WILD JACK.

Byline: -- Bob Strauss

Everybody loves Jack. Everybody dreams of working with Jack.

Heck, it even took Martin Scorsese, the greatest American director of their generation, all these years to get Jack Nicholson to appear in one of his movies.

As for ``The Departed's'' younger actors, facing off against the 69-year-old Hollywood legend was a dream come true, right?

Right. With a condition or two.

``(It was) my first day of working with Jack, and I got a call from Marty the night before,'' Matt Damon recalls. ``He said that Jack had kind of gone off the reservation in terms of what we were gonna be doing the next day.

``He said, `Listen. Jack's bringing a (sex toy) to work.' Pause. `Yeah, but try it.'''

The scene is not as nasty as you think, just an exchange between a mob boss and his informant.

It did take place at a porn theater, though.

``Jack just had this incredible quality of inventiveness,'' Damon tries to explain. ``And he really pushed it with every scene. That scene in the movie theater, he just showed up and said, `Here's what I'm gonna do: I'm gonna put the (toy) on and open up the coat, and you're gonna look at me -- and it's gonna be great.'

``And that was my first day of working with Jack.''

Believe it or not, Leonardo DiCaprio had an even more alarming encounter with Nicholson.

``I remember doing a scene one way, and then I came in the next day and the prop guy told me, `Well, be careful: He's got a fire extinguisher, a gun, some matches and a bottle of whiskey,''' the ``Titanic'' star reports. ``So I'm sitting across the table from a guy playing a homicidal maniac that will maybe light me on fire. But it gives you ... I don't want to say, as an actor, a sense of fear ... but your character has a whole new dynamic.''

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no caption (Jack Nicholson)