Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholsonis an American actor and filmmaker, having performed for nearly 60 years. He is known for playing a wide range of starring or supporting roles, including satirical comedy, romance and dark portrayals of excitable and psychopathic characters. In many of his films, he has played the "eternal outsider, the sardonic drifter", and someone who rebels against the social structure...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth22 April 1937
CityNeptune City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
On the birth of his son after having had two daughters: I finally got it right.
I'm not hard to get along with.
We learn how to kiss, or to drink, talk to our buddies-all the things that you can't really teach in social studies or history-we all learn them at the movies.
I'm an actor who they said was wrinkled and balding and everything else when I was in my early 30's. Most of the people who wrote that who thought they were younger than me are now bald and wrinkled.
It always bothered me when people came off stage and were told how great they were. They weren't, really, in my opinion. It was then I started thinking that, contrary to conventional wisdom, film was the artful medium for the actor, not the stage.
I just like art. I get pure pleasure from it. I have a lot of wonderful paintings, and every time I look at them I see something different.
Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?
Everybody's old enough for a beer, ain't that right, Mule?
I was invited to join the MGM cartoon department. But if I'd started work in animation I'd have had to take a cut in salary, so I didn't.
When I am cast in a movie where I feel that the woman's part is more interesting, I usually start thinking about Spencer Tracy and Fred Astaire. They seem to be the most clear actors when working with women.
There's a period just before you start a movie when you start thinking, I don't know what in the world I'm going to do. It's free-floating anxiety. In my case, though, this is over by lunch the first day of shooting.
One of my school friends' parents owned a minigolf course, and a bunch of us kids would play there all day in the summer. Two-under deuces was a good score.
Comedy is more difficult. You can look at scenes when you're doing a drama like, “Maybe it works,” but in comedy, when you're doing it, either it works or it doesn't. You have to keep doing it until it does, and the requirement is more.
In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.