Why Werner Herzog refused to cast Jack Nicholson in his movie: “He took me to Denver in his private jet”
Werner Herzog is not the sort of person who would be easily intimidated or impressed by a famous person. When he worked with Tom Cruise on the movie Jack Reacher, he was bold enough to crack jokes with the Mission: Impossible star, and even poked fun at him about his extensive entourage, to the terror of everyone else on the set.
In addition to Cruise, Herzog has worked with Christian Bale, Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, and several other top-tier stars. He even saved Joaquin Phoenix’s life after the actor suffered a car crash and tried to light a cigarette in the wreckage. Instead of hanging around to chat with the man, Herzog simply drove off without so much as a backward glance.
It’s clear that the legendary German filmmaker is unswayed by glitz and status. He’s made a career out of getting to the heart of larger-than-life characters who have nothing to do with the gilded cage of Hollywood. In movies like Aguirre, The Wrath of God, The White Diamond, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams, he has plumbed the depths of the human soul to find all its darkness, ambition, and derangement.
While he might be above the rest of us when it comes to getting star-struck, it’s still pretty remarkable that he would so casually turn down the opportunity to work with Jack Nicholson. The Oscar winner has been a legend since the 1970s, typifying the New Hollywood generation and becoming one of the greatest American actors of all time, and most filmmakers would leap at the chance to direct him.
When the director was planning to make his 1982 film Fitzcarraldo, about an Irishman who tries to transport a giant steamship over the Andes Mountains in Peru, the Chinatown actor was the first in line to star. “Jack Nicholson was impressed by my films and wanted to play the lead,” Herzog recalled in his memoir, Every Man for Himself and God Against All, “But it soon became clear that he and 20th Century Fox intended to have the film shot in San Diego in the botanical gardens with a plastic scale model for the ship.”
For a director known for going to the farthest flung locations in the world to make his films, this was a non-starter, but Nicholson wasn’t willing to give up that easily. “He took me to Denver in his private jet and tried to convince me that the San Diego solution was simplest,” the director recalled but said that, since the actor only took roles that left him free to watch Los Angeles Lakers games, there was never any chance that it would work out.
Ultimately, both men stuck to their guns, and it was Herzog and everyone who signed on to the project who paid the price. The production of Fitzcarraldo is considered to be one of the most fraught and dangerous in the history of mainstream cinema. There were multiple deaths, illnesses, an amputation due to a snakebite that a crew member performed on himself, and multiple accusations of exploitation. From that vantage point, Nicholson’s cushy criteria for appearing in the film seem pretty sensible.
