholson now lives a reclusive life in his Mulholland Drive mansion and is cared for by his children. Occasionally, he is spotted visiting Lakers games.
Watch the trailer for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest below.
