The film doesn't take a specific attitude to drugs; it just says that there's a terrible price to pay. And I know that price 
When illness forced Alan Bates to drop out of Clean two weeks before the start of shooting, the film's French director Olivier Assayas recruited Nick Nolte to take his place. He could not have chosen more appropriately. As someone who has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for most of his adult life, Nolte knew instinctively how to play a man who helps a recovering heroin addict (Maggie Cheung) get a second chance at life.
Your own problems with drugs and alcohol are well known. Did you identify with Maggie's journey in the film?
Well, I've been on both sides of the situation. There's a place for drugs, no question about it. It's when you use them to get rid of psychological pain. They'll cut you away from difficulties and sometimes it's necessary, because things can happen to us that are so shocking we just can't assimilate them. So, you know, the film doesn't take a specific attitude; it just says that there's a terrible price to pay. And I know that price.
What was the price you personally paid?
Did you see my last mug shot? I have two famous head shots. The first one is for selling counterfeit government documents. I sold draft cards in the 60s; they were blank so you could change the date. Trouble was every card had one serial number because I couldn't afford the price of changing the serial number, and I got caught. So there's that head shot. And then there's my latest head shot [from his driving under the influence conviction in 2002]. God bless Winona [Ryder], because she pulled off her stunt and that took the pressure off me.
What were the events that led to this latest mug shot. Hadn't you been clean for a while?
I had just finished the Hulk - if you remember the film, my hair was wild and stuff. I was winding out of the film and I had a specific problem, I had been drinking [the so-called date-rape drug] GHB. I don't think many people like to do it because it's a mild high, but I'm peculiar. It was my daily drink. I could function well. Once in a while I'd take a drop too much and fall asleep. So I'd fall asleep in Union Park, or on a bench in Toronto, and you just had to wait a couple of hours and then I'd wake up. But, you know, it started just as a casual thing. I was clean, but then it becomes part of your life. And then when it comes to put it aside, you can't do it.
So you had been trying to get off it?
Yeah, I went to an AA meeting that morning but I just didn't want to go in. I was in a bit of denial. Then instead of going home the back route, which was only four or five blocks away, I went right down on Pacific Coast Highway, and when they picked me up, when I was finally conscious enough to know they were blaring their horns, I said, "The jig is up." I was quite willing to go. In fact they commented, they said, "You like it in here better than out there," and I said, "Oh yeah."
You went into rehab. How well do you think Clean deals with the experience of coming off a drug?
It was really interesting because Maggie has never done drugs, and Olivier knows people that have done drugs, but I don't think he's ever had a serious bout with them. The thing is the film is so patient at waiting for the pay off that it is actual truth; it's only after you're off the drugs that you really understand what you've been through. He holds the audience until she finishes that record, goes outside to have a cigarette, and then she just breaks down. That rings so true. Because when you're in the process of all of that, you don't know yet how far removed from consciousness and reality you've been. It's only after you're totally clean that all of this gratefulness comes up, and it comes up in the form of tears, because you feel yourself like you were when you were a kid.
Did your personal history affect the way you played Albrecht?
Oh sure. I think that's one of the things that give Albrecht the patience, the ability to be a little wise, in the situation. I think if the person didn't have that experience he would be much more frustrated with this person, and wouldn't even begin to give his forgiveness. So it helped tremendously. It skewed the character a little bit. It surprised Olivier, I think. But I couldn't help but go that way because that was my base knowledge. And it works out quite well. He becomes a very cathartic character for Maggie. If Albrecht had been a little cold, I don't think you would have felt for Maggie as much.
Clean is released in UK cinemas on Friday 1st July 2005.
