Nick Nolte: The Hollywood Interview

Actor Nick Nolte.


NICK NOLTE: REBEL, REBEL
By
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the December 1998/January 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.

Growing up in Arizona is sort of like being a forgotten third cousin of the Rockefellers with a different last name: no one talks about you, no one thinks about you, and no one notices you. You're the red-headed, pasty-faced stepchild that vanished into the wallpaper of the east wing. You know that you're very close to something important that people do notice (like California) where books, plays and movies are set, where many famous and accomplished people are from, where people seem to want to be, want to go and very often seem to be on their way to. So for those of us stuck in the limbo land of identity-free Arizona, we had very little to really call our own. We had one Trump card: Steven Spielberg. Aside from the most successful filmmaker of all time, we could claim Alice Cooper, Steve Allen, Wayne Newton, and Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman, remember her?), but no true-blue, bonafide, dyed-in-the-wool, cooler than cool movie stars...that is not until 1976 when a TV "mini-series event" rocked our world. Rich Man, Poor Man was a revelation for a couple reasons. First, it was a great, old fashioned story full of sex, violence and one-eyed villains who were deadly with a sharp blade. Second, it introduced a young actor named Nick Nolte to the world. And get this: Nolte, this cooler than cool, dyed in the wool star-to-be was from Phoenix! Well...okay. Maybe "from" is too strong a word, but he went to Arizona State, lived in the Phoenix metro area on and off for years and at one time or another, had an Arizona driver's license, so dag-gummit, we claimed him as our own! Nolte's immediately-recognizable star quality combined the vulnerability of James Dean, crossed with the surly world-weariness of Robert Mitchum to create a much-needed rebel without a care for the rebel-challenged times of the mid-70's. Ask anyone from Arizona and they'll tell you: "Yup, Nick's one of us."

Nick Nolte was born nowhere near Arizona, but in Omaha, Nebraska on February 8, 1940. The son of an Iowa State football player, Nolte followed his dad's footsteps initially, excelling in sports as a teen, and eventually earning a football scholarship to Arizona State, where he flunked out. Over the next few years, he played ball, but barely studied, at four other schools, including Eastern Arizona Junior College, Phoenix City College, and Pasadena City College, before finding himself out of options as a football player. After briefly holding a job as a Los Angeles iron worker, he discovered the theater, studying at the Pasadena Playhouse. For the next 14 years, Nolte roamed the country with various regional companies and worked extensively at New York's Cafe La Mama. Although he settled down considerably during his travels, marrying the first of his three wives and catching up on his education by attending classes at various universities, the still-rebellious Nolte was arrested for counterfeiting draft cards and was put on five years probation. Things improved dramatically for him upon his return to California in 1973, however. He began appearing in films and TV shows, and in 1976 hit paydirt with Rich Man, Poor Man. Movie stardom quickly followed, with Nolte gaining notoriety for many of his unconventional, non-commercial choices of projects. Many feel that the longevity of his career has been helped by the fact that he refuses to be pigeonholed into "movie star" parts.

His first high-profile feature was the big screen adaptation of Peter Benchley's The Deep (1977), where Nolte played second fiddle to Jacqueline Bisset's tangible assets; director Karel Reisz's overlooked masterpiece Who'll Stop the Rain (aka Dog Soldiers, 1978); the greatest gridiron film ever made, North Dallas Forty (1979); the biography of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy, HeartBeat (1980): the box office smash 48 Hours (1982) which introduced another fresh young face in Eddie Murphy; Under Fire (1983), director Roger Spottiswoode's masterful political thriller about the coup in Nicaragua in the late 70's; Grace Quigley (aka The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley, 1985) with screen legend Katharine Hepburn; Paul Mazursky's Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986); Sidney Lumet's Q & A (1990); he scored two hits in 1991 with Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear and Barbara Streisand's Prince of Tides. He followed these with George Miller's acclaimed Lorezo's Oil in 1992, James L. Brooks' I'll Do Anything and William Friedkin's Blue Chips in 1994, Merchant-Ivory's Jefferson in Paris in 1995, and Keith Gordon's adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night (1996). Nolte ends 1998 with two major releases: reclusive auteur Terrence Malick's long-awaited World War II drama The Thin Red Line, in which he plays a Lt. Colonel who may or may not be totally insane, and Paul Schrader's searing drama Affliction, a compelling and bleak depiction of a small town sheriff's investigation of a shooting and his impending mental collapse, framed with a backstory of childhood abuse at the hands of a tyrannical father (James Coburn). Both films are slated for Christmas releases in L.A. and New York for Oscar consideration and feature some of Nolte's most compelling, complex work to date.

