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What if Jon Voight or Michael Morairty got the role of Jack Torrance?

posted 3 months ago by VHSGuy123 (48)
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https://www.reddit.com/r/StanleyKubrick/comments/1fbdwkn/what_if_jon_voight_or_michael_morairty_got_the/

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Question, but what if either Jon Voight or Michael Morairty got the role of Jack Torrance,

From the story I read, Stephen King hated tbe cadting of Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, feeling that Nicholson made Torrance too crazy for the role and felt that he made Torrance irredeemable.

Stephen King preferred either Jon Voight or Michael Morairty for the re. He felt that their actors would if made Jack's descent to madness more tragic.

I know it's a stretch, but what if King got his way? (Highly unlikely, considering Kubrick had full control on everything and wanted Nicholson)

How do you think Jon Voight or Michael Morairty would of done with the role?

[–] whynotwriteme (7720) 3 months ago

Michael Moriarty is a very forgettable actor. I think he would have brought his innate drabness to the role and as a result, nobody would have cared much about the movie.

John Voight would have been interesting IF he could have begun the film as his usual likable, sympathetic self, and then slowly degenerated into a monster, with a final redemption as in the book. Possibly, this would have made for a more emotionally involving movie than with Nicholson, who is creepy from the get-go.

The cover artist for the first edition of the novel seemed to have Warren Beatty and Sondra Locke in mind for Jack and Wendy, and some kind of toad-boy mutant for Danny. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/The_Shining_%281977%29_front_cover%2C_first_edition.jpg

[–] DoctorThirteen (13920) 3 months ago

I think both of them would have made Jack's descent into madness more impactful. As has been said before, with Nicholson it wasn't that much of a surprise - he seemed half-way there already. Of the other two actors I'd rather have seen Voight tackle it.

[–] Melton (4435) 2 months ago

Kubrick deliberately discarded that aspect of the book, which is why King hates the film - it was always about the struggle with alcoholism for him - not for Kubrick.

K also made Wendy really irritating, in the book (and TV movie) she’s much stronger and more sympathetic.

K wanted to explore where the psychological meets the supernatural, it was a philosophical exercise and he just used King’s book as a narrative framework and tossed out everything superfluous to his ends.