(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Fri 2 January 2026 16:45, UK
Jack Nicholson is the consummate Hollywood star.
He came up in the method school of acting, but he always manages to make his work and his life look effortless. If you’ve ever seen the meme-ified photos of him chilling on a yacht in recent years, you will know that, despite being one of the most decorated actors in cinema history, he’s a spirit animal for us all.
For the most part, his fellow stars have expressed awe about working with him. Tom Cruise was not just starstruck when they collaborated on A Few Good Men, but amazed by how generous he was as a co-star, and Matt Damon was left dumbstruck by working with Nicholson in The Departed, revealing that the actor had a knack for ad-libbing just a few words here and there to deepen the cruelty and sinisterness of his character.
But there was one actor who wasn’t won over by Nicholson’s notorious charisma. In the 1970s, after the Easy Rider star had become one of the most respected actors and infamous playboys of his generation, but before he became a bona fide icon, he alienated a man who should have been a kindred spirit.
It was 1978, and Nicholson was attempting, for the first time, to direct himself. Goin’ South is a comedic western in which the Oscar-winner plays an outlaw who is spared a death by hanging when a local businesswoman offers to marry him. What he doesn’t realise is that she wants him for his labour, not his company, with Nicholson at his most rascally, and Mary Steenburgen holds her own as his bride, but lurking somewhere in the supporting cast was comedian John Belushi, and he was pissed.
At the time, Belushi was at the peak of his Saturday Night Live run and was hoping to make a successful leap into movies, and that year, he appeared in National Lampoon’s Animal House, giving what would become an iconic performance.
He also created his Blues Brothers alter ego with Dan Ackroyd, though it would be another two years before the film version hit cinemas. He was a known live-wire who lived his life a little too fast and loose for the purposes of longevity, but just right for the comedy landscape of the 1970s. In other words, he was the type of person with whom Nicholson should have hit it off, but just the opposite happened.
In Goin’ South, Belushi plays a Mexican sheriff named Hector, and more than a few critics bemoaned how wasted he was in the part. He barely featured, while Nicholson gave himself nearly the entire runtime to be a charming cad. Belushi was more aware of this than anyone, and he never forgot it.
“Jack treated me like shit on Goin’ South,” he said later. “I hate him. If I see him, I’ll punch him.”
The SNL legend was not the kind of performer who does well in the background. Any director worth their salt would put the camera on him, say ‘Action,’ and get the hell out of the way, and Nicholson had other motives (namely himself), squandering one of the precious and unfortunately rare opportunities to showcase one of the ‘70s greatest talents. Four years later, Belushi died of a drug overdose, leaving only a handful of film credits behind.
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