In person, Nolte is not the imposing giant he appears to be on screen, but a trim and dapper fellow of about 6'1 who loves nothing more than to sit at home with a good book on a Friday night. Nolte sat down recently to discuss his work, his memories and of course, his (sort of) hometown, Phoenix.

Your character in Affliction, Wade Whitehouse, really stayed with me for a long time. Did you have trouble shaking him as well?
Nick Nolte: Yeah, he hung around for quite a while, just because of the place I had to get to find him. I stalled doing this film for about three or four years. We finally got it set up about a year and a half after Paul and I had first met, and when Paul called, telling me he wanted to start shooting, I had a couple other projects I'd already committed to. Plus, I didn't really feel quite ready to do it. So Paul was quite upset that it fell apart...finally the head of Largo, Bart Potter, asked me if I had any projects I wanted to do, and I told him about Affliction. So it took about five years altogether. And I needed those five years, not that I didn't understand the rage and the violence in the character, because I did. But it was all about whether I wanted to go there or not...but this primal rage, this capacity for violence that we address in the film, it's in us all.

I thought one of the most compelling things about Wade's losing his mind was that you weren't sure until the very end whether the murder was real or in Wade's head, because Wade believed so strongly that he was right. He didn't think he was insane, so neither did we, as the audience.
The insanity is Wade's denial of the situation. The other brother (played by Willem Dafoe) is truly insane. He's locked himself away in this little world where he doesn't have to deal with human beings at all. Wade is a classic hero in the sense that he faced his deficit, his affliction, and deals with it...but the whole nature of mental illness is denial. Hitler didn't believe he was crazy. He thought he was right. He thought he was rational, and correct. It's not the crazy person who's dangerous, it's the rational person who's in denial.

The Thin Red Line deals with many of the same issues, doesn't it?
It does, and it doesn't. I think one of the themes is, based on what James Jones, who wrote the book the film is based on, said. He said that in the moment of the biggest horror that one can face--war--where you absolutely know you're going to die and that the fellow next to you is going to die, in that moment there's a falling away of all pretense, and in that moment, you experience the most profound love for the fellow next to you that you will ever experience. And it's a hypocrisy that that's the case. Jones was on the front lines, so he knew first-hand. It's also a story about courage. Who's able to arise to the occasion and shoot that gun? In WW II and up to Vietnam, only 20% of the troops actually fired their weapons. 80% did not fire. A Colonel did this whole study, and he discovered that there's an instinct in all humans not to kill, and that instinct has to be overcome somehow during times of war. They found that a lot of the men were shooting over the enemy's head and that those who couldn't shoot at all, would load the guns for those who could...But Jones said that he never felt that kind of profound love again in his life and the only kind of love that comes close to it, is love for a child. That's about the only kind of love you'll sacrifice yourself for.

Let's talk about your background. Were you drawn toward theater as a kid?
No, not until I came out here. In the early 60's I had a friend who was going to the Pasadena Playhouse--I was going to Pasadena City College--and he invited me to see a play he was in. So I went, became fascinated with it, and left L.A. and went to Arizona, where I started doing theater. I did some work at Phoenix City College with John Paul, all the community theaters, started a couple rep companies out there. Then I worked all over the country, finally ended up with a company that went to Broadway and then folded. Then a guy I knew in Phoenix named Keith Anderson called me up, and told me he mounting a production of this William Inge play called The Last Pad. So we did it, Inge came over and saw it, and insisted that it come to L.A. with our cast. So we put it on in what's now the Geffen Playhouse. This was about 1974 and I went from there to doing TV guest spots, and then Rich Man.

