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- Am I coming through?

Have you got me on camera?

Am I lined up right?

- I think the worst thing you can do to Nick

is put him in a controlled situation and not let him out.

- Yeah, I hear you.

Loud and clear, go ahead.

- Is there any question you'll never answer?

- The true Nick maybe

can only find his truth in the reflection.

- What's the one question that I will never answer?

"Do you have three testicles?"

I don't think I'll answer that one.

- He does have three testicles, though.

You didn't know that.

- I'm not sure how many testicles he has,

but I know he has at least two.

- He might have six testicles, I don't know.

- We do know this, that Nick Nolte has balls.

- Do you believe in God?

Let me put it another way.

Do you believe in a god or a spirit

or a higher power

or something in that realm,

or do you feel you're self-sufficient?

- You're asking me do I believe in God?

I thought this was going to be a little bit of

a lighter interview, you know,

something more,

what do you say, mainstream,

for six-year-olds?

Do I believe in God?

Yeah, why not?

I don't see any reason

to bicker over

whether God exists or not.

For myself, certainly I understand

that there's something going on

much larger than myself,

much larger than just my ego.

My ego is a very limited, petty

individual,

rather jealous.

An asshole, basically.

You know, a lot of actors,

they can't figure out why they became an actor,

other than, you know, they make money

and stuff like that.

Is there a specific reason or a necessity

that you had to become an actor?

Is it something that's inside you,

or is it strictly outside material,

monetary, chicks, you know,

getting laid, that kind of thing?

Recognition, love,

getting laid.

Freud's final impulse, and the reason he did all this

creative work was

to get laid,

which ultimately is a highly creative act.

I understand you started in theater.

In fact, you did a lot of theater for 14 years.

Why is that so important?

Why is theater important to an actor?

Well, that's kind of a silly question to ask.

I mean, where does acting come from?

It comes from the stage.

How do you carry a throughline of the story?

You carry it through because of stage plays.

The play's the thing.

To me, I didn't care what arena it was in,

whether it was in Kentucky

or whether it was in Minnesota

or wherever it was.

It certainly didn't have to be L.A. or New York.

I was going to do the plays that I needed to do

at the age when I needed to do it.

I wasn't gonna go to New York

and sit in some class

and do scenes

and hope to get an off-Broadway part

or go to L.A.

and go the rounds of casting directors.

I needed to work.

I needed to work at my craft.

Your family,

as far as we can tell,

seem to be a fairly normal family,

a middle-class family.

I think your father was an engineer,

and your mother, she worked all her life,

which was pretty rare,

considering the 40s and the 50s.

Was it a normal upbringing?

I can tell you a story in that line.

You know, as a young teenager,

you make out, you pet.

In English, it's called snoggling.

"I snoggled last night."

So I was going to the drive-in theater

and snoggling with my girlfriend, you know,

and we had this term called petting,

so I had my hand underneath her skirt

and I'd always run into this girdle,

this massive

blocking thing.

After about the third date,

we're at the drive-in,

and it was cold.

We just had the window cracked so we could

get the speaker in there,

and I had my hand up her skirt,

just petting,

and she didn't have the girdle on,

and, boy, I just,

you know, as a young man,

young men, they just go crazy.

I just fiddled with it and I faddled with it

and I flipped it, I played with it,

and after about a couple of minutes,

I realized that I was playing with the fat

that was bulging from the side of the girdle.

I think she was laughing a bit.

That's for sure.

I think that's when I gave up, went to Mexico.

- He just had a vitality, loves to tell stories.

I mean, just loves to tell stories

about experiences he's had and shared.

He just seems, like, interested in life.

I mean, he's really interested in

all different areas,

not just acting, you know.

You could have told him,

he spent like half an hour telling me

about his titanium knee once

and explained to me all the different

ligaments and bones and muscles.

I wasn't actually listening,

but it sounded really interesting.

I just tune out whenever I hear medical terms

and it just went on for too long,

but he really did seem to know what he was talking about.

- It was a time of high secrecy,

absolutely conformity.

It was the time of McCarthyism, you know.

If you belonged to the wrong club,

you were suspect, ideologically,

so I don't think the 50s were a grand time at all.

In fact, I was very uncomfortable through all the 50s.

What was it like seeing your dad

for the first time?

'Cause I know you were born in '41,

and I know he went in the Pacific,

so he came home in about '45 or '46,

'45, I believe.

What was it like seeing him for the first time?

And did you know him?

I remember seeing my father for the very first time.

See, I was born in '41,

so I don't remember ever seeing him in '41.

I was just a baby,

but he was shipped out of San Luis Obispo.

Then somehow we made it back to Iowa,

and then I do remember this.

This is the actual memory I have.

It's a feeling of excitement

that somebody is arriving,

and the door is open,

and there is a skeleton standing there,

just bones,

skin and bones.

Then I don't remember anything

except I remember having to go up these stairs.

I remember going up the stairs,

and then I can remember sitting

beside the bed

watching the skeleton laying in the bed,

just trying to breathe.

I've read that you're fond of this Midwest upbringing,

and I know you spent your senior year

in Nebraska, in Omaha,

and before that you grew up in a small town in Iowa.

Was it truly a paradise?

Was it truly a place that

you were greatly fond of,

or was it a small town and you just wanted to escape,

much like Kerouac's "On the Road"?

I grew up in a time when they told us

to get under our desks because it was gonna be

this huge bomb that was gonna

blow us all to bits,

and if it didn't blow us to bits,

it was gonna blind us,

and then if we could get underground we'd be safe.

- It is a very interesting coincidence

that Nick Nolte was born on February 8th,

because that is the same day that

Neil Cassidy was born, 15 years older.

