"What, pussy? How do YOU hotbox?"

FilmDrunk alter-ego Nick Nolte recently sat down for an interview with Movieline, and to my delight, it was awesomely Nick Nolte-ish.Whether it’s narrowly escaping a house fire, rummaging through trash cans looking for his satchel filled with beer and Xanex, or using “read a line” as a euphemism for snorting coke off his scripts, at 70 years old, Nick Nolte is still an unkillable machine of pure mischief, a human one-eared raccoon. He stars in this weekend’s Warrior, and from the sound of it, he spent the whole shoot raisin’ hell and not givin’ a f*ck like it was his job, because it basically is.

ML: Did you have a local bar where you did your drinking?
NOLTE: No, I had this assistant and she had a boyfriend who was a little… [Pauses] Mixed-up. The assistant was a little mixed-up too. We had been rehearsing a week and I said to her, “Should we do the right thing and go home? Or do we do the wrong thing and go to a club and meet up with your boyfriend? I’ll leave it up to you.”ML: Oh no!

NOLTE: That was a terrible thing to do. Of course she said, “Let’s meet with Bobby.” We meet with Bobby even though I have to rehearse in the morning at 10 o’clock. Come 5 o’clock, we’re still at this apartment. There was booze and you know, other stuff. We rolled into rehearsal the next morning and I went straight to Gavin’s [O'Connor, the director] assistant and said, “Man, you wouldn’t believe the night I had. There was more cocaine there, more alcohol, this guy with tattoos all over him and rings, this girl who wanted to leave with me but she had been with him for 10 years and he was threatening to kill me. We barely got out of there alive.”

By “we” barely got out of there alive, I think he means everyone else, because everyone knows Nick Nolte cannot be killed by traditional methods. Nick Nolte stared death square in the face and spit tobacco juice on his robe.

In any case, I think “Booze and Other Stuff” would be a great title for Nick Nolte’s autobiography.

"Aw, hell."

Hollywood makes three MMA movies a month now, and it’s fair to assume that all of them will suck.  But Warrior stars Tom Hardy from Bronson, Nick Nolte from dumpster diving, and some guy who looks like Chael Sonnen, which is more than enough to put it ahead of that one with C-Tates, that other one with Cam Gigandet, and that one where Kevin James saves the rec center.  Which of course isn’t saying much.  Warrior comes from director Gavin O’Connor — who financed the MMA doc The Smashing Machine, so you know he knows the material — and previously directed Miracle, so you know he’s kind of a cheeseball.

Haunted by a tragic past, ex-Marine Tommy Conlon (Hardy) returns home for the first time in fourteen years to enlist the help of his father (Nick Nolte) to train for SPARTA, the biggest winner-takes-all event in mixed martial arts history. A former wrestling prodigy, Tommy blazes a path toward the championship while his brother, Brendan (Edgerton), an ex-fighter-turned teacher, returns to the ring in a desperate bid to save his family from financial ruin. But when Brendan’s unlikely, underdog rise sets him on a collision course with the unstoppable Tommy, the two brothers must finally confront each other and the forces that pulled them apart, facing off in the most soaring, soul stirring, and unforgettable climax that must be seen to be believed.

Tom Hardy is great, and I’d like nothing more than for us to take our shirts off, get greased up, and bump athletic cups for two or three hours while I school him in crotch-jitsu (it’s all in the thrusting).  But just because it doesn’t have Kevin James in it doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend it sounds good. It sounds like a Nick Sparks novel set in the world of MMA.  The dark secrets, the former prodigy, the estranged family — the only thing missing is someone turning down a fancy scholarship. “I COULDA HAD IT ALL, TAWMMY! I COULDA BEEN FOIST ACCORDION AT DUKE, BUT I TOINED IT ALL DOWN TA TAKE CAYUH OF YA DEAD MUDDAH!”

I also saw Sonnen's Team Quest teammate Matt Lindland in there, so I don't think I'm imagining the resemblance

"COME ON, TOMMY! ALL MOVIE FIGHT TRAINAHS WEAR THESE HATS!"

Nick Nolte has joined the cast of Warrior, Gavin O’Connor’s MMA movie.  Nolte will play the ex-boxer, recovering alcoholic father of MMA fighters Tom Hardy (Bronson) and Joel Edgerton, who are destined to meet in the ring.  Here is O’Connor’s insanely thorough synopsis (feel free to skip it, I’ve already told you all you really need to know):

“The movie is about two estranged brothers that haven’t seen each other in 14 years, and they come back together and they are both mixed martial arts fighters. One of them, when we meet him, is a schoolteacher who is married. He has three little girls. His wife had a heart transplant so he is massively in debt. He starts fighting in what is called “Smokers.” They [happen] all over the country. There are guys [fighting] in parking lots in cages, and you can walk away with a couple of thousand dollars. The other brother we discover is AWOL from the Marines, and he has been arrested in Mexico and thrown in prison. Being a gringo in a Mexican prison wasn’t very easy, so he had to defend himself. The guy is an animal and was kicking everyone’s ass, and he became known as the king of this prison. Some guy got him out, and he traveled all around Mexico fighting these underground fights. And he ends up leaving there and going to see his father. Fourteen years before, he and his mother had left while the other brother and the father stayed. The father was an alcoholic and an emotionally abusive man, a Vietnam vet, ex-Golden Gloves fighter who taught his kids how to fight at a very young age. And the kid, Tommy, goes back to see his dad. Tommy is drinking now and [is a] pill popper. He comes home, and his father is a thousand days sober and is living a very different life. The story is about healing and forgiveness [and f-cking people up in the ring! -Ed.]. There is a tournament called “Sparta” for the heavy weight championship of the world of mixed martial arts. It is a $5 million purse, and it is a 16-man grand prix tournament. And these two brothers are on a collision course to fight each other for the heavy weight championship of the world. And everything about their relationship, their past and their future is dealt with by communicating through violence.” [Premiere Magazine via CagePotato]

According to my exclusive sources, Nolte recently watched his first MMA fight in order to prepare for the role. “Wait, ya mean they can’t use tire irons?” he reportedly asked friends.  “That’s how my sister fights.”