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Jack Nicholson on Aging and Acting

Jack Nicholson_smoke ring In a rare, revealing interview with the U.K. Daily Mail -- to promote the overseas release of the new film How Do You Know -- Jack Nicholson is surprisingly candid about his love life, his acting, and his own mortality. For one thing, the 73-year-old actor is a little sick of the mythology of Jack Nicholson:

"I hate it. I don't want to be treated like the Medusa or the Lincoln Memorial. People have an idea of me which is not the reality. On set I’m an actor like every other actor. Most times, for every part I play, I can think of other actors who would be better. I worry from the moment I take a job. I worry about how I'm going to do it, if I can do it. I try to work out what I have to do on set and how I do that.

"I get extremely anxious. I panic. I can't get it. It happens every time, and I get myself into this state, and then I walk on set and the director says, 'Roll', and all of a sudden all of it disappears and it's all happening, and I relax and I'm doing what I do and I'm not even thinking about it. And I relax up until the moment they yell 'Cut'."

And while he has always had a reputation as a hard-partying Hollywood player, Nicholson says he never let himself lose control and only ever missed one day of filming in his career:

"But contrary to opinion, however sated I got, I always looked after myself. I’ve woken up in trees, I’ve woken up almost hanging off cliffs, but I’ve always known how to sort myself out... I stayed up late, but I slept in late, too. I always believed in taking care of myself. There was always a discipline within my partying structure. I've never kept a camera waiting, and in all my career I only missed one day of work, on The Shining. I put my back out.

"At the time I thought it was down to a scene where I had to throw this ball. In fact, the reason was that the movie was filmed in London. I loved British actors, and the fact there were these wild guys over there, and I wanted to show them what Jack the Waggle could do.

"I wanted to work like a beast and then go out and be all over London like a fire, the wildest of the lot. I rented a house next to the Thames that had a big high wall, and I’d come home most nights without my keys and I’d climb this wall. The first time I had no memory, and the next day at work I did in my back after this ball scene.

"A few nights later I was out again, climbing the wall, and when I landed I knew exactly how I did my back in – it was no ball."

Read the full interview for Nicholson's thoughts on aging ("I'm definitely still wild at heart. But I've struck bio-gravity. I can't hit on women in public any more. I didn't decide this; it just doesn’t feel right at my age... If men are honest, everything they do and everywhere they go is for a chance to see women. There were points in my life where I felt oddly irresistible to women. I'm not in that state now and that makes me sad"), mortality ("One of the toughest parts of ageing is losing your friends. At first it starts quietly, then pretty soon it’s every month, and you can't help but think, 'When is that bell going to go off for me?' And on top of that you feel this constant loss. At this time of life, you feel just a sword's point from death. It's frightening – who wants to face God and the clear white light? I know I definitely don't. Yet."), love ("I've had everything a man could ask for, but I don't know if anyone could say I'm successful with affairs of the heart. I don't know why. I would love that one last real romance. But I'm not very realistic about it happening. What I can't deny is my yearning."), and more.

-- Daniel Lehman

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