Robert Forster received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in Jackie Brown. This was just the beginning of a phenomenal resurgence for Robert Forster. He has described his career as having "a five-year upwards first act and a twenty-five year sliding second act," but since his nomination, his third act has been non-stop schedule of theatrical and television projects.
Other recent film projects include Me, Myself and Irene co-starring with Jim Carrey and Rene Zellweger, Supernova, Outside Ozona, The Magic of Marciano with Nastassja Kinski, as well as the television update of Rear Window co-starring Christopher Reeves and The Klines with Mary Tyler Moore. — Official Press Kit
In 1966 Forster blazed onto the scene in his debut Reflections on a Golden Eye, co-starring Marlon Brando, Elisabeth Taylor and directed by John Huston. He followed this in 1968 with the seminal film Medium Cool, by Haskell Wexler in which he played a TV newsman whose carefully guarded objectivity is undercut by the events at the Democratic convention in Chicago.
What he didn't realize was that there would be two young directors anxious to cast him. One was Quentin Tarantino, who had wanted him for two earlier films but then insisted that Forster play the bail-bondsman in Jackie Brown with Pam Grier and Samuel L. Jackson. The second young director was Englishman Paul Chart, who wrote the role of Doctor Jake Nyman in the thriller American Perfekt with Forster in mind.
Trivia
Kate Forster, who plays the "ever-lovely" Martha Johnson in the audition scene, is actually the daughter of Robert Forster.