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Home Actors (A..Z)
Jack Nicholson

 

  1. Michael Landon, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, 1957.   "Jack was the wrong type," said producer Herman Cohen. Like... not teenager or werewolf?
  2. Bruce Dern, The Trip, 1967.   Jack wrote Peter Fonda’s guide for himself, then lost a second role when Roger Corman had more faith in Jack as a writer. (His 1959 acting income came to: $1,900). His original script, said Dern, “was just sensational.” No hard feelings. When Nicholson called him for King of Marvin Gardens, Jack said: “Our kingdom has come, Dernsie.” Jack's certainly had. Dernsie's got lost in ensuing shuffles.
  3. Dustin Hoffman, The Graduate, 1967. Oh sure, very Jewish looking...
  4. Gene Hackman, Bonnie and Clyde, 1966.
  5. John Cassavetes, Rosemary's Baby, 1968. Laurence Harvey ached for it. But director Roman Polanski wanted an actor who looked an actor - and even TV-commercialish all-American. Hearing that description, Warren Beatty, Robert Redford backed off. Among those auditioning was "a complete unknown who'd played in some eminently forgettable horror films. For all his exceptional talents, his faintly rakish and sinister appearance disqualified him for the role of an upstanding, clean-cut, conventionally handsome young actor." Polanski was discussing... not John, but Jack!
  6. Franco Nero, Un tranquillo posto di campagna (UK: A Quiet Place in the Country), Italy-France, 1968. Maestro Elio Petri wanted Jack - didn’t everyone! - and settled for Nero as the burnt out  painter in what Pdtri called an “experimental” psychological horror movie. Nero suggested co-starring with his lover, “la Signorina Redgrave.” He made four films with Vanessa.  Nicholson was already pally with  Bertolucci at this point  and was working, six years later,  with Antonioni. Petri had met Jack and his early work (Ride The Whirlwind, The Shooting) on the ‘60s Euro festival circuit. Jack, however, was too busy - giving Head to The Monkees, and replacing Rip Torn in somethng called Easy Rider.
  7. Michael Burns, That Cold Day in the Park, 1969.   Too old, said director Robert Altman! Poor Jacko. Too old - and not yet a star - at 32! No matter, the Easy Rider bikes were parked around the next corner.
  8. Dennis Hopper, The Last Movie, 1971. "We had some conversations about it, but Dennis wanted to play the part himself."
  9. Dustin Hoffman, Straw Dogs, 1971.     No fan of movie violence, Hoffman confessed he accepted the milque-toast husband (also refused by Beau Bridges, Stacy Keach, Sidney Poitier) - just for the money.
  10. Robert Fields, The Sporting Club, 1971.   Director Larry Peerce tried hard to interest Jack in this close-up on power, corruption and hypocrisy in a rich man's paradise. The novel was by Thomas McGuane, who wrote Jack’s Missouri Breaks, 1976, and Peerce had directed Goodbye, Columbus, 1969, making a star of Ali McGraw, future wife of Jack Pack-er, producer Robert Evans.

  11. Jon Voight, Deliverance, 1972. Jack agreed - as long as his neighbour and idol, Brando, played the other role. “He said he despised acting,” said director John Boorman. “Acting was nothing more than mimicry - a bunch of tricks.” Even so, Brando agreed: “I’ll take whatever you pay Jack.” Great. Except Jack’s agent Sandy Bresler wanted what Warners was paying Redford for Jeremiah Johnson - $500,000. And that ruined the budget.
  12. Bruce Dern, King of Marvin Gardens, 1972.   Director Bob Rafelson switched his Staebler siblings - making Nicholson the introvert dee-jay and turning Dernsie into a riff on Jack as the expansive, older bro.
  13. Al Pacino, The Godfather, 1971.
  14. Edward Fox, Day of the Jackal, 1973.    Discussed it with gentleman director Fred Zinnemann in London. However, Fred preferred a more anonymous actor, got his way and that, as he would freely confess, seriously undermined the film’s box-office.
  15. Jason Miller, The Exorcist, 1973.
  16. Robert Redford, The Sting, 1973.     "I like it... the period setting, the whole project, and I know it will be commercial. But I need to put my energies into a movie that really needs them. I need to take a risk." And that was Billy "Bad Ass" Buddusky in The Last Detail, sitting upon a Columbia shelf until society caught up his and Robert Towne’s "bad language." Result: Best Actor at Cannes and the UK Oscar. "But not getting the Academy Award hurt real bad. That was my best role. How often does one like that come along, one that fits you?" Oh, at least twice more...
  17. Ryan O'Neal, Paper Moon, 1973.      Director Peter Bogdanovich always cast what he saw as versions of himself - except he was never Jack-cool. Paramount production chief Robert Evans suggested Jack (or Warren Beatty) when trying to nix O'Neal... who had been sleeping with Mrs Evans, Ali MacGraw.

