“I can’t tell you how much”: the role that got away and how it haunted Jack Nicholson for the rest of his career
Jack Nicholson‘s biggest career disappointment is the film that he didn’t make.
There may not be another actor in cinematic history who is more successful than Nicholson, as he has more Academy Award nominations than any other male star, and has appeared in many films that are considered to be some of the best ever made. He is a true chameleon who can work within many different genres and has transformed himself physically in order to get into character. In addition to working with many of the most influential directors, he has often been a major creative force in the films that he has starred in.
Perhaps the other biggest reason for Nicholson’s success is that he has always been selective and rarely missed with the films he appeared in. While he isn’t as picky as an actor like Daniel Day-Lewis or Leonardo DiCaprio, he only appeared in films that had a good shot at being successes, resulting in a very consistent filmography. There are few films he has appeared in that are flat-out ‘bad’, and even fewer that haven’t been successful in one form or another.
Nicholson’s investment in the films he appeared in also meant that his ambitions occasionally overstepped reality. Although he had played such compelling historical figures as Jimmy Hoffa and Eugene O’Neill, his greatest dream was to play Napoleon Bonaparte. He had acquired the rights to the 1982 non-fiction novel The Murder of Napoleon, but the film never materialised for various reasons involving scheduling, financing, and directorial interest.
“I can’t tell you how much I would like to make a movie about him and how maddening it is not to be able to,” Nicholson said.
Napoleon is a subject whose life would seemingly be ripe for adaptations, and there have been notable efforts over the course of film history, with the 1927 Russian silent epic Napoléon unable to screen properly for many years before a restoration finally salvaged the best four-hour cut of the film. However, Nicholson saw a Napoleon film as something that could stand the test of time and go down as perhaps the greatest role of his career. He had long planned to make the film with Stanley Kubrick attached as the director, and had even gotten as far as storyboarding and scripting what the potential feature would be.
Kubrick was the ideal choice to direct, as he had always had a fascination with complex, morally dubious anti-heroes. In addition to creating one of the greatest European war epics of all-time with Barry Lyndon, Kubrick had also formed a tight relationship with Nicholson based on their experiences making The Shining together. While the set of the Stephen King adaptation was infamously stressful, Kubrick and Nicholson rarely clashed with each other.
There sadly came a point when Nicholson had aged out of being able to play the role, and Kubrick’s creative process became more challenging; he had poured his life’s work into his final film, Eyes Wide Shut, and left Steven Spielberg to direct the plans that they had developed for the film AI Artificial Intelligence.
A true Napoleon film would ultimately emerge with another major director and star attached when Ridley Scott directed Joaquin Phoenix in the 2023 film, Napoleon, but the parallels between Nicholson and Phoenix are fascinating too, with both Academy Award winners and both landing the biggest hits of their respective careers by playing the Joker.