Neil Cassidy, of course, is

the wild man poet who was the inspiration

for Jack Kerouac's "On the Road,"

the inspiration for much poetry by Alan Ginsberg.

Really, he was the male muse of the (mumbling) generation,

and Nolte has played him twice.

- What happened to me is that

the shell of my conditioning kind of fell off

about when I was 21.

I mean, I just could not any longer

entertain the hallucination of American culture.

It just didn't work.

It requires a lot of fantasy

to keep that cultural shell in place.

We are Americans, that kind of thing.

I'm not saying that there isn't an America,

that there isn't an ideal behind that.

I'm just saying that

as a child,

you're presented this material

and if you don't really examine it,

you can believe in it

too fervently, you know.

- The thing to remember about Nick Nolte

is there he is, born in 1941, right,

so basically he came of age

as the 1960s began.

He's basically turning 20 years old

as JFK's being sworn in.

He has another 15 years to go

before he succeeds with "Rich Man, Poor Man,"

so Nolte gets to live a full sort of young adult life

anonymously in the context of the 1960s.

- Omaha, Nebraska.

Did you grow up there?

Did you know that Marlon Brando

was from Nebraska?

Brando in general kind of

is,

was an actor that changed the whole scope of acting.

I mean, he started a whole new style

of realism that nobody could really touch,

and so he was admired almost by everybody

of my generation,

and others,

and he played it very close to the vest

of who he sanctioned,

who he thought was good,

what he thought was good.

- When we look at Marlon Brando,

we're looking at a guy who's at war

with his own beauty,

and I think a lot of his career

was predicted by that war,

because the studios kept trying to build him

as this male icon, and he himself inside

felt it was false,

and so Brando had this kind of tragic career

where he basically burned himself out

as a Hollywood icon pretty fast.

- That's quite an honor,

to be sanctioned by Marlon Brando.

Were you sanctioned as an actor by Marlon Brando?

- Marlon liked people, you know.

They didn't have to be actors or not actors,

and if he liked you, then he had a relationship with you

and he'd call you in the middle of the night,

but if he didn't like you,

then I think you couldn't get

within

10,000 miles of him.

- Marlon sanctioned me as an actor,

and that was quite an honor.

Maybe a little more than I could handle.

I talked to him quite a bit after that,

and he talked about what good acting was,

and certainly in the classes

that he put on for awhile.

It was all in there.

- You just never predicted where Marlon was gonna go,

and that's where, I think,

Nick was attracted to Marlon for that reason.

And also the same kind of sense of humor.

- Brando is probably the actor of his times,

of this century,

and you don't quite

live up to his

credits.

How did he figure

you belonged in the same room he did?

- Marlon Brando came to Hollywood

with such high expectations that,

rather like Orson Welles,

he was at war with those expectations from then on.

Nolte, I think, instinctively

acted against the high expectations

that were being imposed upon him

after "Rich Man, Poor Man,"

and basically went under the radar.

Yeah, he's in a couple of prominent films

like "The Deep" and so on,

and later on he's in "48 Hours."

He didn't resist being a leading man,

but I think that you find in Nolte

somebody who's becoming a leading man

on his own terms.

- I'm sure Nick was compared to Brando.

The next Brando, the next Brando, the next Brando.

There's only one Brando,

and who gives a shit?

- Move on to something else.

What was the actual sentencing

that you got on seven counts

of counterfeit government documents

in your 20s?

Seems like a much bigger

action, criminal action, than

that silly goofy guy

that was picked up not long ago,

I'm thinking about two or three years ago,

which has now been voted Best Celebrity Mugshot.

Are you proud of that?

You want to talk about me

or do you want to talk about some celebrity

that you're chasing?

I'm just asking questions.

Don't get pissed off.

- Don't fuck with him,

'cause he'll kick your ass.

- No one wants to know that stuff, come on.

How many wives have you had, Nick?

Well,

that's a good question.

How many wives can you have?

Come on, come on, come on, let's go on.

Next question.

In "North Dallas Forty,"

you don't blow the game on purpose,

but it seems as if you blow the game on purpose.

I mean, at the very end of the film,

you won't catch the ball.

Is that perversity,

or is there something in the American attitude

of competitive sports that,

that winning at all costs

is maybe a little distorted?

It's like (mumbling)

every American male

is a failed athlete at some time in their life,

whether it's high school or whether it's college

or whether it's in the eighth grade.

At some point, you won't make the team.

- An anecdote I read about his

youth playing football was that

he actually buried some beer at the end of the field

and was drinking it during practice

and had to be bounced from the team.

Now, to me, that says two things.

One, great football player, but also great outlaw,

so it's the football player and the outlaw

that have been basically warring for his soul.

- It's like you can't stop him.

He's like a linebacker or something.

There's no, it's sort of like zero

and then

100, and there's not like,

he goes from zero to 100.

You can't stop the freight train

once it starts coming at you.

You don't want to be in the way of it, you know?

(laughing)

But he's a friendly freight train.

- You know, Nick, you seem to

have commercial success,

and then you seem to go in a series of films

that don't do so well.

They're risky films.

Are those conscious decisions on your part?

- Nick went from dead-center Hollywood,

big-time player,

to taking roles for the challenge

and just turning his back on Hollywood completely.

I mean, the times in recent years

that he has appeared in big budget movies,

it's always something strange.

- He's an artist.

He's done commercial films,

but I think part of him really wants to get his due.

I don't think he wants to be hoodwinked.

- It seems like the roles that he was sort of cast in

when he started out were, like,

leading guy, very macho type roles,

but then, I think he's just such a committed actor

that the choices he made

and has continued to make

are movies that sort of don't always go

with the grain in terms of that persona.

