About Schmidt

…acted in such films as About Schmidt (2002), for which she received another Academy Award nomination; Failure to Launch (2006); and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), a remake of the 1951 classic. In 2008 Bates took a supporting role in Revolutionary Road, portraying a real estate agent in…

About Schmidt (2002) marked a tonal shift for Payne as a director, as its tale of a curmudgeonly Midwestern retiree (played by Jack Nicholson) on a road trip was mined for as much pathos as humor. Poignant drama also emerged from the picaresque Sideways (2004),…

…title character in Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt (2002), a movie about a retired widower seeking to mend his relationship with his daughter. Nicholson’s understated acting in the melancholic comedy earned him a 12th Academy Award nomination. In 2006 he appeared as Irish mobster Frank Costello in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed.