Actor sculpts misery into standout role

By Jocelyn Noveck
Associated Press

Jack Nicholson said his portrayal of a Nebraska retiree in "About Schmidt" was probably the least-vain performance he's given. Associated Press

That, basically, is the lot of Warren Schmidt, the Nebraska retiree played by Jack Nicholson in Alexander Payne's dark new comedy, "About Schmidt." It ranks among the least glamorous roles Nicholson has ever played, and he does it so well that Cannes-goers are already whispering about a best-actor nod.

At an age when many movie stars are trying to play younger characters, Nicholson, 66, ages himself with a slouchy walk, a comb-over and a deadened spirit.

"This is the least vain performance I think I've ever given," Nicholson says. "I couldn't look at myself in the mirror for three months."

The film is Payne's third, after "Citizen Ruth," about abortion protests, and "Election," a vicious sendup of high-school politics that earned him an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay. For a third time, Payne focuses on his native Nebraska, with searingly funny results.

"About Schmidt" is the last of three U.S. entries to screen in the main competition at Cannes this year — all to a warm reception. Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" and Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love" premiered earlier in the festival.

It was also a rare opportunity for festival-goers to see Nicholson. "We had a great time here with 'Easy Rider' (1969)," Nicholson says. "We were freer to get loaded back then."

In Payne's film, based on a novel by Louis Begley, Schmidt retires from his job as an actuary for Woodmen of the World Insurance Co. The opening shot has him sitting at his empty desk, waiting patiently as the clock slowly ticks to 5 p.m.

Schmidt is forced to stay home with his wife, Helen, about whom he often takes to wondering: "Who is this old woman living in my house?" Even worse, his only daughter, Jeannie, is about to get married to a pea-brained waterbed salesman.

Calamity strikes when Helen dies suddenly. Warren can't cope; the dishes and dirty laundry stack up disastrously. Finally, he gets into the 35-foot motorhome that he and Helen had bought to travel around the country. His goal is to patch up his tenuous relationship with Jeannie (Hope Davis) and, he hopes, to prevent her from marrying the dweeb Randall (Dermot Mulroney, a very different groom here than the one he played in "My Best Friend's Wedding").

Along the way, Warren visits the landmarks of his childhood in Nebraska. He also has a disastrous meeting with a couple of fellow campers, and ultimately gets to know Randall's highly dysfunctional family, including his hippie mother, played beautifully by Kathy Bates. Randall's mother likes to talk about things most people don't — like her hysterectomy and her overwhelming sex drive.

Throughout the film, Schmidt tells his tale in the form of letters to a 6-year-old Tanzanian orphan whom he sponsors for $22 a month after seeing a TV ad. Soon it will become clear that the boy is the most meaningful thing in Warren's life.

Although the script of "About Schmidt," co-written by Payne and Jim Taylor, is a standout, what one remembers from Nicholson aren't his lines but his face — or rather, the lines in his face. He seems to use each one to register distress, embarrassment, annoyance, sadness, anger or sarcasm.

Warren, Nicholson says, "is a miserable man to inhabit" — but it appears the actor had a great time doing it. His longtime producer, Harry Gittes, says Nicholson called him one night early on with the epiphany that he should wear a comb-over — something he had never done.

Things like that, Nicholson says, are what keep him interested in the work.

"I wouldn't enjoy this job if I didn't do it different every time," he says.