Robin Williams Wasn’t Almost Cast in ‘The Shining’, but Jack Nicholson Did Have One Surprising Backup

The internet never ceases to regurgitate the same old questionable “facts” about celebrities without anyone giving them a second thought. One such bit of trivia you might’ve heard at some point is that Robin Williams was considered for the Jack Nicholson role in the 1980 Stanley Kubrick classic The Shining. The reason you might’ve heard this is that people have repeated it over and over and over again—without citing any reputable sources, we might add.

Other big-name actors who were supposedly up for the part as well include Robert De Niro and Harrison Ford (or so it’s been said).

As for why these legendary performers missed out on the opportunity, legend has it that Kubrick thought Williams was too psychotic, whereas De Niro didn’t come across as psychotic enough. It’s unclear where the rumors originated, but surely they must be true, right? After all, they sound a little too believable for people to have just made up. Hell, even the official Kubrick Twitter account operated by the late director’s estate has presented the information as factual:

Robin Williams Was Never Really Up for ‘The Shining’, and Stanley Kubrick’s Actual Backup Pick Was Wild

However, according to Lee Unkrich, who was granted access to material from both the Kubrick Archive and Warner Bros. for his 2023 book Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, none of these claims is true. You see, as it turns out, Nicholson had actually been cast by Kubrick in 1977. At that time, Williams only had a handful of credits to his name; he wouldn’t become well-known until the following year, when he starred on Mork & Mindy. Williams was also far too young to play Jack Torrance back then (he was only 26, while Nicholson had just turned 40). 

Furthermore, with Kubrick’s previous film, Barry Lyndon, being a box-office disappointment, he was looking for a hit and wouldn’t have considered an unknown actor for The Shining even if Williams had been on his radar. Kubrick had been wanting to work with Nicholson for quite a while, and the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest star was his number-one choice. Unkrich’s research turned up no evidence of De Niro or Ford having ever been considered, either. Evidently, there was just one backup choice if things didn’t work out with Nicholson, and that was—interestingly enough—Kris Kristofferson.

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