Jack Nicholson’s son Ray Nicholson has offered a rare insight into his relationship with his father, revealing that although they “can’t talk about much”, sport is their shared “love language”.
Ray, 34, sat down for an interview with his sister, Lorraine Nicholson, for Interview magazine in a new article published this week, in which they discussed his acting career, his love of football and their family.
“I love sports so much. It’s also the love language that Dad and I share. We can’t talk about much, but we can talk about the damn Lakers till kingdom come,” Nicholson said in the article, as he described his sports career.
Ray played football in high school and was so serious about it that he thought he was going to play the sport at Boston College.
However, his career ended abruptly after a severe staph infection in his arm turned into MRSA, and they almost had to amputate it.
“They put a mark on my arm that said, ‘If it goes this way, we’ll cut your arm off,'” he said in the interview.
But after his injury, the “Smile 2” star described having a “voice of God moment” that led him to his true passion in life: acting.
However, he admitted that he was nervous about sharing this news with his father.
“I was really afraid to tell Dad,” Ray admitted. “But I went to USC and learned to love everything about film. My education really taught me that Dad is not God. He’s not the only one in this film industry. He’s a nice part of it, but a very small part.”
“Yes, of course, making dad proud is at the top of my list, but it’s really a way of finding out who I am. And I feel like I’m on the right path to doing that,” he said.
Ray’s interview with his sister follows his role in the new Netflix film “The Mosquito Bowl.”
In the film, Ray plays football player Tony Butkovich, who was a college football star at the University of Illinois and Purdue University.
He was drafted by the Cleveland Rams in the first round of the 1944 NFL Draft, but enlisted in the U.S. Marines and fought in World War II.
The film follows four elite college football players who enlist in the Marines to serve in the war, based on the 2022 bestselling nonfiction book by Buzz Bissinger.
It was directed by Peter Berg.
Last month, Ray admitted he felt like acting was the “thing” that took his father “away from (my) house.”
“I think I had every right to be a little worried. I grew up around it. It’s what made my family different,” he told USA Today.
“That’s the thing that took my dad away from home. So, of course, I had different feelings about that.”
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