Nicholson avoided film ‘Departed’ is based on

‘I wanted to concentrate on Scorsese’s movie’ says the actor

Julie Markes / AP

Jack Nicholson is shown during an interview in Beverly Hills, Ca., in Aug. 1990. Nicholson told a Hong Kong newspaper for Sunday Sept. 24, 2006 editions that he avoided watching the local crime thriller "Infernal Affairs" when he was shooting the Hollywood remake, "The Departed," directed by Martin Scorsese.

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updated 4:57 p.m. ET Sept. 24, 2006

HONG KONG - Actor Jack Nicholson told a Hong Kong newspaper that he avoided watching the local crime thriller “Infernal Affairs” when he was shooting the Hollywood remake, “The Departed,” directed by Martin Scorsese.

“I wanted to concentrate on Scorsese’s movie, and what it was going to become as we went through the process,” Nicholson was quoted as saying in the Sunday edition of the South China Morning Post.

“We were reconceiving as we went and, from the beginning, that’s what made this different,” he said.

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“Infernal Affairs,” which starred Cannes best actor winner Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Hong Kong heartthrob Andy Lau, is about a police officer who goes undercover in a Hong Kong gang and a local gangster who infiltrates the police.