“He’s tremendous”: the one and only actor who always astounded Jack Nicholson
Everyone knows that Jack Nicholson idolised Marlon Brando and considered him a god among the mere mortals who populated the acting industry, but that wasn’t who he was always astounded by.
Despite his never-ending admiration for the seminal method man, Nicholson was smart and self-aware to know that Brando was far from flawless. The Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront icon may have changed the game for everyone, but he also grew increasingly sloppy and disinterested.
That was an accusation that could never be levelled at his three-time Academy Award-winning friend and neighbour, though. While Nicholson’s filmography isn’t impeccable, it’s still better than most stars could ever dream of, and even in his lesser films, nobody could accuse him of sleepwalking through a part.
If anything, that’s even more impressive because he was getting Brando-level paycheques for being ten times more prolific, but he could back it up. As the reformed hell-raiser acknowledged, almost every single one of his starring roles turned a profit eventually, so he was as bankable as he was wealthy.
Nicholson never wavered from his position that Brando was the greatest of all time, and there are many who’d agree, plenty of whom are silver-screen legends in their own right. In terms of an actor who was as reliable, consistent, and equally committed to every character they play, he believed there was another ‘Golden Age’ veteran who was without equal.
“The other day I caught up with George C Scott in a horror movie he once did, and I’m always astounded by his work,” he told Michael Ventura. “The guy can make more silk purses out of sows’ ears than anybody I’ve ever seen. He’s tremendous.”
Scott didn’t make a lot of horror movies, but based on Nicholson revealing how much the Oscar, two-time Golden Globe, two-time Emmy-winning, and five-time Tony nominee astounded him in the summer of 1985, there’s a decent chance that he was referring to Peter Medak’s 1980 supernatural chiller, The Changeling.
It was either that or the 1984 adaptation of Stephen King’s Firestarter, which it might have been, seeing as The Changeling was acclaimed and Mark Lester’s cack-handed take on the author’s novel was not. It doesn’t really matter, anyway, since the point Nicholson was making was that, regardless of whether he was gunning for awards or chasing the money, Scott never put a foot wrong when the cameras were rolling.
Whereas Brando slummed his way through too many pictures, Patton’s ‘Best Actor’ winner refused to drop his performance levels, even if he knew he was making a bad movie. Or, as Nicholson put it, he possessed the innate gift of turning every sows’ ear he encountered into a silky smooth purse.