- You know,

when you're a young actor,

you've got to make a living somehow.

If you're gonna dedicate yourself to this art,

to this acting,

you've gotta take what jobs you can get.

Are you a whore?

I mean will you do things just strictly for the money?

Well, I'm certainly not doing this for money.

(laughing)

That's for sure.

Don Single said, "If you're gonna be a whore,

"be the highest-priced whore you can."

What do you think about that?

I'd say be any kind of whore you can be.

- One of the greatest things he ever said to me

was, I've been kind of choosy about

what I've done in my life.

Sometimes successful and sometimes not.

He said, "Oh, no, no, no, man,

"always try to do three in a row,

"hoping one'll be successful

"so they'll let me do three more."

(laughing) And then when he got really hot and everything,

and so-and-so was making this many millions

and all that kind of stuff,

I said, "Come on, Nick, you oughta be making," (mumbling),

and he says, "No, no, no, man.

"Start making that kind of money and then you owe 'em

"and they own you."

- I've always claimed that

the way you go at fantasizing about money

is sitting on the toilet and looking at a magazine

and going, "Oh, I'll take that and I'll take that

"and I'll take that.

"Oh, yeah, and then I'll take that,

"and that car, and that."

So it's related to bowel movements.

What'd this do for you?

The World's Sexiest Man Alive?

Was that a hindrance or a help?

No, I don't remember that at all.

- I think Nick has a very strong sex appeal.

- He's enigmatic.

He has a fiery personality,

and he exudes a sexuality

because he's not conscious of it

'cause he doesn't give a shit.

It's not like he's sitting there brushing his hair.

He's pretty kind of unkempt.

(laughing)

- I was never sexually aroused by Nick, per se.

It might have been, well,

maybe.

- Beauty is your enemy if you're an actor,

one of two ways.

Either you're a beautiful male

and everybody is not taking you seriously

because you've got that

and they don't see your acting talent.

Very often you find with a lot of

good-looking actors

that they have to really struggle to be

taken seriously.

- I don't think his sex appeal hurt him as an actor

because his choices were interesting.

- Actors, a lot of them, unfortunately

get trapped by their looks to the public.

People see them in roles,

they assume that's who they are.

On the surface, especially in his younger years,

he looked like one thing,

but I don't think he was ever anything that he looked like.

He's a very sensitive, complex

beast.

- "Rich Man, Poor Man," he was gorgeous,

and he was a beautiful-looking guy.

He's now an ornery old man.

- I think that there's a presence

inside Nick Nolte's face which I actually

equate kind of with liquid granite.

I mean, he's got great bone structure,

but there is always such turbulence in there.

- Everything that he's lived is in his face,

and it makes him all the more human to me.

- As he's aged and as he's weathered,

(laughing) he's just gotten cooler and cooler looking.

- Peter O'Toole told me once something,

he said, "I've earned every wrinkle,"

and I think that's true.

Nick Nolte's earned this face.

- I'm sure it was very interesting to be Nick

in like the late 70s,

like to be inside his head,

what was going on inside of that

crazy body head of his.

- The inside of Nick Nolte's head,

that's a good question, well.

- I would say the inside of Nick's head looks like

Alice in Wonderland.

You know, when she first sips the thing

and everything gets really big

and another thing, and everything gets really small.

- I picture this, sort of like crazy,

sort of psychedelic, just like day-glow

jungley kind of--

- A sponge.

- With like beautiful pockets of flowers

and then crazy creatures flying around.

- Got a lot of stuff in it.

- Also, like, in the middle of it, there's just like--

- It's got liquids.

- Just a giant lava flow of--

- Maybe vodka liquids.

- And then it circles around,

and then there's like little people

running around in there too,

gardening little organic vegetables.

- It's like a big giant Fellini circus.

- He's Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde,

Dr. Nick, Dr. This.

He's got about seven people working in there.

- In everything, he's been a drifter.

He's been in trouble, he's been out of trouble.

He looks for trouble.

He knows how to avoid it.

He gets better.

He gets bigger.

He gets wiser.

And he's got a mind like a scientist.

- He is like a mad scientist,

because he really does actually know

what he's talking about.

Like when he talks about,

he grows his own food, and he,

I don't know, he's got something going on with hormones,

and I think there was some thing.

He might have injected Roger Clemens, we don't know.

- How have you gotten along

with the leading women?

I know that can be a bit of a task,

little bit of a hassle sometimes,

but how have you fared in that department?

- I was quite enamored of Jackie Bisset,

Jacqueline Bisset,

and she doesn't get the credit

for the actor she is.

I mean, the French understood her

a lot better than I think the American audience

ever has,

and the French do appreciate

that kind of beauty along with talent.

- Between him and Robert Shaw,

they were such naughty boys.

They were just

really fun. (laughing)

- Jackie was a sight to behold.

I still remember that wet T-shirt.

I mean, I used to swim upside down

underneath her looking up.

- There were two stars of that movie,

as far as I was concerned.

They both weren't Nick.

(laughing)

- I think, in a way,

a movie like "The Deep" was not

a typical movie for him at all.

I think he was slightly uncomfortable with that,

and

his aspirations were to do different kinds of films.

- Look, I didn't want to do "The Deep."

- I'm sure he enjoyed the experience of doing it,

and we all loved Peter Yates and everything.

It was a very pleasant experience,

but as a genre I don't think that was Nick's bag.

- Almost a year went by, and finally

I said OK to "The Deep,"

and I gotta say, I was a prick.

I mean,

Peter Yates is a wonderful guy,

and we'd have a read-through

and I'd be cold

and quite aloof,

and Shaw would get me down at the bar.

