Jack Nicholson screen characters, someone who is "snarly, dumb, smart, noble, rascally—all the parts of 'Jack'" Nicholson went on to win his next Academy Award for Best Actor in the romantic comedy, "As Good as It Gets" (1997), his third film directed by James L. Brooks. He played Melvin Udall, a "wickedly funny", mean-spirited, obsessive-compulsive novelist. "I'm a studio Method actor", he said. "So I was prone to give some kind of clinical presentation of the disorder." His Oscar was matched with the Academy Award for Best Actress for Helen Hunt, who played a Manhattan wisecracking, single-mother waitress drawn into a love/hate
Jack Nicholson set: Nicholson won his second Oscar, an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role of retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove in "Terms of Endearment" (1983), directed by James L. Brooks. It starred Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger. McGilligan claims it was one of Nicholson's most complex and unforgettable characters. He and MacLaine played many of their scenes in different ways, constantly testing and making adjustments. Their scenes together gave the film its "buoyant edge", states McGilligan, and describes Nicholson's acting as "Jack floating like a butterfly". Nicholson continued to work prolifically in the 1980s, starring in such films as