Interview: Jack Nicholson

- Film Commentby Jack Nicholson(6 total)

A few years from now, if you can still portray a human being, you’ll be quite a valuable commodity. I intend to be there.

— Jack Nicholson, filmcomment.com

Acting Future

Looking over all of it, the single most obvious thing to me, in all we read and all we write about films, is this: People fear the creative moment. That’s why they talk so long about a given scene. But the creative moment is happening when the camera is turned on, and stops when it’s turned off. Fir…

— Jack Nicholson, filmcomment.com

film creative moment spontaneity

For an actor, style comes last. You first have to implement the whole thing, but your style comes from the subconscious, which is the best part an actor brings to his work. These conscious ideas are only the springboard for what you hope will be the real meat from the unconscious.

— Jack Nicholson, filmcomment.com

Acting style Subs

You’ve got to be good at it, number one, and sustain it. There are no accidents. Any kind of sustained ability to go on working is because something is valid in the way you work. The star part is the commercial side of the business—and, frankly, no one knows anything about that.

— Jack Nicholson, filmcomment.com

Acting Film Industry

I kind of believed what Nietzsche said, that nothing not written in your blood is worth reading; it’s just more pollution of the airwaves. If you’re going to write, write one poem all your life, let nobody read it, and then burn it.

— Jack Nicholson, filmcomment.com

Nietzche Blood Reading Pollution

The stage has a certain discipline. But the ultimate standard is more exacting in film, because you have to see yourself and you are your own toughest critic. I did not want to be coming off the stage at the mercy of what somebody else told me I did.

— Jack Nicholson, filmcomment.com

stage film Discipline

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