The director, Milos Forman, intentionally cast all relatively unknown actors, and some had no, like Kenny, where cast from their look even though they hadn't acted much or at all in some cases. The idea of cast of unknowns as the patients was Forman's hope to use Jack Nicholson ' s frame as a contrasting effect against a cast of unknowns portraying the patients to help dramatize R.P. Mac's level of sanity and improper placement in the asylum. Forman was worried that Nicholson was too large of an iconic actor and that his fame would hurt the movie's believability by its audience. So this idea was his way of not only trying to avoid that outcome, but actually turning that potential negative aspect of Nicholson ' s notoriety into a useful aide in defining the differences between his character and the patients within the asylum.
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