  18. Robert Redford, The Great Gatsby.
    “The only really good role I’ve rejected - and I could kill myself - was Jay Gatsby... Since I was 18, people said I should do Gatsby. I didn’t really go after the part for well, personal reasons I don’t want printed.” Screenwriter Robert Towne recalled being on his tennis court when Paramount chief Robert Evans tried to talk Nicholson into playing Nick Carraway. Jack said: “Sure, I’d be happy to - as long as you re-title the movie Nick   & Jay.”

  19. Paul Newman, The Towering Inferno, 1974. Suggested by Steve McQueen as someone strong enough to hold his own against him.
  20. Michael Lonsdale, India Song, France, 1975.    French cinematographer Bruno Nuytten said Jack was approached by novelist Marguerite Duras to take the lead in this version of her book, The Vice-Consul..
  21. Paul Newman, Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, 1976. Revered director Robert Altman saw Bill Cody as the first movie star - "the first totally manufactured American hero and that's why we need a movie star."

  22. Robert De Niro, The Last Tycoon, 1976.
    His willingness to play the title role persuaded Paramount to agree a budget for director Mike Nichols.  When Elia Kazan made the film, Jack cameoed  as a union leader. Jack wanted to experience   Sam Spiegel (producer of his career’s major  influence, Lawrence of Arabia) and spurned the lead  for a “short part” - an East Coast labour leader out to unionise 30s’ Hollywood - for $150,000 and some action. Spiegel, who became a pal, provided plenty of that except money. “Certain  things you can do in a short part... A blind man with a Scottish accent who limps and is a yo-yo champion - you wouldn’t want to do for 311 scenes. But for three scenes it might be interesting.”

  23. David Carradine, Bound For Glory, 1976.     Hal Ashby’s first cholce - singer Tim Buckley ODed. So Ashby sent for his star of his abrasive Last Detail but Jack didn’t see himself as Woody Guthrie and suggested his true idol - Bob Dylan. Nicholson was more keen on another film that Ashby was being pushed to make - a book that Nicholson had tried to option at age 26 in 1963. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
  24. Donald Sutherland, Casanova, 1976.    In one year he'd passed on Buffalo Bill, Monroe Stahr, Woody Guthrie and now Giacomo... As per usual, maestro Federico Fellini played with the idea of superstars - Nicholson, Marlon Brando, Michael Caine, Al Pacino, even Robert Redford!! - before settling for a more parochial venture with, maybe, Alberto Sordi, Gian Maria Volonte or the unknown cabaret performer Tom Deal. Ultimately, it was “Donaldino.” He had shared Paul Mazursky’s 8½, Alex in Wonderland, 1970, with Fellini in Hollywood and they met again on the set of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 in 1975.
  25. Keith Carradine, Lumière, France, 1976.     Jeanne Moreau wanted Jack for her directing debut, until "dreaming over an early Gary Cooper," she saw a Carradine film and he cancelled a recording session to make the film. He fit the bill of "a very tall, lovely young man," the opposite of the French industry's usual "small, tiny, dark creatures." Jeanne’s friend ("never my lover"), realisateur Louis Malle, then chose Carradine for Pretty Baby.
  26. Bruce Dern, Family Plot, 1976.    Because of a little something called One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, he had to miss what proved Alfred Hitchcock’s last hurrah. Hitch had first (and oddly) paired Nicholson with... Liza Minnelli. Jack suggested his pal, Dernsie.
  27. Dennis Hopper, Tracks, 1976. Director Henry Jaglom wrote it for Jack and the spaced-out Vietnam vet escorting a coffin home was still called Jack when Dennis played it - in his Hollywood comeback after eight years away imbibing every illegal substance known to man, man.
  28. Robert De Niro, Novocento/1900, Italy,1976. In need of an US star, Italian maestro Bernardo Bertolucci’s first thought for the artistocratic Alfredo was his pal Jack - until seeing De Niro working with Francis Coppola on The Godfather: Part II.
  29. Martin Sheen, Apocalypse Now, 1976.
  30. Richard Burton, Equus, 1977.     Burton buried his rivals by going back on Broadway in the role, to prove he could still cut it. Still didn't net him an Oscar. Nothing ever did - from seven nominations.