He said, "Look, Nick,

"it's a treasure picture.

"It's a treasure picture."

This character, Ray Hicks,

seems to be a combination of

Neil Cassidy,

several other characters.

Was he a true hero or was he just

a sociopath?

Ray Hicks represents

the anti-hero heroics,

more or less becoming a popular hero

in the sense that his actions,

which would normally be antisocial,

are for the better good

of the larger majority.

- I'm thinking that he was playing Neil Cassidy

early in his career.

He played Ray Hicks in "Who'll Stop the Rain."

In fact, that's where I became aware of him,

because I was not a TV watcher in those days.

I was a movie guy.

So when I saw him in "Who'll Stop the Rain,"

I thought, "Oh, yeah, movie star indeed."

This is the guy they've all been talking about.

- What was it that drew you to Walter Hill?

Did he come seek you out,

or did you seek him out?

Walter Hill,

the source that kept the relationship moving

was sheer fabrication.

We'd make it up.

I mean, "48 Hours" is probably the only,

and Walter won't say this,

but it's probably the only really improvised movie.

Yes, we had a script, we had an outline,

and we had that, but

there was a lot of improvisation

between Eddie and myself.

- "48 Hours" really branded him as a sort of

tough-ass guy.

Hard-ass, you know.

I don't mean his ass is actually hard.

I've never felt it,

but you get the sense it is, you know?

- Are you a comedian, Nick?

I don't know.

- Is Nick funny?

- If you don't believe it,

just pretend as if you do.

- I mean, funny how?

(loud yell)

- As passionate as he is about his work and everything,

he doesn't take himself too seriously.

You know?

- I think he has a great sense of humor.

I find most

serious, quote unquote serious actors,

the really good actors

have a great sense of humor even in their serious work,

and he totally has that.

- Well, maybe when that little smile comes on,

he's fooling you.

- Yeah, I think he's funny. (laughing)

- One never knows whether he's

laughing at you or laughing with you

or he's in his own joke.

(loud yell)

You know, there are three ways to go there,

and if you figure it out, please call me and let me know.

- I heard that you wanted the part

in "Down and Out In Beverly Hills" so bad that you,

that when Paul Mazursky came out to meet you

you suggested that you read the whole script,

and you made Paul read all the characters.

Is that a true story?

- I called him up, he read the script,

and he said, "I like it.

"Any chance you could come out to Malibu

"and we'd talk about it?"

I said, "Yeah, I'll drive out

"and I'll read it with you if you want.

"I'll read the whole script."

- If I could hang onto this guy and wear him out,

he would give me the role right then and there,

so it was just a matter of suggesting,

"Why don't we read the whole script?"

I'll tell you, it was an excruciating

two and a half hours.

- Nick is going,

(slurring).

I don't know what the fuck is he talking about,

I don't know.

But as we went on,

he got into it,

and by like 25 pages,

I knew he was the guy.

I read the whole script with him, I played every part,

and he was totally relaxed at the end,

and I kind of fell in love with him.

- We walked out, he said,

"You got the role, don't worry about it,

"you got the role,"

(mumbling).

- For all the rehearsals, two weeks of rehearsals,

he wore the same clothes.

Dirty, filthy clothes,

and Bette Midler kept saying to me,

"He stinks!

"Can you get Nick Nolte,

"I don't care, I know you're using that method crap.

"I don't care.

"He stinks, tell him to take a shower,

"'cause I can pretend that he stinks."

- I think that "Down and Out in Beverly Hills,"

he must have enjoyed enormously,

'cause Nick really likes to get dirty.

- And I said, "Nick, don't take a shower."

I said, "Bette, I'm trying to get him to take a shower,

"but he won't do it."

So that aggravated her, which was great for the movie.

It just worked perfectly.

- He enjoys it, he loves to just shock people

and just turn up really looking like hell.

- One of my favorite stories about him in this movie,

in "Down and Out,"

is a scene in the movie

where he's picked up by two guards

at the Rodeo Collection.

It's a fancy place in Beverly Hills,

and he's looking for his dog and can't find it.

He's filthy dirty,

and the guards throw him out,

and they throw him out and he walks down

Rodeo Drive

and I'm supposed to say, "Cut," as he gets

about a third of the way down the block.

But I forgot to say, "Cut."

I was watching the scene, so,

I loved it.

And finally, I say, "Oh, cut, cut!"

Now they can't find Nick.

Nick kept walking.

He walked all the way to Wilshire Boulevard,

so they had to drive the car down there to get him,

bring him back, and I say,

"Why the hell'd you get that?"

He says, "Well, nobody said, 'Cut."

He was still acting with his back to us.

- Is it accurate to say

that the artist playing the painter

in "Life Lessons,"

Marty Scorsese's "Life Lessons,"

is the closest to your own

creative nature?

Rosanna Arquette,

I worked with her on "Life Lessons,"

one of the parts of the trilogy film,

Woody Allen and Coppola,

and Rosanna Arquette would say,

"He wanted to get in my pants.

"Either that or he wanted to suck on my toes."

- Martin Scorsese wanted, you know,

this moment of him kissing the feet

of my character,

and so Marty goes, "So then we're gonna go, yeah, yeah,

"and we're gonna have him, you know, kiss your feet,"

and I said, "Oh, god, Marty,

"you can't do that 'cause I have really ugly feet.

"It's just not gonna work.

"I've got like dancer (mumbling) bad,

"no."

And he goes, "Aw, now, they can't be that bad.

"They're not gonna be that bad,

"what are you talking about?"

I said, "No, no, these are bad.

"They're really bad."

