When Jack Nicholson finished filming his role in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming gangster movie "The Departed," we hear his fellow cast and crewmembers breathed a collective sigh of relief. While various publications have reported the actor’s constant clowning and tinkering with the script, on-set omerta kept the true extent of Nicholson’s bizarro behavior under wraps until now.
In fact, studio sources say Nicholson went way beyond making occasional changes to the script, and would actually rewrite each day’s shoot — to the point where Scorsese was forced to shoot the actor’s doctored script before shooting his own version just to keep Nicholson happy.
But Scorsese wasn’t the only one subject to Nicholson’s eccentric rule, we hear. While filming in Boston, the notorious Lakers superfan banned all Celtics merchandise from the premises, a top-level production source says: “If he caught anyone wearing a Celtics T-shirt, he’d literally shut down the set. It was no joke,” says the source.
Despite his mercurial daytime manner, we hear the hard-partying 68-year-old still let it rip after dark, leaving his much younger co-stars in the dust as usual.
Asked about Nicholson’s antics, his agent, Sandy Bresler, said, “I have no idea. I wasn’t there,” and referred further questions to Scorsese’s publicist, who did not return phone calls or e-mails by press time.
