Word: nicholson
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...Nicholson can employ his rough, warming charm to get himself through a bumpy scene or an insufficient part, but he is usually a careful and thorough craftsman. "He simply doesn't care about the way he looks," says Director Roman Polanski. "I put a bandage on his nose during half of Chinatown, and he didn't object. With Jack, it's only the result that counts." Indeed, for Fortune he gets a weekly permanent to keep his hair Art Garfunkel-style kinky...
...Nicholson's patience and zeal are exceptional. When he works over a script, not only are key phrases underlined and notes made, but almost every word is assigned a number, which signifies beats and pauses. "I'm at least 75% of every character I play," Nicholson says. "For the rest, I try to find a character's positive philosophy about himself. You have to search out and adopt the character's own justifications and rationalizations...
...Nicholson also likes to get going on every movie set a kind of group feeling, turning a crew into a junior-varsity team. "I've never seen any other actor do it," says Mike Nichols. "Usually everyone has their own cliques-the camera crew, the electricians, and so on -but when Jack's around, that feeling disappears." Occasionally, Nicholson's competitiveness gets in the way of the general bonhomie. Bob Rafelson recalls that during the shooting of The King of Marvin Gardens, all of Nicholson's bottled-up energies would come out in a series...
...above asserting himself to a director, however. There is a crucial sequence in Five Easy Pieces in which Bobby Dupea must break down in front of his paralyzed father. Nicholson did not want to do it, and Director Rafelson wrangled all night with him. "Jack said Dupea was crying out of self-pity -something Jack strongly opposed in himself and in others," Rafelson remembers. "I argued that Dupea was crying out of an agony of displeasure over the life he was leading, and that this displeasure had to be revealed. Finally, I said, 'Jack, this is all bullshit...
...scene does not fully work because Nicholson still has himself in check. There seems to be a point both for actor and character beyond which a sudden self-awareness cannot trespass, a hard and untouchable reserve. Nicholson, however, is proud of the scene, and comments, "I've been asked dozens of times whether I was really thinking of my own father and his tragedy during that scene. The answer is, of course I was." Perhaps what Nicholson reveals as the root of the scene is also, in an in advertent Irony, what was wrong with...