And he goes, "No, no, no, no,"

and so I showed him, and he goes, "You're right."

(laughing)

So we had to have a foot double,

so they weren't my feet.

- She was in her world, and he was in his world

of his projection on her,

and her projection on him too.

- One thing that he has,

I don't know if he still has this,

but it's something that I've always

requested since I met him,

was, instead of a chair,

you know, the actor's chair,

you'd sit in between takes,

he has a guerney.

A hospital guerney.

- I know that Marlon Brando

really liked "Q&A."

He thought it was one of the best acting jobs

that he had ever seen

and was quite curious about it.

Marlon cornered me

about how did I do "Q&A,"

because he said that was his favorite film.

I didn't know whether he was putting me on or not,

but he wasn't.

"Q&A," he thought was

a pretty special film.

- "Q&A," that's a tough thing to do for somebody,

particularly when you're as male and macho as Nick is,

to go into that world,

and not just halfway go into it,

but go into what that means to the human condition.

- Why do you think "Q&A" didn't

reach a larger audience?

I don't know.

- He had, in "Q&A," he had the sort of

something going on there, that guy,

had some repressed issues,

but he never made a pass at me,

and I was sort of,

not relieved, I sort of felt like,

'cause I had heard the stories.

I had heard the stories.

- What kind of relationship did you have

with Barbra as a director

on "Prince of Tides"?

And was she happy with the results?

Did you argue with her?

You know, I understand she can be very, very tough,

very demanding.

How did you feel of her as a director?

Well, Barbra Streisand is a great director.

She understood that material.

She understood that book well enough

to know the right story to pick out of it,

I mean, because Pat Conroy covers a lot of territory.

When Redford had it, he would've made the story

about the two brothers

and not one man, five women.

But Barbra understood it from that standpoint,

a man in relationship with these women,

and why these relationships didn't quite work, you know.

- It seems to me that Streisand was asking him

to do something nobody had dared asked him to try before,

and so that was part of the adventure of that role for him.

- You know, Nick,

looking back at your career,

it's a bunch of films I'm not very fond of,

but there is one very special one

that I think is quite special,

and that's "Affliction."

Paul Schrader directed that.

How did that come about?

- The biggest thing about "Affliction"

is the passing of love

from father to son.

That's really what Russell Banks' talking about,

that for thousands of years,

this cultivation

of father-son relationship

has been antagonistic

and has not been

a true

metaphor for

how to love.

It's been an aggressive relationship

with the father demanding

that the son meet certain standards

that the father wants.

- "Affliction" was, I think, the most impressive

piece of work, probably,

that I might have seen Nick do.

He got my heart, got my soul,

and his relationship with the other actor,

James Coburn,

I just thought it was monumental stuff

in our world.

- In the film, there's alcoholism,

there's a man falling apart at the seams,

there's an inability to love.

Was that role made for you?

What's pathetic about the character

and what appeals to me about the character

is his,

he has a great desire to love.

He wants to love

his wife, he wants to love his children,

he wants to love,

but he doesn't know how.

He just doesn't know how,

and when he does interact with his father,

it's with violence.

- What is great about Nolte in all his roles

is that he's always kind of wrestling

with the gods, if not the big God,

and so in "Affliction," you see him

not simply wrestling with an alcohol problem.

He's wrestling with the ghost of his father

and all of his father's demons too.

- I remember that day well.

It's a shot of the barn burning in the background.

My dad's burning up.

I just hit him with a handle

of a sledgehammer.

Turned around and dumped the gasoline

and lit the barn on fire.

That day, we had something like six cameras on that shot.

Paul didn't have a camera on me

in the foreground,

and the barn in the background.

He didn't have a shot of me,

whether it would be out of focus or not,

and it really pissed me off.

I said to Paul, I said,

"There is no meaning to the shot

"unless there is that relationship."

It had snowed, fresh snow,

and nobody wanted tracks on it,

and so I just stormed away from the set

and I walked down the fenceline that direction,

and after I walked about, you know,

150 yards,

knee deep in snow,

I couldn't go much farther,

and I'd calmed down by then,

so I had to retrace my steps

back in the snow,

back up there,

and say, "All right,

"however you want to shoot it, you shoot it."

Then Paul said, "No, no, I've got a camera on you.

"Don't worry, I've got a camera on you."

And I said, "Well, where it'll be?"

He said, "Right here."

It's a nice shot,

and I said, "OK,"

and then I said to the prop guys,

"Give me some whiskey.

"Have it just down here by the side."

It was actually, you couldn't see it from the table.

It was hidden down there,

and so when we yelled, "Action,"

I just brought the whiskey up on the table,

poured myself a glass,

and then I refused to look at the fire,

and Paul kept saying, "Look at the fire.

"Look at the fire."

I just wouldn't look at the fire.

- I feel that "Affliction" is actually

the moment where Nick Nolte owns a film completely

from the inside out as a leading man

and, in fact, sets the tragic tone of it

from the inside too.

- I just felt

that was the kind of knowledge this man had

of the generations and generations and generations

of the passing down of this

inability to love

from father to son,

and the dysfunctionality of drinking.

You know, Terrence Malick is

a very interesting director,

but was he more interested in insects than the actors

on "Thin Red Line"?

Terry Malick is interested in birds,

in insects, in every life form there is,

including homo sapiens.

It's only the actors

that thought he was more interested in the

arugalas bottocaucus, which is some kind of beetle,

when Terry would choose to say,

"Let's don't shoot the actor right yet.

"Let's shoot this beetle."

So actors got really offended by that,

and their egos got a little crushed

that Terry'd be more interested in a beetle.

Exactly what was Terry's take

on that thin red line?