  31. Roy Scheider, Sorcerer, 1977.    For his awful mess of re-treading the French classic, Wages of Fear, 1953, US director William Friedkin regretted not trying to agree to Steve McQueen’s stipulations. Next choices, Clint Eastwood and Nicholson had no interest in working abroad. Or, indeed with Friedkin, who kindly stated that Scheider was his worst casting decision. "He’s a second or third banana, not a star." Rather like Friedkin...
  32. Richard Burton, The Exorcist II: The Heretic, 1976.
  33. Richard Dreyfuss, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977. Jack's agent, Sandy Bresler, told co-producer Julia Phillips: "He didn't want to fight the effects but he'd sure take points anytime. He's saying: It's a hit!" Not so worried about the Mothership, Dreyfuss agreed to $500,000 and five gross points.
  34. Richard Dreyfuss, The Goodbye Girl, 1977.    "The man is undirectable," said stage-screen director Mike Nichols after his notorious run-in with Robert De Niro (far too fresh in from Taxi Driver) on the Neil Simon comedy that started out as Bogart Slept Here - eventually being respun from Marsha Mason's angle. The Dreyfuss angle won the Oscar
  35. Anthony Hopkins, Magic, 1978.     Producer Joe Levine wanted A Star. Jack said fine, but you'll have to wait for a few months. He was Goin' South (wasn't he though!) - and directing again.
  36. Keith Carradine, Pretty Baby, 1978. Jill-of-all-trades Polly Platt has never been able to see the film and still bristles at any mention of French realisateur Louis Malle. He was furious with her for "taking over the film" by contacting Nicholson - "a very bad choice"! - and so, she argued, Malle wrecked her script, by using Carradine as the photographer Bellocq. "I felt like the little girl. Bought, sold, screwed!"
  37. Jon Voight, Coming Home, 1978.      His Last Detail director Hal Ashby called in October 1976. Leading lady Jane Fonda called. Nicholson quit when true Brit director John Schlesinger left to make Yanks in Britain, passing the impotent Vietnam war veteran - and an Oscar - to Voight.
  38. Malcolm McDowell, Caligula, 1978.
  39. Jack Lemmon, The China Syndrome, 1979.   Producer Michael Douglas' original game plan: Nicholson, Douglas, Richard Dreyfuss. "But the Kubrick thing was in the works. [The Shining]. He could still have done it but he was floating around. I love to tease him about it now, boy!"
  40. Paul Le Mat, Melvin and Howard, 1980. Jack passed the scenario to his Goin' South find, Mary Steenburgen. "Here's an example of a great film script." Indeed. She won an Oscar for it - in her third film.

