Let A be a unital ∗-algebra with characteristic not 2 and containing a nontrivial projection. We show that each nonlinear ∗-Lie derivation on A is a linear ∗-derivation. Moreover, we characterize nonlinear left ∗-Lie centralizers and nonlinear generalized ∗-Lie derivations. These results are applied to standard operator algebras and von Neumann algebras in complex Hilbert spaces, which generalize some known results.