We were talking one day, and he said,

"You know, Nick, I wanted to go

"beyond what you think the role is.

"I want to go beyond

"what I've written.

"I want it to go beyond what John Toll

"thinks it should look like,

"and I want it to go beyond what I think

"it should play like,

"and I want it to go beyond what I've written

"and all that,"

and I looked at him and I said,

"Well, geez, Terry, you're asking for

"divine inspiration."

He said, "Well, yes, of course."

- One of the great moments in "Thin Red Line"

is when he's on the field phone.

He's given an order to Elias Koteas at the other end,

and Koteas says, "I'm gonna disobey that order,"

and he says it in that very military way,

like you can actually do that in the military,

disobey the order,

"and I will stand the charges, that's fine,

"I'm disobeying the order,"

and the look,

the turbulence of the hurricane force

of anger that's withheld in that cutaway

is so great.

You see all of Nolte there.

You see all of that, you know, that force

that's in all of his good work.

It's right there for this great, horrible moment

where he's just sputtering, inarticulate.

- I had been communicating with Terry Malick,

and I wasn't supposed to come in

until about halfway through the film,

and Terry would send me these emails and faxes.

It was "Self will run riot."

And I understood what he was talking about,

so I had a distinct feeling

he was going to use me in a certain kind of way

to change the rhythm of the film,

to do something with it.

This is a very, very peculiar question, Nick.

All of a sudden,

you seem to start working with

this director named Alan Rudolph,

who was part of Altman's stable.

He was actually Altman's AD for a long time

and then he became a director,

but it all of a sudden appears

you do four or five Rudolph films in a row.

How'd that come about?

Well, what connects me to Alan Rudolph

is failure.

- I told him, I said, "OK,

"every script I get,

"you get first crack at any role, male or female."

He didn't blink. (laughing)

- You know, Alan Rudolph has never made

any money on any film.

He's never had a successful film.

Did you take that into account?

Is there some kind of philosophical success

in never having a success?

You see, the reason Alan Rudolph gets to make films

is because he never succeeds,

and if you never succeed, they don't have any barometer.

They have no way of knowing.

They just have to keep giving you a shot at it,

so you really don't wanna succeed

in the typical way that they think success is.

- I found him the most,

one of the most inspiring people I've ever worked with.

- He doesn't have to have

a (mumbling) attached to himself all the time.

If he falls in love, so to speak,

with a piece or content or something,

he wants to pursue it,

and I admire him for that.

And wipes the dollar away.

- I think he's

as good an actor as I've ever worked with,

and probably working today

or yesterday and hopefully tomorrow.

- Comic books.

The Hulk.

The Hulk.

Why?

Are you talking to me? (laughing)

What?

Let me interrupt you.

Look,

if you wanna talk to somebody

in the younger generation,

younger generation of filmmakers,

my suggestion is that you talk to Ben Stiller.

- I think he worked with Chaplin, didn't he?

- I don't know if Ben will be funny about me

or serious, you know?

- Originally it was Fatty Arbuckle and Nick Nolte.

It was like an Abbott and Costello thing they had.

It didn't pan out,

Nolte and Arbuckle.

- You know, if I don't ask you,

you know that somebody is going to ask this question.

What do chemicals do for you?

What does drinking do for you?

Is it related to the acting?

Does it have something to do with acting?

I mean, I know there are many reasons

why people do chemicals.

Is it to escape?

Is it to,

like an old 60s idea, explore?

LSD.

Or are you just a plain old drunk?

Well, this country sells a lot of whiskey.

A lot of vodka.

A lot of beer.

They've gotta have somebody to consume.

It seems like they've cast me in that role.

The drinker, you know.

I wish I'd get paid for that role.

I give 'em a lot of good footage through the years,

or have given 'em good footage.

- The great thing about the American individualistic spirit

is the ideal of not giving a damn what other people think.

Now, very few of us live up to that ideal completely.

In fact, many of us do care what other people think

and it sometimes paralyzes us,

but something that Nolte manages to embody

is this idea that he's going his own way.

- Richard Harris, he came up to me one day

when we were at a restaurant.

He walked over and he leaned down

and whispered in my ear, he said,

"You know, Nick, you don't have to drink to be good."

I knew that.

I never drank and went onstage.

I never drank and went in front of a camera,

unless the scene required it. (laughing)

- When I first came out here in the 80s,

cocaine was the big drug.

Or even, I can remember,

either Time magazine or something, the Times,

had a big article about

they'd finally found a drug that doesn't hurt you.

This was before everybody started

dying and losing their lives and fortunes.

- We had just finished "Breakfast of Champions"

and I had developed this bond with Albert Finney,

mainly over a drink of wine,

'cause Albert asked me after the first day's work,

"Let's have a glass of wine

"and drink wine."

I said, "Well, you know I can only have one glass."

And he said, "One glass?

"That's awful.

"Not gonna be fun at all."

I said, "Well, you'll see, Albert.

"Just wait.

"You'll see, have patience."

So we went in and we had a glass of wine

and I just never let my glass get empty.

I'd fill it up before it was empty,

so after about an hour, I said,

"Albert, how many glasses of wine have I had?"

and he said, "Well, one.

"It's never been empty."

I said, "You see how that works?"

- One of the things that used to make me

so mad at Nick

is, we'd say we'd shoot a day

and then we'd go have dinner and we'd have

some cocktails or whatever,

and I called it a night

and I'd come the next morning and I'd be feeling tough

and makeup men would work hard on me,

and we'd go out there at 8:00

and he looked great.

He looked great!

Whatever it is about his constitution,

man, he can do whatever and (laughing)

he's gonna be there looking whatever,

like he's supposed to look like.