  41. Bill Murray, Where The Buffalo Roam, 1980. Entire concept of the film failed without the obvious star as gonzo journalist Dr Hunter S Thompson - who then talked to Jack about doing Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.
  42. Robert Redford, Brubaker, 1980.     Bob Rafelson was directing so obviously the prison (governer) drama was set for Jack. The fact the director couldn’t deliver The Star was among the reasons poor Rafelson was deep-sixed by Fox chief Alan Ladd Jr. Journeyman helmer Stuart Rosenberg finished the ho-hum movie. Jack stuck by Bob for The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1981.
  43. Harrison Ford, Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1980.
  44. Steve Martin, Pennies From Heaven, 1981.     Among the many rejections in 1981 as he considered a more “biographical approach” to future projects - like his pet subjects: Napoleon and directing something to “put across the ideas of Wilhelm Reich.”
  45. Albert Finney, Annie, 1981. When the original producer David Begelman quit due to the scandal of him forging Cliff Robertson’s signature on a cheque, Jack kept the faith and left with him. Although disliking the Broadway musical, new producer Ray Stark said: ”This is the film I want on my tombstone.” Hence, Time critic Richard Corliss’ comment: ”Funeral services are being held at a theater near you.”
  46. Louis Gossett Jr, An Officer and a Gentleman, 1982.     Jack was too expensive and Mandy Pantinkin “too ethnic” for Gunnery Sergeant Foley, “a Southern white guy.” In a flash of (well researched) inspiration, director Taylor Hackford made the tough sunuvabitch black - and Lou won an Oscar.
  47. Jacques Perrin, Les quarantièmes rugissants (UK: The Roaring Forties), France, 1982. Actor-producer Perrin tried Nicholson and Jon Voight. Finally, to keep his costs down, Perrin played the UK yachtsman cheating on a round-the-world solo race and killing himself.
  48. Albert Finney, Annie, 1982.       Very keen on being Daddy Warbucks. So was Sean Connery.
  49. Scott Glenn, Personal Best, 1982. Despite their bitter rows during the aborted Two Jakes the year before, writer-director Robert Towne created the UCLAthlethics coach for Jack - who politely declined. He had no wish to rate second to Lesbian lovers. And probably didn’t go for his ex-pal Towne’s dialogue: “Who says friendship lasts forever? It wears out like everything else. Like tyres.”
  50. Dennis Hopper, Rumble Fish, 1983.     Iconic director Francis Coppola called him to be father of Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke. "I felt maybe it would be symbolically nice to play the father of this generation of actors - as wild as they are. But... I didn't like the script." And them other Easy Rider needed to continue his Hollywood comeback...
  51. Darren McGavin, A Christmas Story, 1983. Difficult to imagine Jack in the film that begat TV’s Wonder Years...
  52. James Fox, Anna Pavlova, England-Russia, 1983.   British directing legend Michael Powell had his name cut by the Kremlin from his final film - about the great Russian ballerina. It took 25 years for Powell’s Greek-born producer Frixos Constantine, to find enough money to restore the film to its original glory, time (five hours) and credits as The White Swan in 2008. Powell fan Martin Scorsese first met him at Constantine’s Shaftesbury Avenue office in London and offered to appear in the film and persuaded De Niro and Nicholson to participate as Anna’s agent and husband. Moscow banned both for their anti-Commuinist films (The Deer Hunter) or statements.
  53. Michael Douglas, Romancing The Stone, 1985.     Another one Douglas teases him about. With both Nicholson and Clint Eastwood refusing, the producer decided to play it, himself. Again.
  54. Jeff Goldblum, Into The Night, 1985. "I like it and I like you," he told the (loud) director John Landis. "But this guy doesn't really do anything. The audience likes the leading man to take action." As usual, he was right, although - apparently - none of the 15 directors guesting in the cast were honest enough to say the same to Landis.

  55. Walter Matthau, Pirates, 1985.
    The 1975 project kept bubbling in the early 80s: Nicholson as Cap'n Red, co-starring his director... Roman Polanski. "Jack wanted $4m My producer couldn't live with that. [Actually $1.25m in 1976,  against         10% of the gross] . And I'm glad he said no. I thought it unfair to the other people, me included. I worked on the script so   long. I invented the story and the character that Jack would play. People like Jack get to that stage where they're not interested in what they do, just what they'll get." Sean Penn would hardly agree... William Goldman suggested that casting Matthau was like "doing The Chuck Norris Story with John Candy." The movie s(t)unk like a stone.

