''Four in an hour?'' says 12-year-old Brawley Nolte, pointing to a plate holding three American Spirit cigarette butts and one still burning.
''I'll put it out, okay?'' says his dad, Nick Nolte, adding that he's picked up the smokes only within the last few weeks. ''All right, it's out now.''
''The deal was zero in a month,'' Brawley scolds, then wanders away.
Warning: Oscar nominations may be hazardous to your health.
''The cigarettes are because of all these events,'' groans Nolte, a Best Actor contender for his performance as a violent, deeply troubled New England sheriff in Affliction. ''They're nonstop. There's one Sunday, then a lunch Monday, then the Independent Spirit Awards, and then the Academies.''
Forgive him if he sounds like he's seen it all. In a 25-year roller-coaster career Nolte has looked at Hollywood from almost every imaginable perspective: sex symbol, blockbuster star, has-been, critical darling. And his private life has been no less tumultuous. In 1962, the Omaha native was convicted on a felony charge for selling fake draft cards (and given five years' probation); he pretty much drank his way through the 1980s; and he's weathered three divorces. ''It's always been a battle,'' he sighs.
And yet today, two weeks before said Academies, as he putters around his Malibu house in a faded blue shirt, purple pajama bottoms, and tattered slippers, Nolte seems to be living in a truce. His homelife, which he shares with his girlfriend of more than five years, Vicki Lewis of NBC's NewsRadio, seems relatively quiet. As for his career, it's, well, smokin' — thanks to Nolte's own decision to concentrate less on big-money gigs and more on small films like Affliction, a movie that Nolte himself executive-produced. ''It's not about the movie business for him now,'' says Sissy Spacek, his costar in both Affliction and the 1980 drama Heart Beat. ''He's been there and he's done that.''
Directed by Paul Schrader and adapted from Russell Banks' bleak novel, Affliction was actually shot two years ago. ''Everybody who saw it at Telluride and Sundance passed,'' recalls Nolte. ''Sony Pictures Classics had a little dabble at it but got spooked off it. Some of 'em would pat you on the knee and say, 'Good luck with this.''' Eventually, Lions Gate Films bought the drama and opened it last December, five days after The Thin Red Line, in which Nolte's turn as raging Lieut. Col. Gordon Tall was the standout of a star-studded cast.
Two strong performances in the same season, one of them a potential Academy Award winner — is this ringing any bells? In 1992, Nolte scored a Best Actor nomination for The Prince of Tides, which was released six weeks after his stoic showing opposite Robert De Niro in Cape Fear. While the statue went to Anthony Hopkins for The Silence of the Lambs, the recognition boosted Nolte's salary — but the fat paychecks led to profoundly unsatisfying projects like 1994's Blue Chips and I Love Trouble. It was then, says Nolte, that he decided to go indie. ''It's kind of a reconnection for me,'' he says of his recent work, though he realizes that films with their hands on their hearts rather than their wallets come with a price. ''I'm just not going to play in those huge salaries anymore — you don't need 15 Mercedes, do you?'' he says. ''I've already got it on paper that I need to declare bankruptcy!''
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