- I used to work on a script.

In those days, cocaine was kind of acceptable.

It was all through the industry,

so I used to put a little cocaine on the script

so that every once in awhile

I'd lean down and read a line.

This horrified John Hancock,

the director John Hancock.

He said, "You're putting that on the script!"

And I said, "Of course.

"I'll read the line."

He didn't know if that worked or not.

Neither did I.

- There were times when he used to come to see me

when he was really, you know, out of it.

At one point, I said, "Look, Nick,

"if you're gonna basically want to destroy yourself

"in this process,

"I just don't want to waste my time.

"When you've figured out how to

"get off of that,

"then you're going to have me in your corner

"and I'm gonna go out and make sure that you work."

- That's right in the period

when I finally stopped drinking.

I was about 48 years old, and I just quit.

- The guy's a huge bundle of contradictions,

and that is what I trust about him, actually.

- And, you know, along with this

comes, if you're destroying yourself,

you're handing out destruction to others around you.

Is acting about an ego

that you don't care about others,

or is it something else?

When I had a personality break,

when I fell apart,

I saw how that whole structure had been built,

what lies I had bought into,

what exaggerations,

what impressions I had

that I had turned over

into being full-fledged desires,

goals to achieve,

and who were the manipulators behind,

who were pulling the puppet strings.

- There are people who are just

movie stars more than actors.

He's more of an actor who stars in movies,

if you know what I mean.

- I saw for a year and just watched this,

and the last thing I was confronted with

was free-float fear.

It would just come underneath the door

as a smoke,

and it would creep up on me

and the fear would get so much

that I would just have to break it.

I'd just have to do something else,

and it wasn't until I was able to

let that fear just roll right on top of me.

You know, I thought I was gonna die.

It's just that scary,

and it just went, (whistling)

right on by.

There wasn't anything to it.

- Acting's like a veil, you know.

It's what you show, what you choose to show

and what you choose to mask,

and what he's chosen to show

has always been vulnerable and deep

and touching.

- Do you like those mugshots?

Do you like people talking about you

in that way?

Let me tell you something.

That's not a mugshot.

You see any numbers?

No.

You see that wall?

That's a hospital wall.

The guy that arrested me was from Sacramento.

He was a young kid.

His wife had just come down

to the sheriff's department,

and as we drove down to do the blood test,

he was telling me,

"Gee, Mr. Nolte, I've watched all your films and everything.

"I'm sorry,

"I didn't know it was you."

I said, "No, you did the right thing.

"I was driving erratically,

"and you did the right thing."

We got out of the car, he said,

"Hey, can I get a Polaroid of you?

"A shot of you against this wall here?"

And I said,

"I'll do the shot

"if you'll share the money

"with the rest of the guys."

And he said, "For what?"

I said, "The money you're gonna get for this shot.

"If you share it, I'll do it."

That's why I did the shot.

- There's a danger about Nick on the screen.

There's an unpredictability about him,

and some people would say off the screen as well.

- I took a drive one night with Nick

at a place out in the Valley, way out,

hidden in the hills there.

We're driving in his Jeep.

Pleasant night, stars are out,

it's a little road,

going up kind of around a little hill maybe,

and Nick takes the steering wheel off

and hands it to me.

- It's a great shot, because I'd just finished "The Hulk,"

and that's the way I looked in "The Hulk."

I guess any publicity is any publicity. (laughing)

I mean, does Robert Downey envy that?

Does Mel Gibson say anything about it?

Or are you out there all by yourself?

I had just discovered GHB

and was drinking it every day

for four years,

and I never got raped.

- I think there's an unpredictability about Nick,

although there are some things that are interesting

because he's a little bit off the center

of the path.

- Define "crazy."

- (laughing) He is a little crazy.

- If he's crazy for life, yeah.

If he's crazy for the passion for his work,

there's no question about it.

- You can only get to the bigger truths,

the large truths, the unknown,

by taking risk,

and Nick is only crazy in that

he dispenses with the bullshit.

- You know, you've been accused of a lot of things.

I very rarely can't pick up

an Enquirer or something and see something

about Nick Nolte's picking his nose

or Nick Nolte's got a bag over his head

or Nick Nolte's done this or that.

Do you like that?

I mean, do you actively

go out and support that kind of commentary,

that kind of journalism?

Look, you have to make an entertaining story.

Your editor has told you exactly what he wants,

what he wants to focus on

and what he thinks his readers will be interested in.

If it happens to be a young audience,

it might be they'll be more interested in

Nick Nolte's drug use than his acting,

because they've never seen his acting,

or they might be more interested in

who Nick Nolte has laid or whatever.

So you guys set the agenda.

You're willing to sell it,

the cheapest kind of set possible,

and I can't control that,

so, yeah, I think

you guys are whores.

Most journalists

are drunks, basically.

They drink more than the actors,

because they know what they're doing

is ridiculous, following somebody around

who has

maybe done a film

that's caused a little notoriety

and you're running around pretending that

he's a god or special or something like that,

and you're devoting your life to doing that.

It's pretty absurd.

I think the highest suicide rate is in journalism anyway.

- Charles Bukowksi said that when you meet a writer

away from their desk,

you meet the sickness that drove them

to their desk in the first place,

and when I looked at that mugshot of Nick Nolte,

I thought, "Oh, there's the affliction

"that made 'Affliction' possible."

- He can handle almost anything.

I mean, most of us would have crumbled

under many of the things he's been through.

When he says, "Bring it on," he means it.

- There but for the grace of God go any of us,

particularly in a town of paparazzi and assholes

who don't give a shit about any of us.