  56. Harrison Ford, Witness, 1985.    Loved the script but there was no director attached - or not when Jack was available. So he passed on the city cop hunting a murder witness in Amish country in what Chicago critic Robert Ebert called “an electrifying and poignant love story hidden in a murder thriller.” It had once been an idea for an episode of US TV’s longest-running series, Gunsmoke, 1955-75.
  57. Richard Dreyfuss, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, 1986.      Director Paul Mazursky met with “a stoned Nicholson” at his Mulholland Drive home. “Merely sniffing the stuff got me a little high...” Dreyfuss, even higher in his day, accepted $600,000 for his comeback.
  58. Mickey Rourke, Angel Heart, 1986. On reading the script, Rourke described his private dick role as "a tired Nicholson." Jack preferred Terms of Endearment (and a second Oscar) and he was the devil (De Niro’s role) the following year in The Witches of Eastwick.
  59. Robert De Niro Angel Heart, 1986. And he was already due to be the devil the following year in The Witches of Eastwick
  60. Gene Hackman, Hoosiers, 1986. Jack loved the notion of being basketball coach Norman Dale but would not be free for a year. Hackman signed on and Dennis Hopper won an Oscar nomination. He was really back!
  61. Kurt Russell, Big Trouble In Little China, 1986. Once again, the studio (and John Carpenter, if truth be told) preferred Clint or Jack.
  62. Harrison Ford, Mosquito Coast, 1987.    Australian director Peter Weir and his (obvious) first choice were beached when money went out with the tide in 1984. Of his version, Ford said: "I'm not sure if we cracked it." They hadn't.
  63. Michael Douglas, Wall Street, 1987.     Can't you just hear him as Gordon Gekko - Alistair Campbell's personal trainer: "Lunch is for wimps." And: "Greed is right, greed works." Not forgetting: "When I get a hold of the son of a bitch who leaked this, I'm gonna tear his eyeballs out and I'm gonna suck his fucking skull."
  64. Kevin Costner, The Untouchables, 1987. Did not want to be as straight as Elliott Ness. One LAgent said: “If Jack wanted Canada, some studio boss would buy it, paint it red and park it in his driveway.”
  65. Sidney Poitier, Little Nikita, 1988. Conceived, developed at pre-Puttnam Columbia for Jack, the FBI agent became Poitier's first role for a decade. Didn't help Poitier. Nor David Puttnam. Nor Columbia.
  66. Jeff Bridges, Tucker: A Man And His Dream, 1988.     When director Francis Coppola first tried to make it in 1977. The two titans have still never worked ensemble.
  67. Tom Cruise, Rain Man, 1988.     One Cuckoo was enough. Director Barry Levinson called with the wrong role - Dustin Hoffman’s smart alec brother and minder.
  68. Bob Hoskins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1988.     Jack was considered for private eye Eddie Valiant. Or, rather for Jake Gittes - writers Jeffrey Price and Peter S Seaman were inspired by Chinatown, 1974.
  69. Robert Redford, Havana, 1990. Director Sydney Pollack's first (perfect) choice to partner Jane Fonda in 1978. Judith Rascoe's script was brewing so long, she thought of it as "the corpse that walked - my zombie project." Looked that way on-screen.
  70. Warren Beatty, Dick Tracy, 1990.     Nicholson had fun (and $60m) from Batman, so why bother with another comic cut? Once Bob Fosse (among others) turned down directing, Jack’s buddy took over both jobs.
  71. Kevin Costner, Revenge, 1990.     Friends since being introduced by the Missouri Breaks writer Thomas McGuane, novella-ist Jim Harrison first adapted his 1979 Esquire tale for Jack - with John Huston, then Jack, himself, directing. Jonathan Demme and Sydney Pollack were also keen on the script which Clint Eastwood snapped up - and then swopped for Bird.
  72. James Caan, Misery, 1990. All the A List shied away - from being beaten up by Kathy Bates.
  73. Bruce Willis, The Bonfire of the Vanities, 1990.    Instead of Jack, director Brian De Palma paid an action star with no following outside of action films, $5m - that is $4m, more than his main star, Tom Hanks. To play a British journalist!
  74. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kindergarten Cop, 1990.     Go figure.
  75. John Heard, Home Alone, 1990.      An astonishing 37 stars (Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, etc) were considered for the forgetful parents - nothing roles in a film written for and duly stolen by the stranded kid, Macauley Culkin.
  76. Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs, 1990.
  77. Harvey Keitel, Thelma & Louise, 1990.
  78. Bruce Willis, The Last Boy Scout, 1991. Jack and Mel Gibson proved rather pricey when Shane Black's dicey scenario had already cost $1.75m.
  79. Kevin Costner, JFK, 1991.
  80. James Woods, The Hard Way, 1991.     Director John Badham needed help. He had a script that would work only with indelibly A-List stars. He failed to win any.
  81. Michael Douglas, Basic Instinct, 1991.
  82. Sean Connery, Medicine Man, 1992.     For what was called Road Show in 1984. Jack had been Hollywood director Martin Ritt’s choice for the renegade biochemist living deep in the Amazon rain forests, finding - and then losing - a cancer cure. A somewhat Kurtzian figure, being checked up on by the Marlowesque Cher or Mary Steenburgen or Debra Winger - eventually Lorraine Bracco opposite a pig-tailed Connery. Not their finest hour, Critics were either 100% for or against the (terrible) John McTiernan movie.

