Jack Nicholson & Morgan Freeman

On the day of the London premiere of The Bucket List, the stars gathered at Claridge's to talk about their new film. Jack Nicholson began by lighting up a cigarette - nobody dared mention the smoking ban.

The 70 year old stars are more 'cool' than many youngsters - but there aren't a lot of stories for over 50s, finds Nicholson, although he mentions Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Memories of My Melancholy Whores.

"The themes are surprisingly limited, not just in films but literature in general is pretty limited in terms of people beyond 50. I read quite a bit and when books talk about somebody aged 65 you're meant to take from that that it's an ancient person. It always makes me laugh - that's a young guy to me right now."

"I want to bring sexuality to middle aged characters," declares Nicholson.

Referring to 1950s/60s US sitcom Father Knows Best, which featured a middle-class family with three children, he says, "I don't know how they thought all those children came into being but you'd think they never took their pants off. I thought, this is an area where there's a lot of room to move in and bring sexuality to those kinds of characters. I said to Martin Scorsese while working on The Departed, let's give this character a sexuality, and of course I might have overdone it there - but I don't think so."

Nicholson explains how looking for a "vacuum" to fill has enabled him to stay successful.

"I never wanted to get trapped trying to repeat a success because the death of an actor happens where they do something and then somebody wants them to do a similar thing again and once you do it the third time you're trapped. For most of my career people didn't really have much sense of exactly how old I was, from the very beginning, like in Easy Rider the character was older than I was and then the next picture I would drop back - but I can't drop all the way back to 35 any more."

On ageing, he says, "Your priorities do change, whether it's from character or loss of facility I never have quite been able to figure out." Nicholson's character in the film advises, "Never pass up a bathroom, never waste a hard-on, and never trust a fart." His own advice - "Don't lie, don't steal, and don't be afraid," - is echoed by Freeman, who adds, "Mainly don't be afraid."

The Bucket List sees Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman team up as corporate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers, who find themselves sharing a hospital room while receiving treatment for terminal cancer. Inspired by Carter's "bucket list," a collection of all the things he wants to do, see and experience in life before he kicks the bucket, they embark on a road trip.

Their illness means both lead characters in the film sometimes suffer indignities.

"Jack's shown some vulnerability over the years in different characters that he's played but to see him as vulnerable as he was for this character is a testament to how broad his talent is," says Reiner, the 60 year old director of This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, and many other movies. "He takes his life experience and lets it be reflected in the characters. I worked with him 15 years ago in A Few Good Men and he's lived 15 years of life since then, so he can draw on lots of things and he brings all of that to each character he plays."

In fact just before filming Nicholson had an experience that proved particularly useful for The Bucket List, when he was hospitalised, delaying the shoot.

"I'd never been sick before. That worked its way into the script. There's also the issue of how you want to deal with your death, and I heard an anecdote that John Houston said, "You can bet that the last thing you do in life will be the last thing you want to do." So your life experience always informs these things."

He had to cry during Carter's funeral, and trying to dredge up such emotion can be hard even for a seasoned actor, especially when they have to shoot scenes out of continuity.

"It's one of those scenes you worry about how you're going to play. I was standing there, I turned around and was just looking at the pictures of young Morgan that were on the dais, then I just went off. It was a lucky break because I didn't have to worry about it for the whole length of the production. Sometimes it just happens."

Although the film is a comedy, there are plenty of moving moments. Achieving balance is one of the challenges of movie-making.

"What I like about the script is the poles - you go all the way from slapstick to that pretty straight eulogy for Morgan. I've done dramatic scenes in comedies where we had to take it down because the comedy never recovered. I was snot all over the wall in As Good As It Gets but they said, let's take it down a little bit, because sometimes it doesn't fit - but it did fit here."

The film's tagline is "Find the joy." "Probably finding joy is tantamount to finding yourself, being comfortable in your own skin," suggests Freeman. "Once you're there I think that's like ice-cream, whoever comes into your orbit gets a part of that reflection."

"I never met anybody as comfortable in their skin as Morgan," says Reiner. "He's like a zen master. It is true if you are comfortable with yourself then you can find joy. For me it's getting married and having our children - there's no feeling of love more than when you look at your children."

Freeman's own son Alfonso plays the part of Roger Chambers in the film, which he describes as fun. "He had a lot of trepidation, not so much about how well he would do but more about how well I would think of him. I had to reassure him by saying, ask the director, if he likes what you do then go home and have a drink."

