Happy Jack

Indeed, it is now 40 years since he first rode into America’s consciousness on the back of cult biker flick Easy Rider, and in each subsequent decade he has unleashed an era-defining character. His inscrutably sane mental patient Randle McMurphy in 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was brittle and brilliant, while Jack Torrance, the axe-wielding maniac in 1980’s The Shining, offered up “Daddy’s home” to the cinematic lexicon. Before the decade was out he had added the charismatic womaniser Daryl Van Horne and Batman’s nemesis The Joker to his resume, and in the 1990s, he was winning Academy Awards as the OCD sexist author Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets.

 

Looking back to your early career, does the cliché apply: “If you remember the Sixties, you weren’t there”?

Jack Nicholson: Well, I do remember things that happened – I just don’t remember dates. Actually, there are things I don’t remember too. I saw this documentary with a scene of me with the Beatles out in Malibu, and I just couldn’t remember it. Of course, I could tell from the film I was a bit loaded – no doubt about that.

 

In 1967 – two years before Easy Rider – you appeared in the Aunt Bee, “The Juror” episode of The Andy Griffith Show. Is that a performance you reflect upon much?

JN: Oddly, I just talked to Ron Howard about this on Oscar night. Ron asked me if I remembered doing the show. I got to tell him that Andy Griffith and his people treated me very well when I was just some schmo actor. Curiously, this period from 1967 on is an era when I can’t remember any dates because I decided to give them up – I think it was called “contemporary thinking” and “no conceptual realities”. Right around this time I had gone to France and become a sort of demi-movie star, primarily in Monte Hellman’s Westerns. After that, up until about 1972, everything kind of blurs.

 

JN: Well, I always felt I had a good plan, but my life never went according to plan. It always went a little better [laughs]. I’ve been very fortunate. Regrets, I’ve had a few, as Sinatra sings, but “nothing” is probably the appropriate answer. I may have made different choices in my career. I may not have turned down The Sting and The Godfather in the same year. That’s professional. Personally, my life shows I wouldn’t change much. I still live in the first house I ever bought.

 

JN: I don’t know. See, I’ve been lucky enough not to have to involve myself in much public relations. But one thing that struck me as odd is I got to be an overnight success in Easy Rider, in which I was not playing the counterculture guy. My character was embedded in the South. I got picked up in jail by a couple of loons and went with them. The first interview I ever did was with the LA Free Press – the headline was “I Am Not A Revolutionary”. See, I never wanted to be loved for the wrong reason.

 

 

JN: All film, really. Because of the nature of the business, there were widely distributed foreign films. We expected to see – and did see – a different masterpiece every week. Many weeks it was more than one. It started in the art houses with La Strada, The Magnificent Seven, and went all the way through those years. We went to see who was the master this week. Satyajit Ray? Godard? Truffaut? You couldn’t get a better film education than just happening to be going to the movies in that period.

 

JN: The Magnificent Seven. La Strada. 8 1/2. The 400 Blows. Jules and Jim. Breathless. All of the Bergman movies. Kurosawa never failed. There was Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad. These movies were mind-boggling.

 

JN: I know what my job is. I’m one of the actors who’s not ashamed of only being an actor. Nonetheless, I’m interested. This is America. That’s my limitation. I’m a war baby. I’m a totally patriotic type of fella, and this factionalism that’s so deep today – none of it is to my liking. So I don’t have a place to put my toe in here. I’m incapable of hating a president of the United States. But you can’t put your money on someone like me because we’ll lead you equally far astray.

 

JN: I’m always optimistic, even if I don’t keep as close track of who’s coming on now. John Huston said, “The one thing you must not do is lose interest”.

 

JN: I always listened to that with half an ear. Sean Penn said much the same thing. He’s a wonderful director, and that’s what he prefers, but Sean also happens to be one of the best actors alive. All creative people have certain structural problems. For Marlon, it was simply too easy. I don’t have his problem. I’m happy to have a great director like Scorsese carry me in like a bowl of soup.

 

JN: Yeah, in an odd way. I’m Marlon’s audience – a 50s high school guy. I was an assistant manager in a movie theatre and saw On the Waterfront, like, 40 times. So by the time I’m out here in Hollywood, I knew one thing I couldn’t do was to try and be Marlon in any way.

 

JN: Of course. It’s difficult face-to-face to hate anybody. As far as I remember, I only had one personal contact with President Reagan, whom I knew was a very genuine actor. After he was out of office, there was all the talk of Alzheimer’s, and as a lifelong Democrat, I didn’t know what to believe. Then I was at a very private dinner, and Reagan started talking to me. He’d begin to tell me a story and then forget it in the middle. I felt bad because I liked him as a man to talk with at a dinner party.

 

JN: In the beginning, you want a body of work, but my attitude is, when I’m not working, six weeks later nobody will remember. I know in a certain way that’s not true, but for me it feels closer to the truth. That’s what’s great about making movies: It’s piecework.

 

Finally, how does it feel to still be at the top of your game 40 years after acting with Aunt Bee?

JN: I am proud about the longevity because I sought it. Frankly, I feel immodest if I say anything outside of “duh”, but that’s the truth.

 

For the full version of the article, see NOX11.