He Was a 'Huge Part of My Life' (Exclusive): Lara Flynn Boyle Keeps in Touch With Ex Jack Nicholson

The star of the new movie 'Mother, Couch' also shoots down a rumor about how the Oscar winner first asked her out

Lara Flynn Boyle and Jack Nicholson are friendly exes.

The Mother, Couch actress, 54, and the three-time Oscar winner, 87, who dated on and off for a few years two decades ago, tells PEOPLE they still keep in touch, though she adds they don’t get together: “We’re not hanging out.” 

The iconic actor was “a huge part of my life,” she continues. “That is seven years of great times, it's seven years of wonderful.”

The two were first together from 1999 to 2001, and then were photographed together on vacation in St. Tropez in 2006, months before she met and married her husband, Texas real estate investor and developer Donald Ray Thomas.

As for how Nicholson is doing these days, Boyle says he’s “making magic.” Though the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest actor hasn’t appeared in a movie since 2010’s How Do You Know, Boyle says Nicholson is “never retired.”

“The world of Jack is always here. There's no retiring for the world of Jack. Never,” she adds cryptically.

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Prior to dating Nicholson, Boyle was involved with former Twin Peaks costar Kyle MacLachlan as well as Saturday Night Live alum David Spade.

In 2015, Spade told -

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Details, “Nicholson asked Lara Flynn Boyle out in front of me, while we were all smoking a doob somewhere.”

Spade added that Boyle “got mad” because he didn’t tell Nicholson to back down: “I said, ‘I’ve been in this town long enough to know when I’m outranked. You’re either gonna go out with him or you’re not.’ She goes, ‘No way. He’s worse than Trump!’ ”

Boyle, however, says Nicholson did not ask her out in front of Spade. “I think certain people like to embellish that for publicity,” she says. “That never happened. Never happened.”

The actress, who celebrates her 18th anniversary with her husband this year, says she never dated another Hollywood star after Nicholson. “I left with a bang when it came to actors,” she quips.

These days, she divides her time between Los Angeles and Texas, where Thomas is from. She credits the longevity of their relationship to “honesty, maturity, experience and respect.”

“A lot of it is growing up,” she continues. “A lot of it is when you're ready, and I've been so fortunate, I've had so many lovely gentleman callers. I have had a blast, and I have just met wonderful men to have time with and to learn with and grow with. It was just the right timing.”

Mother, Couch is in theaters in New York July 5 before expanding.

For more on Lara Flynn Boyle, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE.

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