“I said, ‘Well, you know what? I’m talented, and someday you’re going to be sorry,’” Cher replied.

Cher reveals the harsh advice Mike Nichols gave her at the start of her acting career

"I said, 'Well, you know what? I'm talented, and someday you're going to be sorry,'" Cher replied.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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May 19, 2026 10:39 p.m. ET

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Mike Nichols and Cher in Culver City, Calif., in 2010. Credit:

Kevin Winter/Getty

- Cher says Mike Nichols shared sharp words at the beginning of her career when she sought him out for an audition.

- "Cher, there's only two kinds of women, and you're not the right one," the "Turn Back Time" singer recalls Nichols telling her.

- "I said, 'Well, you know what? I'm talented, and someday you're going to be sorry.'"

Don't ever underestimate Cher.

The eternal pop icon stopped by the *The Howard Stern Show** *on May 16 for a wide-ranging interview covering her music career, transformation into a screen star, family life, lovers, haters, and more. Given Cher's widely embraced eminence nowadays as an actress, it's hard to imagine a time when that part of her range wasn't taken seriously. It's especially hard to believe that the man who would go on to direct her in her first Oscar-nominated role was also one of her first doubters.

"I was with [David Geffen] at the time when I started trying to get an audition, and we had all these friends, high as you can go — nobody wanted to," Cher explained. Then she went to Mike Nichols.

Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, and Cher in 'Silkwood'. Everett Collection

"I went to Mike Nichols because he was doing a movie, and I said, 'I'd like to audition for the part,'" the "Believe" singer recalled. "He said, 'Cher, there's only two kinds of women, and you're not the right one.'"

Host Howard Stern asked incredulously if Nichols even afforded Cher the "courtesy of an audition," to which she replied, "No." But she still described *The Graduate *director as "sweet, because that's who he was. He said, 'But I'll keep you in mind.' I said, 'Well, you know what? I'm talented, and someday you're going to be sorry.'"

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Fortunately for Nichols, he came to see and understand Cher's talent before she had the chance to prove him wrong in someone else's movie.

Cher played herself in a couple frothy hippie movies in the mid-1960s, including 1967's *Good Times*, which marked William Friedkin's directorial debut. But she began to seek out meaty film roles in earnest at the top of the '80s, proving herself to anyone had the sense to see Robert Altman's 1982 adaptation of the path-breaking Ed Graczyk play, *Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean*.

Nichols cast Cher as plutonium plant worker Dolly Pelliker opposite Meryl Streep in the following year's *Silkwood*, a dramatization of the Howard Kohn book *Who Killed Karen Silkwood?*, which explored the suspicious death of the nuclear energy whistleblower and labor rights activist played by Streep. Both actresses were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances.

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Cher told Stern that she had two famous supporters early on, who helped encourage her take acting seriously. One was Francis Ford Coppola ("I still love him so much"), and the other was Shelley Winters, who offered Cher the following bit of no-nonsense advice: "If you want to be serious, and you want to be an actress, get your ass to New York."

You can watch Cher's full appearance on *The Howard Stern Show *above.

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