Before choosing Jack Nicholson for the role, director Stanley Kubrick considered hiring Robin Williams to play the main character, Jack Torrance, in the horror film “The Shining.”
Casting the actors is one of the most important facets of making a film, and a subject movie fans never tire of speculating about. It is rumored, for example, that comedian Robin Williams was considered for the lead role of the crazed Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film “The Shining,” which ultimately starred Jack Nicholson in the role.
In January 2023, we were asked by a reader if the claim that Williams was passed up for the role is correct. According to the best source we can find — the Twitter account managed by Kubrick’s estate, it is.
Among the places we found the claim repeated (though unsourced) was the user-submitted trivia section of IMDb’s entry on “The Shining,” where it is alleged that Robert DeNiro and Harrison Ford were also considered for the part:
Stanley Kubrick considered Robert De Niro and Robin Williams for the role of Jack Torrance, but decided against them. Kubrick did not think De Niro would suit the role after watching his performance in Taxi Driver (1976), as he deemed De Niro not psychotic enough for the role. He did not think Williams would suit the role after watching his performance on Mork & Mindy (1978), as he deemed him too psychotic for the role. According to Stephen King, Kubrick also briefly considered Harrison Ford.
It also appears (again unsourced) in “The Amazing Book of Movie Trivia” (2015) by Jack Goldstein:
Stanley Kubrick put a great deal of thought into who to cast as Jack in The Shining. He first considered Robert De Niro, but after watching Taxi Driver, he didn’t think he was psychotic enough. He then thought about Robin Williams, but having watched Mork and Mindy, Kubrick thought he came across as a little too psychotic. In the end, he cast Jack Nicholson, who displayed just the right amount of madness.
And the claim is repeated, unsourced, on the website ScreenRant, as well:
When casting Jack Torrance for The Shining, director Stanley Kubrick considered Robin Williams at one point; the story goes that Kubrick was set on Williams until he watched an episode of the actor’s TV series at the time, Mork and Mindy, and found the actor “too psychotic” for the role, casting Jack Nicholson instead.
Our search for a reliable source eventually took us to the official @StanleyKubrick Twitter account, which is operated by the estate of the late film director. Although it addresses none of the auxiliary details mentioned above (such as the claim that Kubrick found Williams “too psychotic,” etc.), a Sept. 5, 2019, tweet from that account states that Williams, Ford, and De Niro were indeed all at one time or another considered for the role of Jack Torrance in “The Shining”:
Sources:
Albinder, Cole. “10 Actors Almost Cast as Horror Villains.” ScreenRant, 27 Mar. 2020, https://screenrant.com/actors-almost-cast-as-horror-villains/.
Goldstein, Jack. The Amazing Book of Movie Trivia. Andrews UK Limited, 2015.
“https://Twitter.Com/Stanleykubrick/Status/1169649778973655047.” Twitter, https://twitter.com/stanleykubrick/status/1169649778973655047. Accessed 16 Jan. 2023.
The Shining (1980) – IMDb. www.imdb.com, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/trivia. Accessed 16 Jan. 2023.