Why Jack Nicholson surprised Matt Damon with a dildo on the set of ‘The Departed’
Any close follower of American filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s work may have been surprised in 2007 when the director walked away with several Academy Awards for his modern crime flick The Departed. Taking home Best Picture and Best Director, although the film was worthy of praise, many critics believe that it was merely ‘time’ for Scorsese to win, particularly after years of being ignored by the Academy.
By no means a bad piece of cinema, it is still hard to deny that The Departed lacks in quality when compared to Scorsese’s De Niro boxing flick Raging Bull or his collaboration with Paul Schrader for Taxi Driver. Based on the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs, Scorsese hired the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Jack Nicholson and Martin Sheen to help him reach the potential of this frenetic crime drama.
Telling the story of a game of cat and mouse between an undercover cop and a mole within the police who attempt to identify each other whilst infiltrating a deadly Irish gang in Boston, the film is an intricate, intense piece of drama. It’s also made all the better by the performance of the great Jack Nicholson, who takes on the role of Costello, the mob boss who rules with an unpredictable iron fist.
As a long-time star of the silver screen, Nicholson entered the set with a lot to teach the younger actors of the film, pushing the boundaries when it came to his improvisation, allowing his fellow performances more creative expression to perform.
Speaking to Film Ink, Scorsese recalled the first day Nicholson and Damon collaborated on set, telling the latter, “Well, a funny thing has happened, and Jack has some ideas”. Continuing, Damon recalls, “the next day we were shooting a scene in a porn movie theatre, so Marty says, ‘Well okay, I’ll just get to it. Jack’s going to wear a dildo!’ And so I thought, ‘Well alright, you know, so be it'”.
Later, during the scene which takes place at a porn theatre, Nicholson disguises himself as a normal customer before approaching Damon’s character and pulling out a dildo instead of a gun. Remembering how Nicholson told him how it was going to work, Damon remembers, “Jack’s idea was ‘So here’s the deal — I’m going to come in and I’m going to sit there in the overcoat and I’m gonna turn around and pull out the big dildo and we’re gonna laugh'”.
Inspired by this curious move for the character, Damon was enthused to try out new things for his role too. As he further reveals, “Jack really brought this incredible new element to that character…He made him more obscene in a way that felt authentic, because these guys sublimate sex into violence and violence into sex and it really is how a lot of those things did occur…If Jack was introducing this sexual element, then I thought it was fair game in the script, and that we had to reference this from my character Colin’s standpoint”.
This introduced a new side to Damon’s character, with the actor further revealing to the director, “We’re in this macho world where everyone’s beating each other up… and Jack’s a sexual dynamo – so here’s what I want to do: I want to lose every fight I’m in and I don’t want my d*** to work”.
Thanks to Nicholson, Damon was able to produce one of his greatest ever roles.
