Love, not politics, tops Nicholson's "bucket list"

Actor Jack Nicholson poses at a news conference to promote his movie ''The Bucket List'' in Tokyo April 30, 2008.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Standing in the shower before the Tokyo premiere of his movie "The Bucket List," Jack Nicholson contemplated his own "bucket list" of last great goals, the three-time Oscar winner said on Wednesday.

Easing tensions between the West and Islam would be a political goal, the actor said, but it was having "one last big love" that topped his list.

"Many of my friends, my own contemporaries, have said in their life that they would like one last big romance to occur, so that would be on my list also," the 71-year-old performer said.

"I thought in the shower today (that) it'd been many political things I'd like, but of course I'm not in control of that."

Nicholson, who stars in the movie along with Morgan Freeman, another septuagenarian Oscar-winner, said he did not have a formal list of things to do before he dies, or 'kicks the bucket', as the cliche has it, but offered the ideas as examples.

In the film Nicholson and Freeman play cancer patients who share the same cramped hospital room and same incurable disease.

Nicholson plays the millionaire owner of a hospital chain whose two patients to every room motto sees him assigned to a room with Freeman, the black owner of a garage who had to drop out of college early to support his family.

Freeman's character has the idea of making a "bucket list" of all the things he'd like to do before dying, and Nicholson finances the trip for both of them as their friendship blossoms.

During the trip, the pair go sky-diving, visit the Pyramids and the Serengeti in Africa and dine in fine restaurants.

Reuters/Nielsen