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Danny DeVito Gives Rare Update on Jack Nicholson, Says His Longtime Friend Is Doing 'Great'

Danny DeVito spoke to PEOPLE exclusively about 1975 film 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest' and staying in touch with costar and longtime friend Jack Nicholson: 'It was his birthday a month ago, and he's great.'

DeVito recalled how he and the other young actors in the Cuckoo’s Nest cast — including Christopher Lloyd and Brad Dourif — were quietly “in awe” of Nicholson when they convened at a working state sanitarium in Portland, Oregon, to shoot the film. “We're in the presence of this guy who's really at his moment, where he was breaking out into the big time,” DeVito recalled of the initial encounter with Nicholson, who was hot off a string of knockout turns including Easy Rider, Carnal Knowledge, The Last Detail and Chinatown. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest would go on to become only the second film in history, after 1934’s It Happened One Night, to claim all five major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Director (Milos Forman), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman).

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