There is a second in “Phrases of Endearment” — the script for which made Nicholson cry — when his character, Garrett Breedlove, tells Shirley MacLaine’s Aurora Greenway, “You do convey out the satan in me.” It is unclear whether or not author/director James L. Brooks was deliberately poking at audiences’ notion of Nicholson as a devilish mischievous kind, however the line supply feels figuring out. Both means, the actor clearly had one thing about him that introduced Lucifer to thoughts, as he would go on to star as Daryl Van Horne, aka the Satan, in 1987’s “The Witches of Eastwick.”
Whereas making ready for the function, he was visited by the New York Times‘ Ron Rosenbaum, who, on his journey to satisfy the star at his dwelling, famous how immersed in analysis Nicholson was. The actor, who had been poring over Dante’s ‘Inferno,’ Aquinas, and considering numerous thinkers’ definitions of evil, apparently instructed him: “I need folks to suppose Jack Nicholson is the Satan. I need them to be frightened.”
Within the presence of such apparent dedication to the function, Rosenbaum additionally famous that Nicholson’s “The Shining” director, Stanley Kubrick “has mentioned of Nicholson that he brings to a task the one unactable high quality — nice intelligence.” And if a famously cerebral director of Kubrick’s caliber says it, it clearly means one thing.
