The Oscar-nominated role Jack Nicholson cast himself in: “There is only one actor who could do that, me!”
Before his retirement, there wasn’t a director in the business who’d turn down the chance to work with Jack Nicholson. One of them got it easier than the rest, though, since the legendary actor informed the filmmaker that he’d be playing a key part in their next picture, and that was that.
It must be nice having one of the greatest actors in Hollywood history appointing themselves as your latest cast member. However, it wasn’t unanimously well-received, with one key member of the creative team concerned that Nicholson’s hubris would be the detriment of the film.
Of course, since he’s Jack Nicholson, it wasn’t to the detriment of the film at all. Instead, he delivered his latest Academy Award-nominated performance, and while he may not have won, he made a mockery of anyone who’d dared to doubt them, and there were quite a few who weren’t sold on his involvement.
As two of their generation’s resident lotharios and party animals, who also lived near each other on Mulholland Drive, which was renamed ‘Bad Boy Drive’ due to fellow hell-raisers Marlon Brando and Dennis Hopper also calling it home, Nicholson and Warren Beatty were guaranteed to get on like a house on fire.
Funnily enough, they did, and away from the many nights on the town they spent together, they also made two movies as colleagues. Six years after 1975’s The Fortune, Beatty was co-writing, producing, directing, and playing the lead role of Jack Reed in Reds, and he needed the perfect actor to embody the esteemed playwright, Eugene O’Neill.
There were some mind games involved, too, with Beatty remembering that he’d spoken to Nicholson with an agenda already in mind. “I told him I needed someone to play Eugene O’Neill, but it had to be someone who could convincingly take this woman away from me,” he said, deliberately poking at his pal’s lothario reputation, using Diane Keaton’s Louise Bryant as leverage.
In response, Nicholson committed then and there. “There is only one actor who could do that,” he replied. “Me!” Just like that, Reds had found its O’Neill, but executive producer Simon Relph wasn’t so sure. “When we met Jack, he was doing The Shining,” he explained. “It was towards the end of the film, and Kubrick had got him into the most shambolic state. A kind of grotesque figure appeared.”
With the countdown to the first day of shooting underway, both Beatty and Relph were concerned that the star could struggle to get himself back into fighting shape by the time the cameras started rolling. “He really did want to do it,” the latter remembered. “When it was time, he appeared, having shed a huge amount of weight, and all the years. He was fantastic.”
So fantastic that he was rewarded with one of Reds‘ 12 Oscar nominations, even if he didn’t claim the prize. Still, having been goaded into the part by Beatty and then working overtime to make sure he could do it convincingly, it was a hell of an effort either way.