- I love actors.

Actors are the real artists.

I mean, that's why we put a frame around them, I guess.

They're the only artists in the process, I think.

A handful of directors,

possibly writers,

but the actors are really out there,

and they're the explorers,

and Nick is nothing if he's not an explorer,

which is why people should tolerate

his off-road behavior every now and then

because that's what explorers do.

- You know, the celebrity mugshot has become iconic

and I think a lot of it's thanks to him.

The fact is, he has a sense of humor about it.

He's able to sort of,

I think he doesn't really give a shit at the end of the day.

- When any actor's personal life intrudes,

you have to just say, "The art judges the artist."

It's about what they do on screen that matters.

What they do off-screen, you just,

you know, God bless, hope they make it.

- I'm constantly disappointed that people are

more distracted by what the press says

than one's actual work,

and that's a sad thing.

Hopefully in the distance of time, yeah,

people can perceive someone's work

rather than what's said about them.

- You know, Nick, you've talked about

lying to the media.

It seems to be your mantra.

Are you lying now?

What is it that you figure

that it's impossible to tell the truth?

What's your philosophy behind that?

Or is it just to be

devious and

distracting

and not clear?

What are you attempting to do with that?

Are you just a liar?

Well, you've gotta understand this.

You're a liar, too.

You can't be a human without being a liar.

It's an impossibility,

because reality is not something that's definable.

You're not able to pin it down,

so no matter what,

there's gonna be different perspectives

on the situation,

so there is no truth to it.

There is no definitive truth,

so in that sense,

you're a liar too.

Are you lying to me now?

All I'm doing is just telling you the truth,

that, yeah, it's lying.

Mostly because it's either in the past

or it's in the future.

If you ask me what I expect to do,

I might be dead.

How do I know I'll do that?

And if you're asking me about something in the past,

it's over with, it's already dead.

So that's not,

that's not reality.

Reality's living.

So in that sense, every interview is a lie.

That's what that's about.

As I understand it, you were a felon,

and a felon, as I understand it,

can't vote,

so have you been able to vote?

Do you vote?

Do you still feel part of the society?

There was one thing that went along

with being a convicted felon.

You couldn't go to Vietnam,

and I think that pissed me off the most,

'cause I really wanted to be in Vietnam.

I thought that was the most justified war.

I knew for sure the Viet Cong

were gonna get in their sand pants

and bomb New York.

I was positive of it.

I knew they were gonna infiltrate the United States,

and I felt bad that I couldn't go

and protect New York City,

but

I was a felon,

so you can't go into the military.

- Well, lying to the press isn't really lying,

because the press doesn't deal with truth.

- What gives you the most pleasure?

What do you find in life

that is pleasurable?

I mean, what is it about life that is pleasurable?

It's simple, life.

It's what I most enjoy.

Life is life.

Just living.

You know, you seem to be full of contradictions.

I see you on Larry King,

The Best Ways Towards Health,

I see you talk about growth hormone, HGH,

highly controversial nowadays,

especially amongst young athletes,

but

you smoke, which has got to be

the worst thing you can do for your health.

Are you just messing around with this?

Are you really healthy or are you not?

I mean, you're 67.

You look like you're about

67.

Or maybe younger.

But you look in good health,

so what are your keys to health?

How do you maintain sanity

in an insane world?

That's the key.

That's what you're

looking for,

finding the rhythm of sanity

in a truly insane world,

because the world is mostly operating

out of the rational, thinking mind,

which is just a very small part

of the being, and

that part

has a tendency to think that it's everything,

and so it's egotistical,

it's one-sided, it's prejudiced,

it's violent,

it's all those things.

We've lost our way

of the natural instincts.

We've lost our connection to nature.

We're still nature,

we're still part of it,

but we don't think we are

'cause we ride around in cars,

but then it is our lane, isn't it?

And how dare you pull into my lane,

you son-of-a-bitch?

Boom, boom, boom.

"This is my lane!"

No, it's not.

No, it's not your lane.

Do you want to shoot yourself?

Many actors do.

Many artists do.

What's that about?

Got any ideas?

Or are you just dumbfounded?

No, I like myself too much.

Why would you want to kill yourself

if you're having a good time?

What are you most afraid of?

Are you afraid of the normal things

like death, being able to live for another 30 years?

Are you afraid of failure?

What role does fear play in your life?

- Fear?

Does Nick say he's afraid right now

what he's gonna do next?

Have you asked him that?

- How do you say what you're most afraid of?

There are so many little things,

little things in life that creates fears.

I mean, every time your ego is challenged,

you have a little fear.

Fear is just a part of life.

It's how you deal with your own fears

and how you function.

There is no "most afraid of."

I mean, if you knew the "most afraid of,"

you'd be scared to death.

You're a brand-new father.

You're 67,

and I assume you want to live long enough

to see this child through,

certainly through the years where

it's necessary that she has his support.

Isn't this kind of selfish of you?

I mean, do you see it that way?

No,

you don't think of the end results.

You think of it as the beginning.

It's always the beginning,

and it's always this moment beginning

and this moment beginning,

not this moment ending

and I wonder what's going to happen next.

It's always happening.

The thing, the trick of it is

is to get in that rhythm

of

this amazing miracle of life.

That's what it's about, is

that it is

a very beautiful thing.

- I picture him with that little baby

and him just, who knows what happens

in that room there,

tossing that kid up in the air.

I mean, you know,

you know that he's got good hands.

- Any regrets?

No, no regrets.

You can't regret life.

Has there ever been a question

that you have wanted

to be asked

but have never been asked?

Anything at all?

I think, yeah.

Nobody's asked me to be silent.

(acoustic music)