Eli Wallach with David Keith and Jack Nicholson
in The Two Jakes.

I understand that you prefer working on the stage to doing motion pictures.

I do. A lot of actors do. Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain -- there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up -- and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And it’s a complete experience. It isn’t cut, and then six months, a year later, you have to come on TV programs and do interviews where you say, "Oh yes, I’ve worked on this . . ." That’s all bullshit.

Did you have fun making Movie Movie (1978) for director Stanley Donen?

What was George C. Scott like to work with?

I liked him. He’s tough. He’d do a scene, and then he’d go play chess. Did you see Movie Movie? [There’s] some wonderful stuff in that movie. Larry Gelbart is a brilliant writer.

Did you enjoy working with Jack Nicholson on the Chinatown sequel, The Two Jakes (1990)?

The trouble with that movie is that you had to see Chinatown the day before you saw The Two Jakes.

I love Jack. I think he’s a gutsy guy, and he’s fun. He took the whole cast on a bus trip to all the locations before we started shooting, and [he was] telling us what he was gonna do, and how he was gonna do it. It’s wonderful.

How is he as a director?

It’s inborn, ingrained in him. He sets up a camera. He knows what he wants. He knows how to make a scene work. Every scene has to have something to embellish the story, to add . . . it’s like turning a page. You do a scene, then you turn the page. The scene you just did has to add fuel to the fire for the next scene. He knows how to do that.

You worked with Robert De Niro on a couple of films, Mistress (1991) and Night and the City (1992), the remake of the old film noir classic with Richard Widmark.

Well, the first one he did as a favor to a friend of his, Barry Primus. Called Mistress. I thought it was a charming, delightful movie, about the machinations in Hollywood, trying to get a script sold. And each of the money people has a mistress and wants to put his mistress in. I thought it was a good movie.

The second one I just did one day’s work on, as a favor to De Niro. He said, "Oh, come and do it. It’s fun." I said, "How many weeks?" He said, "One day." I said, "Oh, come on." He said, "Oh, yeah, money is no object." I said, "OK, I want a million dollars." He said, "Money is an object." So, that was it.

This country has a complex about age. It’s unbelievable. If you’re over thirty, you’ve had it in this country. I mean it’s scary now to see the Nicholsons and the Newmans -- all of them -- and Dustin Hoffman and all -- they’re getting into their late fifties, and they’re beginning to shake because the Leonardo DiCaprios and Matt Damons and [Matthew] McConaughey -- the young kids -- are pushing them off the mountain. So, I’m happily ensconced on stage.

It is a shame, the obsession with youth in this country.

Well, I was with Paul [Newman] the other night. He and Joanne [Woodward] came to my fiftieth wedding anniversary.

Yes, you’ve had one of those rare Hollywood marriages that’s endured.