The role Jack Nicholson played to prove a point: “People had forgotten what a hardcore bastard I am”
Actors with designs on longevity are usually aware of how those within and outside the industry perceive them. Sometimes, personas need to be shaken up and risks need to be taken, with Jack Nicholson realising he was in danger of settling into a comfort zone that he needed to break out of.
Nicholson was a major star for most of his career, breaking out in the 1960s and quickly earning a reputation as one of his generation’s top talents. While it takes plenty of talent to secure four decades of Hollywood stardom, it also requires more than a little savvy and self-awareness.
Outside of his three Academy Award wins and record-breaking 12 nominations, he knew he was good. In fact, Nicholson even pulled out the receipts when he anointed himself as the single most commercially successful actor of all time, based on how many of his starring roles had turned a profit at the box office.
One of the many attributes that made him a household name was his unrelenting intensity, which he put on the back burner throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Even though he continued winning acclaim and awards and playing memorable characters in films covering multiple genres, his trademark wild-eyed mania was in short supply.
Heartstrings were tugged in Terms of Endearment, scenery was chewed in Tim Burton’s Batman, The Witches of Eastwick leaned into fantastical black comedy, Prizzi’s Honor adopted a lighter approach to the crime caper, and Man Trouble went heavy on romance, to name a few of his credits from the period.
The common thread was that those characters didn’t allow Nicholson to cut loose, blow his top, and indulge himself with a performance where viewers could almost literally see the steam coming out of his ears. Fortunately, Rob Reiner had the perfect role in mind, which also paid him handsomely.
Nicholson earned $5 million for spending ten days on the set of A Few Good Men, but it was worth it. Colonel Nathan R Jessup got less than 20 minutes of screentime, which was still enough for the star to earn an Oscar nod for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ and deliver the movie’s single most iconic moment.
“People at that point had forgotten what a hardcore bastard I really am,” Nicholson told Movieline of why he signed on for A Few Good Men. “It was another example of a middle-class character operating under his own strict moral code.”
Nicholson never went out of fashion, but he did spend a spell dialling down the volcanic side of his performative arsenal. Aaron Sorkin’s script provided the perfect opportunity for him to, as he put it, remind cinemagoers and studio executives that when it came to playing hardcore bastards, there was still nobody better.