  83. Paul Newman, The Hudsucker Proxy, 1993.
    The Coen brothers' first choice - and their  first refusal. “Sometimes I get flooded with scripts and think: Jesus! If I do all this, I’ll be working until I’m 65. And at that age I’m pretty sure people won’t be that interested in me. I don’t know if I’d be interested.”

  84. John Malkovich, In the Line of Fire, 1993.   No budget could afford Clint and Jack - but what a great idea from German film-maker Wolfgang Petersen.
  85. Ben Kingsley, Death and the Maiden, 1994.   Forgetting his 1985 verbal attack on his pal, director Roman Polanski was now eager to re-match Jack and his ex-lady Anjelica Huston - a coup pulled off the following year by director Sean Penn, masterfully, for The Crossing Guard.
  86. Brad Pitt, Legends of the Fall, 1994. Jack Pack stalwart, author and scripter Jim Harrison, had a glass eye and enough girth to be mistaken for Nicholson’s bodyguard. Jack subsidised Harrison’s writing but never shot any of his work until Wolf in 1994 - ineffectual yet better than the mid-aged Jack trying to be the young Tristan Ludlow in what both Jim ’n’ Jack felt should have been a much grittier Western saga. Anthony Hopkins, who played Pitt’s father, was Jack’s age at the time: 56.
  87. Anthony Hopkins, The Road To Wellville, 1994.    First reserve if Hopkins changed his mind about being the eccentric inventor of the corn flake, peanut butter and medical instruments to scrub the body inside and out - Dr John Harvey Kellogg.
  88. John Malkovich, Mary Reilly, 1995. Four years before, Jack was director-pal Roman Polanski's sole choice as Mary's employer, Dr Henry Jekyll. Impossible just after Wolf... Besides he was moving into to interior roles for actor-director Sean Penn.
  89. Nick Nolte, Jefferson In Paris, 1995. Hey, a year off means a year off!
  90. Dennis Hopper, Waterworld, 1995. As director Kevin Reynolds rushed through the ripest villains, Jack was ruled out. Too expensive - for what proved the most expensive film (then) in history, totaling (with prints and advertising) $200m. Dennis filled in and stole the movie from a waterlogged Kevin Costner. Easily!
  91. Harvey Keitel, Clockers, 1995.    Martin Scorsese, the director, wanted who else but Robert De Niro as the cop. Then, Scorsese, the producer, wanted Jack. while Spike Lee, the new director, wanted John Turturro.
  92. Anthony Hopkins, Nixon, 1995. Jimmy Hoffa was more than enough in the biopic biz... Hopkins was the right age at 58. "He worked on the accent and the gestures," said writer-director Oliver Stone, "and he became Nixon." Almost.
  93. Bruce Dern, Mulholland Falls, 1996.    "This isn't America. This is LA..." MGM was alive and well again and asked Jack for a cameo as The Chief. Jack passed - “give it to Dernsie.”
  94. Nick Nolte, Mulholland Falls, 1996.    Her passed... while making some dreadful choices: Man Trouble, Blood and Wine, Evening Star, Mars Attacks, etc.
