A Few Good Men’s Kevin Pollak has remembered that Jack Nicholson tried to get a few good laughs out of co-star Tom Cruise while filming the 1992 classic.
Directed by the late Rob Reiner, the crime thriller starred Cruise as a military lawyer defending two U.S. Marines (Wolfgang Bodison and James Marshall) charged with the murder of a fellow Marine (Michael DeLorenzo). It also featured Demi Moore, Aaron Sorkin, Kiefer Sutherland, Noah Wyle and Kevin Bacon.
Despite the film’s serious tone, Pollack, 68, who played Lieutenant Sam Weinberg, recalled the on-set atmosphere being laid-back and “very loose.”
“Jack [Nicholson] would absolutely mess with Tom [Cruise] while Tom was coming in for the kill in the courtroom,” the actor told People in a new interview.
During the movie’s famous courtroom scenes, including Cruise’s now-iconic “I want the truth” scene, Pollak recalled that Nicholson stood just off camera, making funny faces at Cruise in an attempt to get him to break character.
However, the Mission Impossible star managed to get through the takes without breaking once, as Nicholson had hoped. Instead, Cruise gave his co-star a light-hearted punch on the shoulder, which “Jack loved,” according to Pollak.
The Oscar-nominated movie was an adaptation of Aaron Sorkin’s hit 1989 Broadway play of the same name.
Last year, Cruise described his experience working alongside Nicholson on the film as “extraordinary.”
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“I remember the Nicholson scene when we were in the courtroom, suddenly I’m looking around and the rafters were filled,” Cruise said during a May 2025 panel at the British Film Institute. “We were making movies in LA at that point, and the rafters were filled and people were coming in just to see the scene and the town knew.
“We were shooting it, and they would come just to see the scene. To see us go at it,” he added. “People, people were kind of surrounding and filling the rafters around just to, just to watch Nicholson and I go at it. It was magnificent to watch him and see what a wordsmith he is, you know, like a great crooner.”
Cruise marveled at Nicholson’s ability to “carve up the dialogue and make it his own, find his own stillness,” hailing The Shining star as “very generous, an actor’s actor.”
“He is off camera the whole time just feeding, feeding me and very supportive,” Cruise explained. “He’d be like, ‘That was a good take Tommy, nice work Tommy.’ He’s just really lovely and he just loved it.”