Nick Nolte’s 10 Most Grizzled Roles

In 1992, People Magazine voted Nick Nolte as “The Sexiest Man Alive.” The cover of the magazine stated, “Strong, sensitive, and squared-away, he’s a man’s man that women can’t resist.” But in the years since this magazine hit the stands, Nolte has gone from having the beautiful eyes and strong jaw that women simply love, to growing a scraggly beard, frighteningly untamed hair, and wearing clothes that Goodwill wouldn’t even deem acceptable.

There is no doubt about it, despite the hefty salary that Nolte earns for every performance, the man has let himself go over the years. But for a long time, audiences didn’t notice the change. They always thought back to the People Magazine cover and still viewed Nolte as one of Hollywood’s sexiest men. However, when the actor’s infamous 2002 mug shot became public, people began to look at Nolte in a different way.

Slowly but surely, Nolte’s appearance began to resemble the bedraggled mugshot more often than the rugged handsomeness from his heartthrob days. Now it’s rare that he is featured in a movie where he doesn’t look like a Depression-era vagabond. So to celebrate his latest role as an unkempt horse trainer in the new HBO show Luck, we’re taking a look back at Nick Nolte’s 10 Most Grizzled Roles.

Written by Jason Serafino (@Serafinoj1)

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While Hollywood employs the most talented makeup artists in the world to replicate the grime and filth of warfare, we’re almost certain that Nolte provided his own dirt and tattered clothing for this role. As Lt. Col. Gordon Tall, Nolte played an arrogant leader of men during WWII who was often at odds with his own platoon.

Tall was also older than most of the men surrounding him, which gave Nolte the perfect opportunity to play the scraggly old man character that he has mastered over the years. This part allowed him to flex his grizzled muscles and prepare for most of the roles that he would play throughout the '00s. We can’t imagine him playing a pet shop clerk or a violin instructor with the same unkempt manner and gravelly voice.

Most people are probably unaware that Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Breakfast of Champions was actually turned into a movie; unfortunately, for fans of the author, it’s not exactly that great of an adaptation. However, Nick Nolte’s performance in the movie is one of the most manic of his career. As a paranoid car salesman with a serious lingerie fetish, Nolte provided this flat film with a jolt of insanity that made the whole movie watchable.

Unlike Nolte’s early days as an actor, this part isn’t filled with nuanced emotion or delicate dramatic scenes; instead, it is over-the-top with some moments that border on camp. It’s too bad that Nolte’s role in the movie is painfully short; so instead of sitting through the whole underwhelming film, you can just see the best part here.

In Affliction, Nolte plays a small-town cop who becomes obsessed with solving a crime involving a hunting accident; meanwhile, as he buries himself in the case, his personal life begins to spiral out of control. This is the perfect part for him because we all know that Nolte is Hollywood's go-to guy when a script features a character spiraling out of control.

And if you need any more proof that Nolte is a little off-kilter here, then check out this scene where his character decides to do a little oral surgery on himself. Good thing his alcoholic character always has a bottle of whisky handy.

Nick Nolte didn’t have to flex his acting muscles too much when he was hired to fill the role of Benerji, the drunk, wandering philosopher in the indie flick Arcadia Lost. Sporting a mangled head of grey hair and a beard that would put most vagrants to shame, Nolte brought a level of authentic sloppiness to this part in a way that most actors couldn't dream of.

In yet another performance where Nolte plays a dangerously off-balanced military man, Farewell To The King sees the venerable actor get adopted by a tribe of natives that designate him as their “King.” Of course no one would believe Nolte was their king unless he was shirtless and covered in filth, so he responded in kind.

Like a long-haired Colonel Kurtz, Nolte’s grasp on sanity in this movie is tenuous at best as he quickly lets the ways of the natives overtake his years of living in a society. It’s stunning to think of how many movies end up with Nick Nolte shirtless in the wilderness after becoming too crazy for the rest of humanity to handle.

Comic book fans may have spent the last eight years trying to erase Ang Lee’s Hulk from their collective memory, but there is no denying the fact that Nick Nolte’s performance is unforgettable. Nolte plays the father of the Hulk, a deranged scientist obsessed with turning himself into a gamma-fueled monster and taking over the world with his son.

Looking more like his famous mug shot than ever, Nolte's psychotic rants and erratic behavior breathed some much needed life into this movie. It might seem strange, but Nolte's performance is somehow the highlight of a film that included a 10-foot-tall green monster tearing his way through San Francisco. If Ang Lee really wanted to make a watchable Hulk movie, he should have just let Nolte unleash 90 minutes of alcohol-drenched political rants on the audience.

“Life Lessons” is Martin Scorsese’s segment from the anthology film New York Stories. In it, Nick Nolte plays a brandy-swilling, Pollack-esque artist named Lionel Dobie. Based in part on Dostoevsky's novella The Gambler, Nolte puts the mad Russian to shame with his unkempt appearance and antisocial personality.

Nolte’s attempt to wear a tuxedo and rub elbows with high-society is the film’s highlight as it becomes painfully clear that he always looks borderline psychotic no matter what the wardrobe is. And like any true Nolte gem, he spends plenty of time shirtless, manic, and covered during this short film. Somehow the nude, paint-covered look makes him seem saner than the failed tux experiment.

Appropriately enough, Down and Out in Beverly Hills features Nick Nolte as a scraggly hobo who gets invited to live with a millionaire inside his spacious mansion. Once inside, Nolte bonds with the family dog, has an affair with the maid, and manages to piss off Little Richard in the process. Basically he does everything you would expect Nolte to do when left to his own devices.

This role is a precursor to the many parts Nolte has played over his career where he looks like a ragged bum. In fact, to truly capture the spirit of the bum lifestyle, Nolte has gone on record claiming he didn’t bathe for two months while filming this movie and ate actual dog food for one of the film’s more memorable scenes. The smell practically comes right off the screen, doesn’t it?

North Dallas Forty came out during a time when Nick Nolte was still a handsome young actor with a “Sexiest Man Alive” title still in his future. However, this movie gave us a glimpse at the grizzled old man that he was going to be in the coming years. Playing Phil Elliot, wide receiver for a Dallas based football team, Nolte brought a certain unbalanced quirkiness to the role that wasn’t often seen at the time.

Addicted to pain killers, booze, and sex, Elliot was the perfect character for Nolte to play because of his ability to be both charming and incredibly sleazy in the same breath. Part-comedy and part-drama, North Dallas Forty is still one of the best sports movies of all time, and most of its success comes from the Nolte’s unhinged performance.

As an unbalanced Vietnam Vet, Nolte’s job was to bring a heaping helping of shell-shocked madness to Tropic Thunder. He didn’t just succeed in looking the part, but he also flawlessly brought a level to insane acting to the screen that isn’t seen too often.

While everyone else in this movie is fully aware that they are in a comedy, Nolte's role is like something that leapt out of Apocalypse Now, which is what makes it so fascinating to watch. Plus, it looks like Nolte got to set every day by being dragged for 20 miles behind a beet truck. In the “post mug shot” period of Nolte’s career, his role in Tropic Thunder is easily his most grizzled and entertaining. It would be incredibly disappointing to find out that Nolte is any different in real life.