The Departed is undoubtedly one of the best movies ever made. With an ensemble cast including names such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, and many others, it won four Academy Awards. The movie which featured DiCaprio as Billy Costigan, marked his third collaboration with the director Martin Scorcese.
The 2006 crime thriller was not only praised by the critics but also was a huge box office success. The performances by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson garnered immense praise. Interestingly, as revealed by the Titanic fame himself, Jack Nicholson was also a reason behind his terrific performance as it helped him to stay in the character.
Why did Leonardo DiCaprio thank Jack Nicholson for The Departed?
Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese are one of the greatest collaborators in Hollywood. The actor-director duo has delivered numerous hits and is one of the fan favorites. The 48-year-old star was also one of the first people to join the ensemble of the 2006 blockbuster.
The Wolf of Wall Street actor in an interview stated that he was ready to portray any of the two main roles in the film. Both of them intrigued him very much and he described them as two sides of the same coin. But when Leonardo DiCaprio ultimately got the role of Billy, he couldn’t understand how to play the role. It was Jack Nicholson who helped him. He thanked The Shining actor’s terrifying acting techniques that helped him to stay in his character and discover more about it.
“The hardest part was what do I convey to the audience if I’m surrounded by killers all the time and I have to pretend to be somebody that I’m not. I didn’t initially know how to play it. It really helped in scenes when Nicholson is holding a gun to your face and making you beg for your life, the character, you come up with dialogue, you come up with things to say to survive. That was one of the first scenes that I had and it really helped me in discovering the character, the panic attacks he had and the fear for his life on a constant basis.”
On the other hand, the movie’s other major cast Matt Damon also praised Jack Nicholson for his performance and added that sometimes the actor improvised his own lines while filming.
Matt Damon on Jack Nicholson’s sinister re-writes in The Departed
In The Departed, Matt Damon accompanied Leonardo DiCaprio to play another major role of Collin Sullivan. The Jason Bourne fame said on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast that at various places, Nicholson improvised many of his lines to make them sound more devilish.
“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.”
As reported by Variety, the character of Jack Nicholson wasn’t a very major part of the movie as we see him in the final cut. The A Few Good Men actor also turned down the movie at first. It was the director and Leonardo DiCaprio who convinced him to join the cast. As a result, Martin Scorsese agreed to many rewrites done by Nicholson. The improvisations are indeed very graphic and add another layer to the role of Frank Costello.
The Departed can be streamed on HBO Max.
Source: Cinema Blend
