Why Sarah Paulson refused to work with a CGI Jack Nicholson
CGI has come a long way since it first appeared on our screens. This technology is a staple of modern cinema, typically used in action, adventure and sci-fi movies to conjure up creatures or dramatic scenes like explosions. Sometimes, CGI is used so subtly that you won’t even notice it, allowing filmmakers to execute their often extensive and decadent visions more easily.
The first use of CGI in film appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 movie Vertigo. The classic movie used computer-generated animation during its opening credits, created by pioneering CGI animator John Whitney. The first entirely computer-animated film, however, wouldn’t emerge until 1995 when Disney Pixar released Toy Story.
Many films incorporate CGI in the form of certain characters, like Casper in the 1995 movie of the same name, who became the first lead character to be entirely computer-generated. In recent years, many filmmakers have used CGI to de-age characters or replicate a character’s likeness, something that often receives a lot of criticism or media fanfare, such as Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, which de-aged iconic actors like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
Only a handful of movies have used CGI to emulate the likeness of another actor, such as the Star Wars franchise, which used body doubles and CGI to recreate the late Carrie Fisher in certain scenes. In 2019, there was a public outcry when iconic actor James Dean, who died in 1955, was posthumously cast in a new film. The idea seems preposterous and ethically dubious, and due to the subsequent backlash, the film was scrapped.
A year later, a series called Ratched, based on the character of the same name from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, debuted on Netflix. The show, according to Netflix, was “the origin story of asylum nurse Mildred Ratched,” with American Horror Story icon Sarah Paulson playing the character.
However, there were plans for the second season of the show to include a CGI version of Jack Nicholson, who played the main character, Randle Patrick ‘R.P.’ McMurphy, in Miloš Forman’s original 1975 film. The idea was not received well by Paulson, who thought it questionable.
This never came to fruition because the show was cancelled after one season, but Paulson would’ve likely argued against this addition if a second season was commissioned. She told The Wrap, “I certainly don’t want to see me acting opposite a computer-generated Jack Nicholson.”
The potential plan was for the second season to situate the character in the same era as the original film; however, Paulson added, “I don’t think that sounds like a good idea. So I think if we end up in that era, it would be more about what Nurse Ratched’s life was when she turned the key in her white uniform, coming back into her house from those days at the hospital with all those events that happened there.”
While Jack Nicholson has previously experienced de-ageing when he appeared as a younger version of himself in a flashback scene of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, a full CGI version of himself has never seen the light of day. Probably for the best.
