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Robin Williams will never be forgotten as one of the greatest character actors of his generation. The Oscar winner, who died in August 2014 at the age of just 63, was able to effortlessly switch between exuberant comedy and deep, often melancholic seriousness.
Films like “Mrs. Doubtfire”, “Jumanji”, “Hook” and “The Birdcage” made him a blockbuster star, while works like “Dead Poets Society” and “Good Will Hunting” consolidated his aura as a sensitive, dramatically brilliant mime.
But at the start of his career, Williams’ resume could have taken a surprisingly dark turn. As the US magazine “Vulture” reports, iconic director Stanley Kubrick is said to have considered the then little-known actor for one of the most legendary scary roles in film history: Jack Torrance in “The Shining”.
The Kubrick Rumor: Robin Williams as Jack Torrance?
In Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, writer Jack Torrance gradually loses his mind while snowbound in a remote mountain hotel with his family – a gradual descent into alcohol, isolation and madness. The role ultimately went to Jack Nicholson, whose portrayal of the broken family man became iconic and shaped the image of the character as an axe-wielding “Mad Man.”
According to recent film history archeology, Kubrick is said to have initially considered casting Robin Williams. A thought that, looking back, seems as fascinating as it is unimaginable. The trivia book “The Amazing Book of Movie Trivia” says that Kubrick rejected the idea because he thought Williams was “too psychotic.” A curious reason given the abyss that Nicholson later so brilliantly looked into.
However, it remains questionable whether Kubrick ever really thought seriously about Williams. Kubrick biographer Lee Unkrich – himself the director of “Toy Story 3” – points out that the chronology speaks against this theory. “Stanley read the proofs of King’s novel in 1977, and Nicholson was cast that same year,” explains Unkrich, who was allowed to comb through the Warner archives for his book “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.” “Filming began in April 1978.”
Facts, myths and chronology
The sitcom format “Mork & Mindy”, with which Robin Williams first became known outside the USA, only started in the autumn of the same year. Kubrick probably wouldn’t have had the young comedian on his radar at that point. There is therefore much to suggest that this episode is one of the long-lasting Internet myths surrounding the great “Hollywood Roads Not Taken” stories – charming, but probably more “spokenness”, as they say on the coast.
Even though Robin Williams never starred in “The Shining” – and probably never had the chance to – he later proved that he was just as masterful at the dark and disturbing as he was at the cheerful. In Mark Romanek’s 2002 One Hour Photo, he portrayed Sy Parrish, a quiet, lonely supermarket photo technician who obsessively clings to the lives of a family whose photos he developed.
The dark in Robin Williams
Williams’ performance is at once disturbing and deeply human: his Sy is frightening in his fixation but also heartbreakingly lonely. The actor balances between empathy and disgust, between control and breakdown. A balancing act that perhaps shows his acting range better than any other role in his career.
In the DVD audio commentary for “One Hour Photo,” Williams himself reflected on this unfamiliar role: “I was able to look at this character because he was so different – a very conscious step away from myself.” However, when asked about the meaning of the open ending, he never wanted to commit: “I can’t tell you,” he said, “and I don’t want to either.”