The hairline is greyer and continuing to recede. There’s a bit more slack in the jowls, a bit more expansion in the waistline and you sense that he’s moving with greater care.
But there’s no mistaking that insinuating drawl, or the devilish eyes behind those tinted specs or that killer smile. At 73, Jack Nicholson remains our most raffish specimen of Hollywood royalty.
His lifestyle, pretty much an open book throughout his career, is certainly part of his persona. But if you set aside those stories of drug-taking, womanizing and all-around hellraising, you also find the consummate professional.
Those two sides of Nicholson are evident today as he faces reporters to talk about his new movie, How Do You Know, in which he plays a shady businessman whose high-stake ventures threaten to land him in jail — unless he allows his son, played by Paul Rudd, to be the fall guy.
It’s typical of Nicholson that he should tell us — in an exaggerated whisper — that he still likes to chase women. It’s also clear that he has a good deal of affection for the aging buccaneer he portrays in the film. It’s a part tailor-made for his unique brand of dissolute charm.
But again, there are glimpses of the serious film artist — no more so than when he gets onto the subject of the movie’s veteran writer-director, James L. Brooks.
“Well, you know, he’s kind of close to me, but it is a privilege to work with Jim. He’s probably the best screenwriter in the world, and you just get great material, and you know he casts wonderful actors — just look at us all.”
The veteran star is referring to co-stars Reese Witherspoon, who portrays a passionate softball star whose life turns upside down when she is dropped from the team; Owen Wilson, cast as a major-league baseball pitcher and ladies’ man whose only real commitment is to himself; and Paul Rudd as a straight-arrow businessman who is caught in the fallout from the wheeling and dealing of his father, played by Nicholson.
This is Nicholson’s first movie in three years, but when Brooks came calling, he responded. He makes it plain this is the real reason he signed up.
“You rarely get to work with — and I accentuate the adjective — a ‘dear’ friend,” he says. There’s a dramatic pause. Then: “A couple of Oscars didn’t hurt in cementing the relationship.”
Two of Nicholson’s three Oscars came out of Brooks films:Terms of Endearment and As Good as It Gets.
Nicholson still finds he likes acting when he can be coaxed into doing it. And why does he like it?
“Travel, beautiful women, excellent compatriots. ... It’s a very exciting business. We’ve all been doing it awhile, we all get nervous, we get wild — and that should be all I say.”
Still, there’s another part of Nicholson that’s happy with the idea of retirement. Friends tell him it’s unthinkable that he should quit working — but, says Nicholson slyly, “I’m kinda proving them wrong.”
To be sure, he continues to read and reject scripts that come his way, “so that’s a form of labour — but I like not working. I know that’s kind of hideous and blasphemous, but I really do.”
But then something like How Do You Know turns up, and Nicholson can’t wait to get back before the camera — especially if it means working with talented comedians such as Witherspoon and Rudd. “I’m always learning when it’s a comedy, and I learned plenty from these.” He even got to kiss Rudd — in a fatherly kind of way.
As for the character of amoral tycoon Charles Madison, Nicholson clearly understands this guy’s philosophy when it comes to shady international deals. In fact, he kind of likes him.
“He honestly does feel what he says: that it’s against the law to piss on the sidewalk, but this is spitting on the sidewalk. You go to Egypt — you bribe the Egyptians.”
The complicating factor is the genuine affection between father and son. Just don’t expect Nicholson to feel hostility toward a guy who’s prepared to throw his boy to the wolves. He loves creating characters like this.
As for the moral issue: “Everybody always thinks they’re right. I’ve played a lot of bad or semi-bad or whatever, and you always have to be on the character’s side. I didn’t have any trouble analyzing this character — is the shortest answer.”
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