You were really one of the first actors who was courted by the big studios to take a more independent route, weren't you?
You have to remember, I was 35 years old when I got Rich Man and I had 14 years of theater experience and during that 14 years, I chased nothing but the authors (of the plays). If there was an Arthur Miller play, I'd find out where the production was being done and go audition. If they were doing Luther somewhere, I'd go audition. I tried to do that play every 2-3 years, because it's such a scope of his life and I'd get a different insight into the character every time. So after Rich Man I had a lot of offers for three picture deals and I'd say "What are the pictures?" And they were always crap. There were three pictures I tried to get into that year: Apocalypse Now, George Roy Hill's Slap Shot, and Billy Friedkin's Sorcerer. I came close on Apocalypse, but they gave it to Harvey Keitel, then to Martin Sheen. And during all that time, they had The Deep just sitting there, with my agents going "Do The Deep! Do The Deep!" Since I wasn't cast in these other pictures, I went to work and did The Deep.

Tell us about working with Robert Shaw in that film.
(laughs) He'd corral me in a corner and say (imitating Shaw)"It's a treasure picture! A treasure picture! Let's drink some rum!" (laughs) We'd be in the tank filming with Jackie Bisset and take these giant phallic shells and chase her around. Jackie would start laughing. With Jackie in the scene, you were always swimming upside down, with her wearing that t-shirt. (laughs) Bob and I got real close during the shoot. Here's one day: we were sitting on the boat, docked, and were shooting this scene where we had to get off the boat, onto the dock. And it starts raining, all day. And we're just sitting in this boat. So Bob turns to me and says "See that bottle of whiskey over there?" I said "Yeah." "Let's have it." So we take the bottle, have a drink. It keeps raining and we keep drinking...finally at five o'clock a little ray of light breaks through and hits the dock. And (director) Peter Yates goes "Let's get the shot!" I immediately, being a young actor, try to get up. And I'm drunker than a skunk! We'd gone through that bottle and started another one! (laughs) So I'm all ready, trying to pretend I wasn't drunk and Bob goes, "No, no, let me handle this." So Bob gets up, walks up the stairs to the top of the boat, started walking along the plank, gets to the front of the boat and BOOM! He falls flat on his face! Peter Yates starts yelling "Oh my God, he's drunk!" Bob rolls off the boat, falls into the water, climbs into a little dinghy, starts it up, and heads across the bay! So everybody was terribly frightened to go get Shaw, so I got elected since we were friends. So I go across the bay, to this house where he is. I look through the window and I see him sitting in a chair with another bottle. So I crack open the door and say "Bob...?" He turns to me and says "What took you so long?" (laughs) That was Shaw. That was Shaw.

Let's talk about North Dallas Forty, which I think is the greatest football picture ever made.
I'm sitting in Mexico doing Who'll Stop the Rain, reading Peter Gent's book North Dallas Forty, just going "This is an amazing book." Anthony Zerbe walked by and said "That's your next picture." I said, "You mean I can just do what I want?" He said "Absolutely. That's going to be your next picture." So I got a writer friend of mine and we just started writing it. We didn't have the rights to it, didn't know what its status was. I called my agent and manager at the time and said I wanted to do this film, could they please check on the rights. But they didn't want me to do this project, so they didn't really pursue it. In the meantime every job that was offered to me I turned down. So this went on for a year. At the end of that year, I got a call from Michael Eisner, who had just come on as one of the three presidents of Paramount, along with Barry Diller and Robert Evans. He was also a vice-president at ABC when I did Rich Man, so I had a relationship there. He read the script and said "Okay, this is going to be one of my first films. But you've got to use a Paramount producer and a Paramount-appointed director. I said "Fine." Diller and Evans didn't want to do it, there was a lot of competition between them, but we went ahead anyway. During the development process we had gone through lots of different writers, comedic writers who wanted to have one of the players go on the field with a wooden leg, things like that...so I called Pete Gent and had him come back to have him on the set.(producer) Frank Yablans didn't want him there. He screamed at Pete: "Get this guy the hell off the set!" I said "Frank, this is the man who wrote North Dallas Forty, this is Phil Elliot, my character. I need him here to help me with my character." Frank grumbled "Alright, but he'd better not get in the way." So then (director) Ted Kotcheff comes up to me and says "Get Gent to start writing." So Pete started re-writing the script. And we shot one of his scenes, and Frank wasn't there that day. We were in dailies later, and this scene came up, and it was just brilliant, and Frank said "This is great! Who wrote this?" Pete raised his hand. Frank barked back: "Keep writing!" (laughs) So that's how North Dallas Forty was done. It was forced into being by my simply saying "I am going to do this."

