Which actor played Jack Torrance in The Shining?

Jack Nicholson played Jack Torrance in The Shining.

Nicholson portrays Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. Jack is a struggling writer and recovering alcoholic who accepts a winter caretaker position at the isolated Overlook Hotel. As the hotel’s supernatural influence and his own instability intensify, he turns violently against his wife Wendy and son Danny.

Kubrick made Nicholson his first choice for the role, despite Stephen King’s preference for an actor who might appear more ordinary at the beginning of the story. Nicholson’s established intensity, including his Oscar-winning performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, helped make Jack’s descent into madness immediately unsettling.

The character is sometimes confused with Danny Torrance, the boy who possesses the psychic ability called “the shining,” or with actors considered for the part, including Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, and Harrison Ford. Nicholson’s performance made Jack one of cinema’s best-known villainous characters.