  95. Chazz Palminteri, Diabolique, 1996. When Jack preferred another Bob Rafelson trip, the indifferent Blood and Wine, the Warner choices dissipated, like the rotten re-make itself, right down the line to Gabriel Byrne, Jeremy Irons and Big Chazz.
  96. John Travolta, Michael, 1996.     Probably the first time anyone who had played the Devil was asked to play an angel - even one who drinks, screws and smells too much!
  97. Robert De Niro, The Fan, 1996.     An obsessive nutter stalking his baseball hero? Obviously more Bob than Jack. Instead, he kept the faith with his pals. Like Bob Evans (as producer, not actor) for The Two Jakes, and now a fourth Bob Rafelson outing: Blood and Wine. Neither one a good vintage.
  98. Matthew McConnaughey, Contact, 1997.    The (so-so) film of Carl Sagan’s (better) book did not move him. Everybody and his wife also had “Jack scripts.” He even had a nightmare of his mother coming out of her grave: “Psst! Come here, son, I want you to have a look at this script.”
  99. Woody Allen, Deconstructing Harry, 1997.    Woody insisted that De Niro, Gould, Hoffman and Nicholson were among the many stars telling him: ‘I’m dying to work with you - I’d do anything.’ Except when he offered them Harrry “they’re they’re not available or they can’t work for the pay I’m offering.” Harry - “always thinking of fucking every woman I meet” - was a slimeball. Not when Woody played him.
  100. James Woods, Hercules, 1997.    John Lithgow and Nicholson came, but Woods conquered all, basically ad-libbing the rapid-fire voice of Hades. And made it a growth industry with various video games.
  101. Geoffrey Rush, Les Miserables, 1998. Director Roman Polanski was making up to Jacko yet again - offering him Javert, this time. But Danish film-maker Bille August made the literally miserable film.
  102. John Travolta, Primary Colors, 1998. Jack as his golfing buddy, Bill Clinton? Or the thinly disguised version in Time magazine columnist Joe Klein’s novel, depicting a sex scandal of its own. As Jack said about the Monica Lewinksy episode: “What would be the alternative leadership... somebody who doesn’t want to have sex?”
  103. Johnny Depp, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, 1998. One bravura 70s notion had been Nicholson as Hunter S Thompson and Marlon Brando as Dr Gonzo.
 "I tell you what," said Depp, "I'd have watched that movie. I'd still be watching it. Nonstop. God, that would have been amazing!" He was forgetting their lamentable Missouri Breaks, 1976.

  104. William Hurt, The Big Brass Ring, 1999.

    Orson Welles was trying the impossible in 1976 - to mount a Hollywood movie. Pal Henry Jaglom was helping. In his 1971 debut, A Safe Place, Jaglom had directed Jack - and now asked him to play Presidential candidate William Blake Pellarin... with Welles as his gay past. (Welles often said that Beatty and Nicholson would wind up in the White House as President   and adviser). Jack was keen to experience Welles but would not cut his price to do so....
    “I’d charge my mother my fee!"

