Jack Nicholson Interview - Part 2

by Peter Bogdanovich

from Suddeutsche Zeitung Magazin

Right. And you steal and cheat and run and grab it and make it, no matter what.  
Develop things, learn how to adjust. You don’t realize you just can’t dig in, you have to let things go, keep rolling, keep rolling.  
When we did the two westerns [Ride in the Whirlwind [1965] and The Shooting [1967], directed by Monte Hellman, Nicholson played the lead role in both], I was Monty’s assistant - he wouldn’t let me cut nothing. All I did was learn how to do trims, and stock them, and code them, and so forth - like an assistant. I did that picture [Head, starring The Monkees, directed by Bob Rafelson].  
 
Didn’t you write that?  
I wrote that, yeah, with Bob. But even before that [producer] Bert [Schneider], in his wisdom, kind of got my feet wet in the editing room, which was one of the biggest acting lessons any actor will ever get. When you go into an editing room you learn a lot about acting, not just editing. I thought I knew quite a bit at that point. But I’d given up acting, for the most part. As you said, I was going to be a writer - I’d written a lot - I had a commitment to direct a picture at BBS, and I was part of that great period of the American underground film movement - a very far-out, theoretical movie-maker. And that’s what I thought I’d like to do. I was being honest - 10-12 years as an actor. Everybody always said I was good, but that’s worse than if you’re a total unknown. It’s just: “well, nothing’s happening for the guy” - whatever that crazy in-town thing is. Fortunately, I did not know or I would’ve been more depressed than I was.  
 
I remember how furious I was: I sat up with [Henry] Jaglom up at the Old World ice cream parlor at a table - there were 5 or 6 of us actors; like we were there every day - and they had all had an interview for The Graduate. [Mike Nichols, 1968], and I couldn’t get an interview. After my first interview with Solly Viano, which concluded with the following statement: “Well, Jack, you seem good,” he says, “very unusual. Frankly, I don’t know what we’d need ya for, but if we need ya, we’ll need ya bad.” You have a very different image of who you are in the face of that kind of rejection. I didn’t think I was all that strange.  
 
But wasn’t the part in Easy Rider. [1969] kind of an afterthought?  
I was to oversee the production. I had co-produced - by then, they kind of knew who I was at BBS. Dennis [Hopper] and Peter [Fonda] had gone to New Orleans, gone mad - I shouldn’t say too much about that out of school. But gone mad - and Bob [Rafelson] wanted me to play the part more than I knew they wanted me to play the part. I knew [cinematographer] Laszlo Kovacs, I knew all the people who worked non-union pictures, and they [the producers] wanted me to just go down, “Be there and make sure that you and the rest of your dope-fiend friends don’t go crazy. Keep them on a semi-even keel. See if you can bring this picture in - keep ‘em from killing one another - whatever they’re going to do.”  
 
You were the responsible one.  
Yeah, the company man. I’d written - Dennis thought of me as one of the best screenwriters in Hollywood at that point. I’d written something for both him and Fonda. They both liked me. They both trusted me. And they should. That’s why it worked out so well. Bert gave me the part - I read it - he said, “Can you play this part?” I said, “Well, Bert, in all honesty, a moron can play this part. This is a good part.” That was all of the discussion about the part. The rest was all about production and what’s going on and getting some people in there, replace some of the crew for him and so forth. And then I saw the early cut, and Bert said: “What did you think of your part?” I Said, “Well, of course, it’s great, very good.” I paused, “I could cut it better.” He said, “Well, go ahead. Cut it.” Which I did. Dennis trusted me, through the action of making the picture. And nobody at BBS would do anything that the filmmaker didn’t want him to do. It was the freest, best independent moment any of us ever had. It was totally perfect. And totally successful, we might add.  
 
That never happened again, that kind of thing.  
No, and it was because of the strange nature of Bert and Bob and Steve’s [Blauner] - old and lasting relationship. Bert was very, very important. He was benevolent. I mean, Bert is one of those guys: there’s nobody I would rather see running a studio he didn’t over-talk. He gave me a couple of cuts in Easy Ride., didn’t give me 90. Didn’t go around saying, “I’m the one who said - ,” you know what I mean, he didn’t have all that sickness. And he loved movie-makers. And because Bob - when they’d have a fast meeting - he’d let Bert handle it. So the dynamic was perfect for us.  
 
It was great.  
It was genuine.  
 
How is Bob? Do you speak to him?  
Yeah, he’s up in Aspen, he’s raising his new family. He’s got a few million wrist problems, but he’s Curly Bob, he’s fabulous.  
 
I particularly liked that last picture you did with him, Blood and Wine., which for some reason didn’t get much attention.  
Bob - because we started as collaborative writers - he’s the exception to the directing rule. With him I’ll argue like a fishwife - we don’t have that separation. We always had the same arguments. Blood and Wine., the arguments were simple, and the onward discussion was simple. Jennifer Lopez was going to be famous for her ass. When Bob overslept, we staged the short dance number in the picture - I did the rip-off of “Rock Dreams” - with my hands on her ass in an insert. He wouldn’t put it in the picture. I said, “Bob, you’re insane.”

Why’d he take it out?  
That was the first five years of the discussion. Which then transformed into: The studio made him take it out. I said, “Isn’t this a little late to tell me?” Now, another few years go by, and not only didn’t the studio take ‘em out, his new argument is: “You’re crazy, it’s in the picture.” Fortunately, it came on TV; I looked - it’s not in the picture.  
 
