Jack Nicholson Considered Setting ‘The Departed’ Set on Fire After a Conversation With Martin Scorsese
Actor Jack Nicholson once teamed up with Martin Scorsese for his Oscar-winning feature The Departed. But following a brief suggestion from Scorsese, Nicholson seriously thought about burning down the set.
Jack Nicholson didn’t get any sleep before his plan to burn down ‘The Departed’
One of the reasons why Nicholson was cast in The Departed was due to Scorsese’s admiration for the veteran actor. The filmmaker saw the Oscar-winning picture as the perfect opportunity for the two to finally collaborate.
But working with Nicholson might have been different for Scorsese than working with other actors. Speaking to Times of India, Scorsese once confirmed reports that Nicholson would constantly meddle with the film’s original script.
“Well, the script evolved, and it evolved over a long process. Ever since I’ve been making films, I’ve loved talking about how the process has got to be the way it is between writers, myself, and the actors,” Scorsese said. “Nicholson worked in a different way, but that again is kind of a private process. We had decided the date, the age, and the power of this man, but when Jack came on board, we developed it as a character that was a little different than what Bill had put in there.”
Scorsese would sometimes ask for Nicholson’s creative input. On one occasion, Nicholson was so excited by the creative possibilities that he thought of a sequence where he’d burn The Departed down. But he quickly thought better of it.
“I didn’t sleep that night. Next day, I asked the prop man to get me a gun… I also asked him to get a fire extinguisher. That’s what happens when you set me loose. I was literally planning to set the set on fire,” Nicholson once said according to Female First.
Jack Nicholson terrified his ‘Departed’ co-star Leonardo DiCaprio with his improvising
Nicholson’s style of acting was both unpredictable and occasionally harrowing for the film’s star DiCaprio. DiCaprio once confided that there were a couple of moments on set when his co-star made him feel nearly as uneasy as his character.
“One scene in particular, we did the scene one way, and I remember Jack speaking to Marty because he said he didn’t feel that he was intimidating enough,” DiCaprio once said at a press conference. “It was one of the table scenes. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life as far as being an actor is concerned. I remember coming into the scene one way and then I came in the next day and the prop guy told me, ‘Well, be careful he’s got a fire extinguisher, a gun, some matches, and a bottle of whiskey.’”
But DiCaprio asserted that working under such conditions helped his performance, and added to the anxiety his character experienced.
“We’re all professional actors and we’re all playing roles, but for me playing this character of this guy that has to relay to the audience this constant 24 hour panic attack that I’m going through for my life, surrounded by people that would literally blow my head off if I gave them any indication of who I was, coupled with the fact that I’m sitting across the table from a homicidal maniac that will maybe light me on fire,” DiCaprio added.
Matt Damon once shared Jack Nicholson wanted to write in this disturbing scene in ‘The Departed’
Damon revealed his firsthand accounts of seeing Nicholson modify The Departed script to his liking. The Bourne Identity actor shared that Nicholson was more than confident in his ability as a script writer. And Nicholson would apply his skills to the film’s story. On the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Damon remembered how Nicholson changed a simple murder scene into a far more violent sequence.
“He goes, ‘Well, it was an eighth of a page,’ and he goes, ‘I’ve seen that before, so what I did is I made it a woman and I put Ray [Winston] in the scene with me,’” Damon recalled Nicholson telling him.
Nicholson thought the change would’ve added more to his Departed character.
“He goes, ‘We’re gonna keep in this same shot, I’m not gonna add any time or money to the schedule. But I shoot her in the back of the head, and she falls over. Now, you could end the scene there, but if you keep the camera rolling, I turn to Ray and I say, ‘Geez, she fell funny.’ Now, that’s a very sinister line. It suggests that I’ve done this before. There’s a way that people fall,’” Damon remembered.
