"There was a day that David was going to kill Michael," Nolte said during a recent interview. "I guess I shouldnt talk about this, but Ive heard it going around so I guess its not a secret. Its absolutely true. Michael hadnt turned the film in [for an episode] and David was livid. He said to John [Ortiz], who plays the other trainer on the show, Im going to go down to the editing room and Im going to kill Michael Mann."
Nolte continued: "The look on Milch's face was intense, and John was pretty upset and he says, David, you really dont want to do that. You dont have a gun, do you? And Milch tells him, No, I dont have a gun but I have a baseball bat and Im going to kill him. If Im not back in a few hours, get my lawyers on the phone. John was beside himself."
What happened next?
"An hour and a half later, Milch comes back and John asks him what happened," Nolte said. "Milch says something like, I went down there and kicked in the door and Mann was there hunched over the Avid [editing console] and he looked back at me and then he just kept working. Milch stood there for something like 15 minutes and Mann kept looking back every minute or two but he also kept working. And finally I guess Milch realized that Mann was working as fast as he could."
The actor said he later confirmed the incident with Milch and Mann and others on the "Luck" team. Nolte, who is no stranger to bare-knuckle, raw-behavior moments, shrugged it all off as just a bad day on "Luck" and, he added, everyone was fortunate it wasn't worse.
"If Michael had been sitting there eating a sandwich when Milch kicked in the door, well, it could have been bad," Nolte said with a raspy laugh.