  105. Dustin Hoffman, Jeanne d'Arc (US: The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Ark), France, 1999.    "I’m glad it wasn’t him," said St. Joan, herself, Milla Jovovich. "He’s an incredible actor but it’s Hoffman I want to work with."
  106. George Clooney, Three Kings, 1999.    Helmer David O Russell needed anger management therapy even more than Nicholson. . And with Jacko aboard, Russell would have landed on his ass more than once - judging by the way he treated Clooney & Co.
  107. Charlie Sheen, Rated X, TV, 1999.   Before the Estevez brothers made their Showtime version, Sean Penn was due to direct an adaptation of David McCumber’s book about the porn-film-making Mitchell Brothers - starring Nicholson and Robert De Niro as Artie and Jim. Sheen agreed to play Artie as long as his brother, Emilio Estevez, directed and played Jim.
  108. Jim Carrey, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, 2000.    Only time Jack was up for the same role as Eddie Murphy.
  109. James Garner, Space Cowboys, 2000.    Not even Clint could make Clint and Jack happen! Imagine the concept: Eastwood, Connery, Nicholson. Story? Who cares! Jack had told Clint that The Crossing Guard would be his finale in 1995. “Well, he went on to act in about ten more movies and I went on to act in or direct six more. They keep saying Yes to you...” Jack, however, said No to, more or less reprising, Garrett Breedlove.
  110. Tony Goldwyn, The 6th Day, 2000. Too expensive as the villain, given that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the headliner. "With my sunglasses on, I'm Jack Nicholson. Without them, I'm fat and seventy."
  111. Ed Harris, Pollock, 2000.    Harris stuck to his guns and his rights, while throughout the 80s everyone saw only Jack as Jackson. From Gerald Ayres, producer of The Last Detail, to Andy Warhol - who cast Jack and Angelica as the alcoholic, manic-depressive painter and his lady Ruth Kligman... without even asking them!
  112. David Ogden Stiers, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, 2001.    Too pricey for even a cameo as Zoltan the hypnotist - who can mention the magic word that turns Woody Allen’s insurance investigator CW Briggs into a burglar.
  113. Ian Holm, The Emperor's New Clothes, 2001.    Jack announced - appropriately in Paris; March 7, 1984 - that he had bought the rights to novelist Simon Leys' novel, The Death of Napoleon, and would direct the film. That was the last heard of it until The Full Monty producer Uberto Pasolini started his version in Italy on September 11, 2000. Nicholson agreed with the Nitzsche and Shaw's view of Napoleon: "He's the strongest, most unique man Western culture ever produced. And he really knew how to make a comeback!"
  114. Robin Williams, One Hour Photo, 2002.     He passed Sy, the crazed photo-developer, to Williams - originally booked for the SavMart manager.
  115. Albert Finney, Big Fish, 2003.     In the mix way back when Steven Spielberg was planning to film the Daniel Wallace novel.
  116. Billy Bob Thornton, Bad Santa, 2003. Rejected it in order to be responsible for Diane Keaton's first full frontal nude scene (at age 57) in Something’s Got To Give - and earning his 11th Oscar nomination, surpassing Olivier. His 12th nod for About Schmidt, 2001, placed him one behind Meryl Streep.
  117. Kevin Spacey, Superman Returns, 2005.
  118. Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2006.   Probably the most obvious choice during some 25 years in Development Hell. Other titular casting also included Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Al Pacino. Tim Curry was the sole Brit considered and the most lunatic notions were... Warren Beatty. Harrison Ford and Robert Redford!

  119. Andy Serkis, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, 2009.
    When he first started developing the film in 1984 Spielberg had one idea only for Captain Haddock. And  Nicholson pal Danny De Vito was later booked for Senor Oliveira de Figueira - cut from the finished animation movie shot  in 32 days by Spielberg   March 2009. After which, co-director Peter Jackson supervised the CGI.

  120. Bruce Dern, Nebraska, 2012. Excepting Clooney and Nicholson, Nebraskan director Alexander Payne had a phobia with (some say, an hostility toward) casting stars. Not this time… While flirting with Bryan Cranston, the two Roberts (Duvall and Forster) plus, naturally, Nicholson, Payne was really wooing Hackman back into movies - the perfect crotchety alcoholic who thinks he’s won a sweepstake. But no, retired is what it said!

 

 

 



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