How 9/11 transformed Jack Nicholson’s career: “I’m going over there to the clowns where I belong”
The New Hollywood era transformed the industry, allowing filmmakers with more subversive ideas to enter the mainstream. Inspired by European cinema’s tendency to take a considerably more lax attitude to depictions of sex, violence, and nihilism, as well as the relaxation of censorship, directors began creating works that more accurately reflected the cultural climate. Subverting the classic Hollywood happy ending trope, many movies ended with bloodshed and promoted a pessimistic view of America.
One of the biggest stars to emerge from this era was Jack Nicholson, who got his start in many of Roger Corman’s low-budget movies. After several years of working in the exploitation genre, Nicholson received recognition for his role in one of New Hollywood’s most defining pictures, Easy Rider. His small yet memorable role earned him a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nomination at the Academy Awards, and within a few years, he was appearing in more classic movies, which were far from family-friendly spectacles. From Five Easy Pieces to Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Nicholson’s first Oscar win), the actor was one of Hollywood’s most recognisable leading men.
He found further success in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, playing the deranged Jack Torrance, a struggling writer who turns into a cold-blooded psychopath while staying at the haunted Overlook Hotel as a caretaker. Brandishing an axe and menacingly delivering the iconic lines “Here’s Johnny!” Nicholson has perhaps become best known for the role, even if the movie was initially received less positively than it is now.
Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, Nicholson started to appear in more comedic roles, such as Terms of Endearment, Heartburn, The Witches of Eastwick and Mars Attack. However, he balanced these movies with a selection of more serious parts in films like A Few Good Men, Batman, Hoffa and Ironweed. But if you look at Nicholson’s credits from the 21st century, only Martin Scorsese’s The Departed stands out as a serious drama – everything else he has done falls into the comedy genre.
There’s a reason for this switch to exclusively humorous, light-hearted movies – sharply contrasting the kind of films that made him famous in the first place. In several interviews, Nicholson has revealed that it was 9/11 that made him take a step back from heavier roles. From the moment the planes flew into New York’s Twin Towers, America was never the same again. The terrorist attack killed 2,977 people, injuring and traumatising countless more. September 11th, 2001, was a horrific day, with people being forced to jump to their deaths from incredible heights, running for their lives as clouds of toxic smoke filled the air, and witnessing death and destruction in front of their eyes.
Nicholson was deeply affected by the event, and in a 2004 interview with Total Film, he revealed why it led him to work pretty much exclusively in the comedy genre. “The way I reacted to 9/11 was I decided I didn’t want to do any movies that are sad or critical,” he explained.
The actor added: “I decided I didn’t want to make my living depressing people or making them go home sick, so I just decided I wanted to do comedy for a while and study it for a while. It doesn’t mean everybody should do that, but that was my reaction.”
In the years following 9/11, Nicholson appeared in movies like Anger Management, a buddy cop film, and the romantic comedy Something’s Gotta Give. In another interview, this time with the BBC, he expanded on his 9/11-influenced switch to comedy. “I’m going over there to the clowns where I belong,” he declared.
