The Shining is packed with memorable scenes that have become part of pop culture, and one of them was written by the movie’s lead actor, Jack Nicholson. Many of Stephen Kings’ works have been adapted to film, though not all of them have had the same success as their source material. Such is the case of The Shining, which was adapted to the big screen in 1980, directed by Stanley Kubrick and co-written by him and novelist Diane Johnson. Although The Shining is widely regarded as one of the best horror movies ever made, it can’t really be considered an adaptation of King’s novel due to the many changes made to it.
Kubrick’s The Shining took the novel’s characters and the story’s basis to make a psychological movie set in the Colorado Rockies, following a frustrated writer and recovering alcoholic named Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) as he gradually lost his sanity. Jack Torrance is now one of Jack Nicholson’s most popular roles, but he did a lot more than bringing Jack and his struggles to life, as he also wrote one of Jack’s most unforgettable scenes, and it was all due to a personal issue he had to deal with a couple of years prior.
Why Jack Nicholson Wrote The Shining’s Typewriter Scene
In the book Becoming Jack Nicholson: The Masculine Persona from Easy Rider to The Shining, by Shaun R. Karli, it’s explained that some of the movies Jack Nicholson had starred in had scenes that related to his life, and The Shining was no exception. In Kubrick’s film, there’s a scene where Jack is trying to work as he struggles with writer’s block, and after his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), approaches him, he reacts aggressively towards her, screaming at her to not bother him while he’s typing. In an interview with the New York Times, Nicholson revealed that he wrote that scene himself, as that’s what he was like when he got divorced (from his co-star in The Terror, Sandra Knight, in 1968), so he poured all the frustration and the pressure he felt into that specific scene between Jack and Wendy.
Nicholson and Knight had one daughter, born in 1963, so Nicholson felt the pressure of “being a family man with a daughter” and continuing his career as an actor and writer. Nicholson recalled that he had accepted a job to act in a movie in the daytime and wrote a movie at night, so when he was on his “little corner”, his wife walked in on what was “unbeknownst to her, this maniac”, so he told Kubrick about it and the scene was written into the movie. In an interview with critic Michael Ciment, Nicholson said that, while filming that specific scene, he recalled arguments he had with Knight, so the typewriter scene is very, very personal to him.
What Stephen King Thinks About Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance
Stephen King hasn’t been shy when it comes to sharing his opinion on Kubrick’s take on The Shining, and he also had some words to say about Jack Nicholson’s casting as Jack Torrance. King wasn’t on board with the idea of casting Nicholson as it would result in the audience quickly guessing that Jack Torrance would go insane, due to Nicholson’s famous role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. King felt that the role required an “everyman” in order to make his descent into madness more unnerving, and suggested John Voight or Michael Moriarty for it. Kubrick actually cast Nicholson before he finished reading the novel, as he felt he was the right fit for the role. While Stephen King’s worries are understandable, in the end, Jack Nicholson brought one of the most memorable performances in the horror genre, and his version of Jack Torrance was a lot more personal to him than it seems.