I think Under Fire is an overlooked masterpiece. Tell us about the genesis of that film.
I'm going through the commissary at Paramount and I see Roger Spottiswoode and Ron Shelton. I knew Roger because he was Karel Reisz's editor. I asked them what they were up to. They were about to pitch Under Fire. I asked to read it and said "Look, you guys stay here, I'll go over to the office and read it." So I read it and it was just brilliant. So I committed to it, and because they had the actor already attached when they pitched it, it got set up! So we go down to Mexico to shoot it. We didn't have that big a budget, maybe 10 or 12 million. Right when we hit Mexico, the peso devalued by half, so we doubled our money! Now we had $24 million, in Mexican money, to shoot this. So we were able to give it an epic scope.

Tell us about Katharine Hepburn and Grace Quigley.
What Kate did, when I went to Kate's house in New York, she said "Pick a chair you want to sit in." So I sat down in this chair and she said "Ah yes, just as I thought, you picked Spence's chair." (laughs) She was great, just wonderful. The producer would say to her, "Kate, how are you going to play this?" She'd say "What do you mean 'how am I going to play this?' Do you know how you're going to do something before you do it? That's a stupid question!" (laughs) Here's a woman that was fired on eight films, bought her way out of a Broadway play, she said "I was very young and just terrible. I didn't know any technique and I went to the producer and said 'Get someone in here who can act.' And the producer said "No, we didn't hire you for your talent, we hired you for your name." She's very aware, very tuned in. And she knew that wasn't the right place for her to be, so she raised some money and bought her way out of the play. She came along in my life at just about the right time. I was pretty on the edge. And that film had a real ambiance as a holdover from Vietnam, the counterculture. It's an interesting film. Rex Reed called it a "Nazi film," that it promoted killing the elderly, which was absurd.

Let's talk about Prince of Tides, another character with a lot of backstory. Did you have a similar experience with your character Tom Wingo in that as you did with Wade Whitehouse?
Absolutely. I was living in North Carolina at the time, in a beach house, just above Myrtle Beach. I told Barbara Streisand that I was going to go to that beach house for the summer, and I was going to live that life, out on the beach, hang out in some classes with some school teachers in small schools near that area, go down to Beaufort and try to trace Pat Conroy's writing of the novel, which became sort of a massive detective job. Because Conroy talks not only about Beaufort, but all of the south. For a while Robert Redford had the piece, and had a different kind of script than Barbara had. I thought she really found the heart of that material. So I really lived that life, went shrimping...I always felt the character of the sister was Anne Sexton. Barbara felt she was Sylvia Plath. Then someone told me that Pat has a sister who's a poet, so it might just be his sister! (laughs) But Barbara took the heart of the story and focused it on the women and the men. She was a wonderful director, wonderful with the actors and so steeped in the material.

How do you like to be directed, if at all?
However that director wants to direct. With Sidney Lumet, for example, he has a style where we do four weeks of rehearsals where we answer every question from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. We rehearse it a lot like a play. And that's a wonderful approach, because by the time you film, you don't really have any questions about the characters. Sidney and I had a ball. He was wonderful. But every director's different, and you learn something new with each approach.