Jack Nicholson is one of a few figures in Hollywood whose name is sufficient to conjure up a bevy of images - the detective J.J. Gittes, the sailor, the young Southern lawyer, the crafty mental patient, the retired astronaut, the obsessive-compulsive cantankerous writer, the belligerent Marine colonel, and the Joker. He is truly an icon, an actor with one of the most distinctive careers in Hollywood.
"Alexander is a huge fan of ‘70s movies and ‘70s filmmaking," says producer Harry Gittes. "Alexander the filmmaker is a throwback to the time when after you went to a movie, you went out and had a coffee to talk about it. Your whole evening would be built around going to the movie and discussing it. Alexander wants to make movies that make you think."
Payne and Taylor sat down to adapt the novel with the intention of borrowing a few things from Payne’s The Coward. But as they went along, they found themselves using more and more material from the earlier script, including Schmidt’s lengthy correspondence with Ndugu, the six-year-old Tanzanian child whom he sponsors through an organization. By the time they were finished, it was a melding of The Coward and the novel.
"When Alexander showed us his changes," says producer Michael Besman, "we were blown away. What he’d done was make it his own."
Academy award-winning actress Kathy Bates has managed to pull off some amazingly swift turns in her career. "There aren’t many actors around who can do what Kathy Bates can do," says producer Harry Gittes. "She’s an unbelievable actress. We were really lucky." In what Gittes calls nothing short of a "miracle from heaven," the filmmakers managed to overcome a series of obstacles, including the scheduling of another movie and the threat of an actors’ strike, to secure Bates’ participation in the film as Roberta Hertzel, the mother of Warren Schmidt’s future son-in-law.
Kathy Bates’ response to the script was immediate. "I was so moved by it," says Bates. "One of the threads of the story that I enjoyed were the letters that Warren sends to the little orphan boy in Africa." Bates describes her character: "She truly considers herself to be a real artist, although her ex says otherwise. Roberta is also very comfortable with who she is. She loves to talk about all kinds of things that most people don’t want to hear about, including her overwhelming sexuality, because Jack’s character is just the opposite. The scenes between them were a lot of fun to play and fun to watch."
Bates’ character represents a direct challenge to Warren Schmidt’s sensibilities. "We were looking for someone who could take Jack on," says Besman. "Kathy Bates immediately came to mind."
Bates particularly enjoyed working with production designer Jane Ann Stewart to create Roberta’s home environment. "I love the colors that everything was painted -- orange, deep oranges and reds," says Bates, "colors that I actually like in a house. Also, I have a harp that I have been trying to learn how to play for years and years, so we thought it would be funny if Roberta had one in the middle of all of her painting stuff."
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