Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994 TAG: 9407130035
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEANNE WOLF
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Today, during an interview in a Los Angeles hotel suite, he wields something far more potent: a wickedly disarming charm.
The veteran actor unleashes irresistible grins and swings words with such effortless ease that the line between reality and performance is hard to distinguish.
It's always fun to have Nicholson fool you on the screen. Sometimes it's hard to tell if he's fooling you in person - but it really doesn't matter.
``I'm very hard to describe,'' Nicholson says with a lift of his legendary eyebrows. ``People do it all the time. Nobody gets me.
``They say great things about me that I like, and they make observations that interest me, but they never get it right.
``I'd start feeling crazy if somebody did actually get me down,'' he adds with a chuckle.
Dressed in a tweed jacket and a pale green golf shirt, Nicholson looks slimmer, younger and handsomer than he does in ``Wolf,'' the suspenseful new film in which he stars. (It opens nationwide today.)
Lurking behind his charisma is an edge of danger that hints at the terror he creates on screen as a man whose life becomes a nightmare after he is bitten by a wolf.
``I have a lot of lupine characteristics,'' Nicholson says with a devilish twinkle in his eye. ``Physical things like yellowed eyes and a kind of baleful, unchanging stare when I'm concentrating on someone.''
As Nicholson becomes more wolflike during the movie, his ``lupine characteristics'' are enhanced with special makeup.
``It's like working in a mask,'' he says. ``I first experienced it when I played `The Joker' in `Batman' [1989].
``Before that I was much more of a no-frills actor and I was one of the first actors to even refuse to wear makeup in some early movies.
``Now I'm used to it. I sleep while they put it on.''
Nicholson plays Will Randall, a Manhattan book editor who finds himself becoming possessed by the feral spirit of the wolf that bit him.
It was a challenging role - and not just because he had to learn to look beastly.
``I had to become `un-Jack,''' he says. ``How do I get the audience to believe I'm Will and not some movie star they've read about?
``I have to `un-Jack' on every film that I do or I know my performance won't work. I'd like to separate myself from that image of Jack in my personal life, but it's harder.''
One thing Nicholson has learned during his long career is that there are certain things an actor doesn't take from one film to the next, he says.
``You don't take shtick and you don't take your reputation. You've got to start all over again on every new set with every new character.''
Helping Nicholson to ``un-Jack'' in ``Wolf'' is co-star Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays Laura Alden, a woman who is attracted to his growing wildness.
``The myth of the werewolf is sexual,'' Nicholson says. ``It's a theme that was cut out of a lot of the classic werewolf films of the past.''
Portraying a wolf-man was an interesting experience for Nicholson.
``I had fun playing Will as his senses became more acute, as he could smell and hear things that no one else could.
``And I had fun peeing on people - which was perfectly acceptable for a wolf.''
Is it possible that Nicholson was acting out some animalistic anger in real life when he assaulted that car with a golf club?
``Sometimes, in my weaker moments, I can be provoked,'' he says very softly. ``You can't be sure that if you say or do something provocative to me that you aren't going to get it back in spades.''
Nicholson sighs and leans back reflectively.
``Look, that was a shameful incident for me. No matter how I was motivated, I shouldn't have been threatening someone.
``I am vociferously against violence. When I was a kid I used to be a tough guy, but I've learned that we've got to back off.''
At 57, Nicholson has earned two Academy Awards and a healthy share of box-office dollars. But he is the first to admit that becoming a superstar was never a part of his grand plan.
``I've never had a life program,'' he says. ``I don't do two goofy comedies in a row or two murders in a row. I guess that's a program.
``I think all actors, including me, get better from working.''
Suddenly, the mighty actor is flashing back to the years when he was a high school kid in Neptune, N.J.
``I was voted the class optimist and the class pessimist,'' he says.
``And I remember, years later, reading an interview with one of my school pals who had become the sheriff.
``Somebody got a hold of him to ask about me as a kid and he said, `Well, Jack was really smart and could do just about anything. But we didn't think he cared about one god-dthing.'
Nicholson smiles.
``I cared, but I guess he never knew it,'' he says. ``I was a little taken aback by his observation, but at least, I think, he was being honest.''
There is a moment of reflective silence, as if this larger-than-life actor is trying to put it all in perspective.
Finally, he says, ``I've always looked at myself as a relatively lazy - though driven - person. Then, rather late in life, the thought came to me: `I've been doing this [acting] almost 40 years.'
``And I suddenly realized that I've never made a movie that was easy to make. Never.
``Some are fun, but they're all hard - every one of them.
``And when I'm working, I'm totally involved. I can't be in a marriage or take care of a stock portfolio. I can't do anything else but that.
``So you're giving your life to it. You're giving your life to making films.''
Jeanne Wolf is a Los Angeles-based free-lance writer.
by CNB