Every iconic movie role Jack Nicholson turned down
If Jack Nicholson harboured any regrets from his career, then it stands to reason that he wouldn’t have quietly retired in 2012 because it’s not like his powers were even showing the slightest sign of beginning to wane.
Of course, he accomplished more than most during a legendary career that was as memorable on-screen as it was away from the cameras, with the three-time Academy Award winner enshrined in history as one of Hollywood’s most monolithic performers.
Being one of the biggest stars and finest actors in the business inevitably leads to agents and studios making plenty of offers that end up being rebuffed for many reasons, and Nicholson was no different in that regard.
He played plenty of iconic characters as it was, but had the dominoes fallen even slightly differently; he could have ended up playing a whole lot more.
10 roles Jack Nicholson turned down:
10. Luke Martin (Coming Home, Hal Ashby, 1978)
Nicholson had already worked with legendary director Hal Ashby on 1973’s The Last Detail, for which he earned an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Actor’. If he hadn’t declined a reunion, though, he could have gone one better.
After turning down the opportunity, Jon Voight was brought in to play the wheelchair-bound veteran who strikes up a romance with Jane Fonda after she volunteers at the local veterans hospital. Unfortunately, complications arise when her husband returns home from Vietnam, placing her in the midst of a love triangle.
Voight ended up winning the Oscar for ‘Best Actor’ in the ‘Best Picture’ nominee, and it’s not difficult to imagine Nicholson doing the exact same had he not decided there were better uses of his time than Coming Home.
9. Sy Parrish (One Hour Photo, Mark Romanek, 2002)
Playing against type in the most sinister fashion, Robin Williams chilled viewers to the bone as the obsessive Sy Parrish, who becomes a little too attached to the family he’s watched grow up photographically.
It’s one of the finest performances of the comic and actor’s career, but director Mark Romanek revealed on the audio commentary accompanying the movie’s home video release that he initially approached Nicholson for the part.
However, the star felt it was a touch too similar to The Shining‘s Jack Torrance, and the door was opened for Williams to descend into an unnerving spiral of infatuation instead.
8. Roy Neary (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg, 1977)
It’s a missed opportunity for cinema that Nicholson and Steven Spielberg never had the chance to work together, with Close Encounters of the Third Kind struggling in general to find a suitable leading man.
While Nicholson may have declined due to scheduling conflicts, Richard Dreyfuss only ended up with the part because he effectively badgered Spielberg for so long that he eventually relented and reunited with his Jaws compatriot.
Steve McQueen, Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, and Dustin Hoffman all knocked it back, too, so it’s not as if Nicholson was alone in being unconvinced by Spielberg’s follow-up to the shark attack thriller that changed the industry forever.
7. Willie T. Soke (Bad Santa, Terry Zwigoff, 2003)
A firm favourite of the alternative Christmas viewing schedule, Billy Bob Thornton was admittedly pitch-perfect as the rampaging and unfeeling drunk at the centre of the raucous comedy Bad Santa.
The concept initially came from the minds of the Coen brothers, who remained on board as executive producers, but it was those pesky scheduling conflicts that deprived audiences of the chance to see Nicholson as the booze-soaked mall Santa with an axe to grind.
The actor read the script and was impressed with what he discovered, but having already committed to shooting rom-com Something’s Gotta Give during the planned production timeframe, he ruled himself out of the race.
6. Norman Dale (Hoosiers, David Anspaugh, 1986)
One of the greatest sports movies ever made, Gene Hackman thrived as failed college coach Norman Dale in the classic underdog story of misfits and malcontents being shaped into a winning side.
Unfortunately, according to director David Anspaugh, he was a right pain in the arse to deal with. When asked how long it took him to realise his leading man was going to be a problem, the filmmaker told Vulture that “the first scene on the first day” was all he required.
It wasn’t scheduling conflicts that ruled Nicholson out of this one, but legal issues, as Anspaugh explained. “Jack ended up loving the script so much that he said, ‘I have to play this character’. But then he got involved in a lawsuit with MGM and he wasn’t able to work for six months,” he shared of the star’s reasons for politely declining. “With Jack’s blessing, he said we could move on and Hackman came aboard.”
5. Raymond Babbitt (Rain Man, Barry Levinson, 1988)
It may have won Oscars for ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Actor’, and ‘Best Original Screenplay’, but getting Rain Man into production was a nightmare, one that was admittedly worth it in the end.
Steven Spielberg was set to direct before Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade regretfully forced him to drop out, and the original candidates for siblings Raymond and Charles Babbitt were real-life brothers Dennis and Randy Quaid.
Nicholson was just one of many to turn their nose up at Rain Man in the end, with Bill Murray, Mickey Rourke, and Mel Gibson just some of the other names to follow suit before Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise signed on the dotted line.
4. Johnny Hooker (The Sting, George Roy Hill, 1973)
Paul Newman and Robert Redford were already one of cinema’s most dynamic duos, but Nicholson could have ruined their reunion had he agreed to play Johnny Hooker in classic crime caper The Sting.
It would have made for an equally formidable double-act seeing him sharing the screen with Newman, and even though he confessed after the fact he was smart enough to know it was going to be a hit, he prioritised Chinatown and The Last Detail instead.
As he predicted, The Sting was indeed a massive hit, earning over $250million at the global box office and winning seven Oscars from ten nominations, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’.
3. Gordon Gekko (Wall Street, Oliver Stone, 1987)
A recurring trait of roles Nicholson turned down is that the people who end up playing them have a habit of winning Oscars, which was proven true once again when Michael Douglas scooped his ‘Best Actor’ gong.
Being an in-demand superstar and one of the best in the business means that Nicholson is either inundated with offers or tied up with other projects, which ended up ruling him out of Oliver Stone’s Wall Street.
Instead, he fulfilled his obligations to cult classic supernatural comedy The Witches of Eastwick and drama Ironweed, the latter of which ironically pitted him against Douglas in the ‘Best Actor’ race at that year’s edition of the Oscars.
2. Benjamin L. Willard (Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
The list of famous names who didn’t appear in Apocalypse Now is almost as lengthy as the one comprised of those who did end up taking a trip into the jungle with Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Sheen’s near-death experience does at least validate Nicholson’s rejection somewhat.
Steve McQueen baulked at the suggestion of being paid less than $3m to spend three weeks outside of America, while Al Pacino, Robert Redford, James Caan, Keith Carradine, Tommy Lee Jones, Clint Eastwood, and Nick Nolte were merely a smattering of the other stars under consideration.
It might have been one of the most torturous productions in the history of cinema, but Apocalypse Now emerged from the other side as one of the greatest movies ever made.
1. Michael Corleone (The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
Nicholson turned down both Apocalypse Now and The Godfather, but what often goes unnoticed is that he’d already worked with Francis Ford Coppola a decade before either of them.
The actor starred opposite horror icon Boris Karloff in Roger Corman’s The Terror in 1963, with the prolific producer’s assistant Coppola stepping in to direct the remainder of the film when funding issues and union membership rules made him unable to carry on helming a movie he was also producing.
Nicholson’s reasons for knocking back The Godfather are well-known, and combined with the fact the crime story is one of cinema’s most towering achievements, it’s the most iconic thing he’s ever declined.
