5 Roles In Stanley Kubrick Movies That Were Perfectly Cast (& Who Almost Played Them)
Stanley Kubrick is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived. Movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove, and The Shining are universally lauded masterpieces that have aged like a fine wine. Kubrick’s hypnotic, hauntingly ambiguous epics are still being dissected by fans and critics alike to this day.
Kubrickian roles like A Clockwork Orange’s sociopathic antihero Alex DeLarge and Full Metal Jacket’s tough-as-nails drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman were cast with the perfect actors. But those actors weren’t the first choice to play their role.
5 Gunnery Sergeant Hartman In Full Metal Jacket
Perfectly Cast: R. Lee Ermey
Although he only appears in the first half of the movie, R. Lee Ermey’s hard-as-nails, quick-as-a-whip drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman is by far the most memorable part of Full Metal Jacket. Perfectionist Kubrick rarely allowed his actors to improvise, but he made an exception for Ermey as he was a former Marine drill instructor who added to the verisimilitude of the military setting.
Ermey initially worked as a consultant on the movie, but won the role of Hartman after being dissatisfied with how actors with no military background were playing the part.
Almost Cast: Tim Colceri
According to The Hollywood Reporter, actor Tim Colceri was cast as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman before Kubrick discovered Ermey could act. Colceri spent months learning Hartman’s lines and preparing for the role.
After Ermey was cast as Hartman, Colceri was bumped down to a much smaller role as the helicopter door gunner who murders Vietnamese civilians while yelling, “Get some!”
4 Barry Lyndon In Barry Lyndon
Perfectly Cast: Ryan O’Neal
One of Kubrick’s most underrated movies, Barry Lyndon is a period epic about duellists with a pitch-black sense of humor. It’s noted for its distinctive cinematography, lit largely with natural light to resemble the sumptuous aesthetic of oil paintings.
But despite the visuals dominating the movie, Ryan O’Neal gives a compelling turn as the titular figure. It’s not easy to bring an everyman quality to a character in such an unfamiliar setting.
Almost Cast: Robert Redford
According to Vogue, O’Neal wasn’t Kubrick’s first choice for the role of Barry. Kubrick was hoping to cast Robert Redford, but Redford chose to reunite with director George Roy Hill for The Great Waldo Pepper instead.
Redford would’ve brought a very different quality to Barry. Instead of the morally dubious antihero eventually played with deep nuance by O’Neal, he might’ve been a straightforward hero oozing movie-star charisma.
3 HAL 9000 In 2001: A Space Odyssey
Perfectly Cast: Douglas Rain
Rogue artificial intelligence is now one of the most overdone tropes in science fiction, but it was a relatively new idea when HAL 9000 refused to open the pod bay doors for Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This role required an actor with a clear, articulate voice who can also cut listeners to the core with a callous, indifferent tone. Douglas Rain brought just that to this iconic role.
Almost Cast: Stefanie Powers
According to her book One from the Hart, Hart to Hart star Stefanie Powers provided the voice of HAL during rehearsals for 2001. Kubrick ended up replacing her with Rain when the movie went into production.
Since HAL is a remorseless killer robot, Kubrick wanted a cold-sounding voice actor who could bring an unsettlingly inhuman edge to each line delivery. That’s what Rain ended up bringing to the character.
2 Alex DeLarge In A Clockwork Orange
Perfectly Cast: Malcolm McDowell
Alex DeLarge is a uniquely difficult role to play, because he’s a reprehensible sociopath who treats sadistic violence like a fun hobby, but he’s also oddly charming.
Malcolm McDowell ended up embodying the role spectacularly, playing Alex as suitably sinister when he indulges in “ultraviolence,” but also bringing a dark comedic edge to his voiceover narration with deadpan line deliveries.
Almost Cast: Mick Jagger
According to The Guardian, screenwriter Terry Southern – who brought A Clockwork Orange’s source material to Kubrick’s attention – wanted David Hemmings for the role of Alex.
In response, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles all signed a petition to protest the casting of Hemmings and sent it to Southern. They wanted Mick Jagger to be cast as Alex and the other Stones to be cast as the other droogs. This campaign was ultimately unsuccessful.
1 Jack Torrance In The Shining
Perfectly Cast: Jack Nicholson
In Stephen King’s source novel for The Shining, Jack Torrance is a good man who loves his family and gets driven into a murderous rage by the ghosts in the Overlook. In Kubrick’s movie, however, he hates his wife and son from the beginning and is seemingly driven into a murderous rage by the isolation alone.
Jack Nicholson was the perfect actor to play this take on the character. He’s seething with anger in every scene, either bubbling under the surface or exploding in an outburst. It’s a captivating portrayal of a slow descent into madness.
Almost Cast: Robert De Niro
According to Uproxx, when Kubrick was casting the role of Jack, he considered Robert De Niro. The director decided De Niro was wrong for the part after seeing his performance as Travis Bickle – ironically, a psychotic killer – in Martin Scorsese’s neo-noir masterpiece Taxi Driver.
But it’s probably for the best that De Niro missed out on this part. The actor said he had nightmares for a month after watching The Shining for the first time.