The one role Jack Nicholson always regretted never playing: “I don’t have as much of a problem as I did”
If Jack Nicholson thought there was anything else he hoped to accomplish in acting, he wouldn’t have retired. By extension, anyone with a legacy even remotely comparable to the one he left behind shouldn’t harbour too many regrets. And yet, there’s always one or two.
With three Academy Award wins and a record-setting 12 nominations to his name, Nicholson spent the majority of his career operating at the peak of his powers. Once Easy Rider set him on the path to mainstream superstardom, he never looked back, carving out a niche as a literal jack of all trades who could play any type of character in any kind of movie and make it look effortless.
Even when he aged out of typical leading man parts and settled into his groove as an elder statesman, he remained as in-demand as ever. His late-career pivot to comedy underlined that his star power hadn’t diminished either, with Anger Management, The Bucket List, and Something’s Gotta Give all making a pretty penny at the box office.
When it comes to passion projects, Henderson the Rain King was the one that got away. Nicholson optioned the rights to Saul Bellow’s novel and spent decades trying to drag it out of development hell, only to fall short at the most important hurdle: finding a financial backer willing to foot the bill for his ambitious adaptation of the book.
As it applies to roles, there was one he dreamed of for decades. When the latest feature-length spin on F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was first announced, with fellow ex-Roger Corman protégé Francis Ford Coppola penning the script, Nicholson viewed the production with envious eyes.
The part was offered to Marlon Brando, who was ruled out when it became clear his exorbitant salary demands would never be met. Unfortunately for Nicholson, Robert Redford lobbied hard for the title role and eventually got his wish, leaving the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest star feeling more than a touch jealous.
“I think I was righter than Bob Redford,” he told The New York Times in 1976, two years after the film’s release. “He looks like a privileged person. He would not worry about chopping his way up. He would not worry about being well-groomed. I don’t have as much of a problem as I did. Gatsby’s been hung on me since I was 20.”
He’d been dreaming of playing Jay Gatsby for almost 20 years when director Jack Clayton’s picture was announced, and he was adamant he’d do a much better job than Redford. Nicholson may have been right, considering the reception to the sprawling tale was lukewarm at best, with Redford hardly putting a definitive stamp on the character.