Nobody told Nicholson that another member of the Freeman family was involved in the movie. "I had a clear sense that he was Morgan's son though I didn't know that he was until after a while. He may have told me but I didn't hear him."

"He did a great job," says Reiner. "Morgan said, you should meet him, don't give him any special treatment though, if you think he's right then fine. He gave a beautiful reading, and I said, well how can it be more perfect than to have him play Morgan's son."

Reiner explains that the message of the movie is about making connections with people during life, to find the joy.

"There's a song at the end of the movie that John Mayer sings, Say What You Need To Say, to the people that are important to you. Jack's character says to Morgan's character, reconnect with your wife, that's who you need to be with in these last months, and Morgan's character says to Jack's character, get back in touch with your daughter, that's where you're going to find your joy."

The Bucket List reached number one at the US box office. Reiner believes its popularity is due to it resonating with everyone.

"We're all in the same boat - as Jack's character says, whether we're going to die tomorrow or down the road, everybody has the knowledge that we're going to die. It's an unconscious thing when you're young and it becomes more apparent to you the older you get. As you go through life with the knowledge that it's going to happen, you have to find happiness and joy, we all want to do that, so you sit in the movie theatre going exactly what these characters are going through."

Nicholson has his own ways of finding joy.

"The main thing is to recognise when you are happy. People sometimes seem to me to be afraid to be happy. I'm happy that I'm alive when I wake up in the morning - after that, horrible, for the first few hours. The kind of life I've led, almost every day if there's not overwhelming tragedy in it there's some joy. It comes from a lot of angles - I took particular joy in the faces of all the pundits who predicted that Hilary Clinton was dead in New Hampshire. I saw my daughter in a play just before I left - I snuck up behind Denis Hopper to scare him and he turned around - he had just seen his son playing Lenin in a play where he had an axe in the middle of his head."

As for his own 'Bucket List', Nicholson gives nothing away. "I don't want to give away my secrets, I may still have a chance!" He does however list a few achievements. "Since they came relatively late in life, I wanted to live long enough to see my children graduate, go to high school, stuff like that. I always wanted to speak another language, and learn how to cook."

Freeman claims that his 'Bucket List' will be completed on the fairway. He cites his handicap as 26.

"I've recently taken up golf so most of the things on my list have to do with golf! And I'm very enamoured of a light business jet which I'd like to get before it's too late. I don't really think there's anybody left that I didn't meet - the one that I really wanted to meet died, that was Princess Diana, I really wanted to get to know her."

"Exactly the same for me," adds Nicholson, "Except I did meet Princess Diana - charming woman."

One of Reiner's bucket list items was to direct the two actors together. The director had worked with Nicholson already in A Few Good Men, but never with the two together.

"People ask me how it is directing two guys like this - it makes my life easy, because they come to work prepared and they're not threatened because they're secure in their own talents. You can say a little something here and there and it never threatens them, they're not going to get knocked off their game by something I might say, so it's a dream come true."

From an actor's perspective, when you're getting up and trying to bear yourself with someone else, "The better the actor usually the safer you feel working with that actor," says Freeman. "It's like the exercise where someone stands behind you and you close your eyes and fall backwards - that's acting."

Reiner recalls asking Nicholson about Stanley Kubrick, who he had worked with on The Shining. "Jack said, hey Stanley, I hear you like to do a lot of takes - but if we do 100 takes the 101st one is the best."

"That was just to psych him out," says Nicholson. In contrast to Kubrick, Reiner is a fast worker, and filming The Bucket List took only 44 days.

"Early on I sensed I wasn't going to get much help from camerawork. In a two-hander it's on you," says Nicholson. "An actor knows it's easy if you're running because it's going to be dynamic, but when you're just sitting or laying you know you're going to have to come up with a performance or there isn't going to be anything on the screen. One of the virtues of the picture is that it's not pyrotechnical, the script is very subtle."

Nicholson ends the discussion with one final piece of advice, which he gives in response to a female journalist asking if he has a date for the premiere.

"A goverment health report had the regular stuff - six vegetables, don't smoke, drink in moderation - but you should have seen their faces when they got to the last clause, which was 21 orgasms a month. They were sheepish on that one. So if you're having problems with your quota, I don't happen to have a date."

The Bucket List will be released throughout the UK by Warner Bros. on 15th February 2008.

Related Links

Win Prizes With The Bucket List

The Bucket List UK Premiere

Web Links

The Trailer

www.thebucketlist.net

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