A list of the most memorable performances of all time is incomplete without mentioning Jack Nicholson’s role as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick. the splendor. There is no more iconic cinematic descent into madness than the one he delivers in film, and it’s hard to imagine what the film would be like without his particular acting wizardry. Unsurprisingly, this was a perspective Kubrick shared in developing the film (hence the casting), but the legendary filmmaker had one other name he saw as a fallback option: Kris Kristofferson.
This interesting anecdote about the splendor born from a myth recently shattered by slopes. The website analyzed a widely circulated story that Robin Williams was among the actors Stanley Kubrick considered stunt doubles to play Jack Torrance, and director Lee Unkrich gave them the truth.
Unkrich, A Light superfan who has co-written a forthcoming book about the film for TASCHEN (opens in a new tab), explained in an email to Snopes that Robin Williams wasn’t shortlisted to play Jack Torrance because A) he wasn’t a big enough star and B) he was too young for the role. When Kubrick began developing the film in 1977 (the same year 40-year-old Jack Nicholson was cast), the early days of Mork and Mindy It was still a year away and Williams, 27, was far from the household name he eventually became.
Getting a star to play Jack Torrance was essential for Stanley Kubrick, as one of the main reasons he accepted the splendor as a project, it was because I needed to make a film that was commercially successful. Lee Unkrich explains,
After the box office disappointment of his previous film, Barry Lyndon, Kubrick was in desperate need of success and chose The Shining in an attempt to make a more commercial film. Kubrick had wanted to work with Nicholson for a long time (they had been discussing a Napoleon biopic), and when Nicholson called Kubrick to ask what he was working on, Kubrick told him about The Shining.
In researching his aforementioned book, Lee Unkrich learned information from Warner Bros. that Kris Kristofferson was Stanley Kubrick’s only backup option, and that was just her name.
Kris Kristofferson isn’t considered a Jack Nicholson-level movie star today, but by the 1970s, he had amassed quite an impressive acting resume, including three films by Sam Peckinpah, the Martin Scorsese Alice no longer lives hereand 1976 A star was born with Barbara Streisand. And, of course, it was about a decade after he established himself as a beloved songwriter.
It’s an interesting anecdote in part because it gives insight into Stanley Kubrick’s mind, but it also makes you wonder how the casting choice might have affected Stephen King’s relationship with the film. The author has criticized the film in many ways over the years, but one of the most significant has been his assessment of Jack Nicholson’s performance. He described Nicholson’s Jack Torrance as having no arc, but rather a “flat line”.
If it is possible that Stanley Kubrick asked Kris Kristofferson to give a performance similar to the one we see from Nicholson in the splendor, it’s also possible that Kristofferson played the softer side of the character differently, perhaps as a better representation of who Jack Torrance is on the page. Unfortunately, we won’t know the answer until multiverse travel is invented and we get a glimpse of an alternate reality where this launch took place.
For more information on Stanley Kubrick the splendoryou can read my Stephen King adaptation column on the film and head over to our ranking of the best Stephen King movies of all time.
Source: Cinemablend
