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
When you look at life retrospectively you rarely regret anything that you did, but you might regret things that you didn't do.
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.
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.
I am a person who is trained to look other people in the eye.
I don't have any plugs or tucks but people do what they want. I look at it as mutilation.
It was anticipated there would be times when the cash won't be there and we'll have to issue bonds. That's how it was always supposed to work.
With comedy, you have to do it right. In a drama, there's a lot of different ways to succeed in a moment. But comedy comes from reality. You can't try to be funny.
There are short parts that I as an actor am very right for. Or I just like the part. Or you need someone like me for the movie. By that I don't mean at the box office, I mean in the execution of the material.
There has long been a bemoaning of the lack of opportunity to make films that are anything but explosions or the ladling on the pea soup or whatever you want to call it. You can hardly make a movie where somebody isn't a murderer or a rapist or, if it's a "Fried Green Tomatoes" that isn't some wistful thing on this, that or the other thing.
It's difficult for people sometimes to recognise when they're happy. People sometimes seem to me to be afraid to be happy.
Million bucks won't see you through a major health crisis.
It's the post-literate generation that is most disturbing to a movie-maker. The explosions and the knifings. People like to go to what's hot and you can't get past a certain gross unless you involve children who go more than once.
It [TV] is the cancer of film. It's why people can't be educated to film. In the late '60s, we expected to see a movie or two every week and be stimulated, excited and inspired. And we did. Every week after week. Antonioni, Goddard, Truffaut - this endless list of people. And then comes television and home video. I know how to work exactly for the big screen, but it doesn't matter what I think about the art of movie-making versus TV.
Freedom in every sense but primarily political sense, a rise in repression that stems from a repression of sexuality. It's AIDS, it's herpes, it's this, it's that. Ask any saloon owner what's happened to social life in America and they'll tell you it's a different world and these people are strongly misinformed by the media, peer pressure.