Which actor plays Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining?

Jack Nicholson plays Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining.

Torrance is a writer who accepts a winter caretaker job at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado. The role becomes one of Nicholson’s most recognizable performances, especially through the character’s psychological collapse and increasingly threatening behavior toward his family.

The film adapts Stephen King’s 1977 novel, but Kubrick changed several details, including aspects of Jack’s characterization and the ending. Shelley Duvall plays Wendy Torrance, while Danny Lloyd plays their son, Danny.

A common mix-up is confusing Nicholson’s role with another famous horror performance from the decade. Nicholson did not play the killer in A Nightmare on Elm Street; that character is Freddy Krueger, played by Robert Englund.