Staying Fit
At 77, Nick Nolte (Warrior, Affliction), who was voted People magazine’s sexiest man alive at 51 — “That’s a good age to be the sexiest man,” he says — now plays the liveliest of Alzheimer’s patients in his new film Head Full of Honey, director Til Schweiger’s English-language remake of his No. 1 German box office hit. Schweiger, 54 (who played Sgt. Stiglitz in Inglourious Basterds), was inspired to make both films by his mother, stricken by Alzheimer’s at 50, and Nolte’s performance is informed by his boyhood experiences with his own grandmother’s dementia.
“She lived in a fantasy world,” says Nolte, “so I spent a lot of time with her in her imaginary world, because it would disturb my father that she would talk to [hallucinated] people in the living room, but I liked it.” She thought she was talking to the people she knew as a professor at Iowa State College, and young Nolte would join right into the loopy conversations, to bond with her and to practice his improv acting.
AARP Membership— $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal
Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine.
He applies those memories to the Head Full of Honey role of Amadeus, who moves in with his son and daughter-in-law (Matt Dillon, 54, and Emily Mortimer, 47), uptight, success-obsessed people oblivious to his condition. Amadeus’ antics are a bit like those of Nolte’s shambling character who moves into Bette Midler’s home and causes chaos in Down and Out in Beverly Hills. “In dementia, the illusionary world takes over reality,” says Nolte. “You put a pan on the stove, turn away and have a conversation with your imagination. And you don't get back to the stove and it starts a fire. But it takes the family quite a while before [Dillon’s character] will admit that his father has got a brain disease that, as a society, we don't really want to look at it carefully.”
But just as Nolte’s father couldn’t deal with Grandma’s dementia and Nolte could bond with her, Amadeus’ granddaughter Tilda (played by Nolte’s real daughter Sophie Lane Nolte, 11) understands her increasingly confused grandpa far better than her parents do. So she takes him on one last adventure to his favorite places in Europe. Their trip turns into a surprisingly upbeat buddy comedy slightly like the Nolte-Eddie Murphy hit 48 Hrs, though it darkens as Amadeus’ illness inexorably worsens.
More on Entertainment
12 Best 2022 Christmas Movies and Specials to Stream
See heartwarming new holiday hits instead of the same old Grinch
Viggo Mortensen Is a Standout in 'Green Book'
He explains the challenges of his starring role and how he nailed the part
Hilary Swank and Blythe Danner Soar in Caregiving Movie 'What They Had'
Their new landmark Alzheimer's film is heartbreaking, inspiring, funny and true