Duke Nicholson on Carving His Own Path and Lessons From Grandpa Jack

For nearly 10 years, Duke Nicholson — the 26-year-old grandson of Hollywood icon Jack Nicholson — has hovered at the edges of the movie business, quietly shaping his own path as both an actor and aspiring director while nurturing a hardcore obsession with classic film. He’s occasionally popped up in unexpected places — such as the cover model of Lana Del Rey’s 2019 hit album Norman Fucking Rockwell!, on the Venice Film Festival red carpet alongside Oscar Isaac and Jason Momoa in support of his role in Julian Schnabel’s In the Hand of Dante, or as a memorably creepy carny in Jordan Peele’s Us — but with The Deputy, a gritty, darkly comic crime thriller directed by longtime friend and collaborator Matt Sukkar, Nicholson takes center stage for the first time.

Based on Victor Gischler’s novel and scripted by Narcos and Griselda co-creator Carlo Bernard, the film follows hapless part-time lawman…