“I was in the car”: the Oscar-winning classic Jack Nicholson walked out of
To say Jack Nicholson has always walked to the beat of his own drum would be the understatement of the century. One of Hollywood’s most legendary rogues, it can be legitimately argued that Nicholson was simultaneously the greatest actor in the business and the industry’s biggest hellraiser. In between all the iconic movies, Academy Award nominations, romantic liaisons, drug-fuelled parties, and eventual fatherhood, though, Nicholson occasionally found time to watch a movie or two. Amusingly, with characteristic “Jack-ness,” he once told the star of an Oscar-winning classic that he walked out of their film.
At the Golden Globe Awards in 2004, Elijah Wood was basking in the glory of the stratospheric success of the third entry in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings series. Wood, of course, starred in these enormously beloved films as Frodo Baggins and, at that time, was on the campaign trail as the studio tried to ensure The Return of the King received some Academy Award nominations. Wood had been booked to present an award at the ceremony, and as he hung around backstage waiting for his moment, he got into a conversation with Dustin Hoffman and Nicholson.
It must have been a surreal moment for the young star – after all, how many actors get to shoot the shit with two legends of the game in a rare moment away from the cameras. To Wood’s delight, Nicholson began talking about The Lord of the Rings, and he must have felt like he was on cloud nine. For starters, this meant Nicholson knew who he was, which was awesome in and of itself. But it also meant Nicholson had watched the movies Wood, Jackson, and everyone else had worked so hard on – and that felt like praise from on high.
Or, rather, it would have if Nicholson hadn’t immediately revealed exactly what he thought about The Return of the King. Wood chuckled to FHM, “Jack started talking about Lord Of The Rings. He said, ‘God, it’s so long. What happened to you at the end?'” With mounting horror, Wood asked the iconic Batman star, “Wait a second – you didn’t watch the end of the film?”
According to Wood, Nicholson replied, “No, I was in the car waiting for the kids. There were too many damn endings” – and this made Hoffman burst into hysterical laughter.
In truth, Nicholson wasn’t the only person in Hollywood to poke fun at The Return of the King’s over-abundance of endings. The film, which caps off nine hours of material across three films, or 12 hours if you count the Extended Cuts, boasted a denouement which seemed to go on forever. In reality, the film’s wrap-up scenes lasted for 27 minutes and perfectly brought the epic tale to a close, but it made the film an easy target for fun. Hell, at the Academy Awards ceremony, where the film swept the board and won all 11 trophies it was nominated for. Host Billy Crystal smirked that it had “11 nominations—one for each ending”.
So, there you have it. When Wood encountered Nicholson on that fateful night at the Golden Globes, he found out there definitely is a way to be brought crashing back down to earth after making a modern classic film that won awards galore and became the second highest-grossing film of all time. All you had to do was ask the opinion of the most mischievous, devilish actor in the business: “Too many damn endings.” To be fair, he wasn’t wrong.
