Celeb Kids
Nick Nolte Says It Was ‘Very Special’ Working Alongside 11-Year-Old Daughter Sophia Lane
Nick Nolte has been in the business almost 50 years. And he’s done it all in Hollywood, including reeling in three Oscar nominations. But working with his 11-year-old daughter is one moment he calls a “very special” experience.
The 77-year-old actor recently worked alongside his daughter Sophia Lane in a film titled Head Full of Honey, a remake of Til Schweiger’s German film about a grandfather with Alzheimer’s who goes on an adventure to Venice, Italy with his granddaughter. And if that doesn’t sound like a swift kick to the heart I don’t know what does. Nick revealed to PEOPLE how incredible working with Sophia truly was.
“I was quite surprised [that Sophia wanted to act] because I didn’t think that she was really that interested in films even though I’ve been an actor all of her life and she knew I made films but I didn’t know that she had paid really much attention to it,” Nick says. “She never looked like somebody that said, ‘Wow, I want to be an actor.’”
While Sophia didn’t have much acting experience, Nick quickly saw that perhaps Sophia had inherited his acting talent.
“What you saw in that film was a relationship between a father and a daughter and you don’t really get it in real life because parents have a little bit of love and a little bit of a disciplinarian attitude that kind of shuts downs that ‘I love you’ kind of thing,” Nick says. “We got some intimacy that’s just going to be precious for our memories…it was very special.”
Nick, who shares Sophia with actress Clytie Lane, says he worried the impact that filming highly emotional scenes would have on his daughter.
“That was a concern,” Nick explains. “I discussed that with her mother. [Sophia] doesn’t get affected with adulation or criticism. She really rides the middle of the road really well.” And that is why Nick would jump at the chance to ever work with Sophia again. “I’m almost 80 and I don’t want to retire, ever. I don’t know what I’d do,” Nick reveals. “If there came another film that I could do with my daughter, I’d do it in a second. Whether she would do it, I don’t know. I would never force her to do anything.”
Head Full of Honey is out now. You can also see Nick in Angel Has Fallen out next August. Angel Has Fallen is another sequel you didn’t ask for, but Gerard Butler will continue to make them until things stop falling.