It’s the same thing we were talking about before: You’ve got to know when something in limbo is commercial. This is worth it’s time and the number of sprocket holes on the film in every sense of the word.” First of all, I’m furious. “Why are you sleeping late and I’m having to stage this fucking dance number?” These kind of discussions which we’ve always had and loved, you know - we love each other. The other one was: “Bob, the form of this movie is a simple one - why we all liked this script: There’s no rooting interest. Everybody’s bad in the picture. There’s no good people in the picture. You can’t now put in one of your nimbly get-the-audience-to-like-somebody speeches for Jennifer Lopez, where she’s talking about being a Cuban boat-person.” You know, it’s just bad. And I never would win these arguments with Bob. He always thought he had some way of making the audience like something. And he correctly said, “You don’t want anybody to like you for anything. You’re just a hard-ass pain in the ass - you always have been - you always will be.” It’s in, it’s out. He’s the director. And my boss, incidentally, from the early parts of the story. I didn’t want to do Postman Always Rings Twice . [1981], directed by Rafelson] as a picture in the cold.  
 
In the cold?  
Yeah, as a cold picture - I wanted to do it in summer. Incidentally, he may have been right. Because that’s a really fine picture he made there. I never made James Cain’s book - and it’s a story that’s been ripped off a million times. The center of that book is they fuck on the [dead] body. Well, Hollywood ain’t gonna: They certainly - even the wildest of them - ain’t gonna deal with this.  
 
That’s what it was about.  
I felt, and he agreed, no nudity in the picture. Now, at that time, nudity was all over the place. “No, let’s do this most sexual picture without nudity. One shot of my bare ass laying on a bed like a baby picture - the exact opposite - that’s it.” Of course, Bob, covering all bases, we get to these erotic scenes and he’d be with a handheld trying to get a shot of a breast. I have enough technique to block two handheld cameras while I’m supposedly acting. I don’t know why I digressed into that. But it’s so different. Another one that’s interesting, Man Trouble. [1992; Rafelson]: “Look, I know from Marshall McCluhan, when you break a cliché you release hybrid energy in communication. Stanley Kubrick said to me one day, “Every scene has been done. Our job is, do it a little better.”  
 
With Bob, on Postman., “Look, in these sex scenes, we’re no nudity and we’re in ‘40s pants - I always wonder how they go from that kiss to suddenly they’re entering someone. How did this happen? Let’s have a cut in these ‘40s pants of me with a big railer on, no nudity, just the bulging pants.” I get me a dildo, made all the preparations and we get to the scene, he thought I was kidding. The immediate dildos didn’t work, they couldn’t rig it up right, so: “Go on upstairs on the set and get a boner, and we’ll - “ So I find myself whipping my pudding trying not to have the set creek with an entire movie company listening. So, needless to say, this we didn’t do in that picture. But on Man Trouble., a place where it may not be as appropriate, I’m in the scene with [Ellen] Barkin and I’ve got the dildo this time, various sizes, and I say to Bob, “Now we’re gonna do this.” And he said, “All right, goddamit, you’ve been driving me nuts, we’ll do this shot.” And we do it, “Now don’t you fucking cut this thing out. I’ll kill everybody involved.” He leaves it in. Later, to my friends at a screening as they file out, I ask - and it’s huge on the screen - “What do you think of the codpiece-shot in it?” Not one person saw it - not one. I was stunned. I was surprised that nobody noticed the fuckin’ thing. Another lesson in film making.  
 
Going back to the early years: Where did you grow up?  
In New Jersey. On the shore. Neptune City, Spring Lake. Manasquana high school. Life guard, beach boy. Came to California, didn’t change much, they didn’t have the freeway. Lived out by the track. Went to the pool hall. I drove to the South Bay beaches, no freeways over there. The airport was in a different place. It was about the same amount of time it took me to get to the beach in Jersey.  
 
So you felt comfortable here.  
Totally. At that point I’m not thinking Hollywood, I’m thinking, “What am I gonna do?”  
 
Why did you come here?  
From the pressure of “Shall I go to college?” I’ve had a job from the time I was 11 years old on.” And I always thought I was a fuck-off and lazy. I suddenly thought, “I don’t want to go to college where I really want to learn something and be insanely having to work all night at the same time. I’m going to think about this.” So June was here, and I thought I’d come out, look around California - interesting, and go back maybe Christmas time or skip a semester - and then go back to school. I had bought a ticket on my birthday to go back - you know, I was depressed - I thought, “Well, nothing’s happening much here, I better go back there and get serious,” and while I was down buying the ticket I got the job at MGM.  
 
In the cartoon department.  
Yeah. And I started - I remember this - fifth day of May (fifth month), 1955, which was my lucky number, too. Fred Quimby opened the MGM cartoon department on my actual birthday, and I went to work the week he retired. They closed the MGM cartoon department while I worked there and I was the last employee.  
 
That’s strange, isn’t it - does that happen to you a lot?  
Well, you hear it in every story.  
 
Fate.  
Yeah. Something that I didn’t particularly believe in. I’m too nervous a person.  
 
You’re too nervous to believe in fate? That’s funny.  
If I believed in fate, it means I’m lazy.  
 
Why do you say you’re lazy, though?  
I have no idea. I’ve been working -