Jack Nicholson Made His ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ Character Better

The Big Picture

• Jack Nicholson prepared extensively for his role in
  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  and discussed a secret motivation with his co-star Louise Fletcher.
• Nicholson’s extra effort paid off, as the film became highly acclaimed and received praise and awards for their performances.
• The collaboration between Nicholson and Fletcher, and their well-thought-out portrayals of McMurphy and Nurse Ratched, contributed to the film’s success and solidified their characters as some of the best in movie history.

Jack Nicholson is one of those actors that just makes his work look effortless, but you don’t become one of the greats without hard work. In the case of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nicholson more than did his homework before taking on the role of R.P. McMurphy. As he geared up for this 1975 movie classic, Nicholson studied the novel, pondered over his character’s motivations, and even ran a secret by his co-star. This didn’t just help enrich Nicholson’s role, it also affected everyone else’s performances without them even realizing it. Nicholson is a consistently likable screen presence in projects because so many of his best characters come off as charming and troublesome, like in As Good As It Gets. His work on Cuckoo’s Nest proves that the man himself is anything but that.

This extra effort ended up paying off big time. Not only has One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest gone on to become one of the most beloved and highly acclaimed movies of its time, but Nicholson and Fletcher received similar degrees of praise for their respective performances. They each received Best Actor and Actress nominations at the 48th Academy Awards ceremony and ended up sweeping across various other Oscar categories by the end of the night. Nicholson’s career continued to see him in various productions that stood the test of time, whereas Fletcher remained prolific in her work, but didn’t exactly get the parts that she deserved. It’s a shame, given her performance as Ratched is one of the best that you’ll find coming out of the ’70s. Either way, you’ll be hard-pressed to find two performances that were as crafty and well-thought-out as these.

‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ Is One of the Greatest Movies of All Time

When you’re in the early stages of being a true movie fan, you probably have a laundry list of titles to cross off. Films like The Godfather, Raging Bull, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Casablanca easily come to mind. These are initially a seemingly random and disconnected batch of movies, but what they all have in common is that they’re deeply cherished. There’s a certain “canon” to movie history that will forever be passed down from generation to generation, never to be lost or forgotten. The story follows R.P. McMurphy, a sarcastic and overly confident patient in a mental institution who rallies up his fellow inmates to rebel against the head nurse, Nurse Ratched. It might sound dark on the surface, but once you dive into Cuckoo’s Nest, you’ll find one of the most joyful and heartwarming movies ever made.

Jack Nicholson Gave His Character Motivation That Wasn’t in the Book

Before hitting the big screen, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest spent 13 years living on the page in the form of a 1962 novel by Ken Kesey. The book was ripe for a film adaptation, so writer-director Hal Ashby got to work. Miloš Forman ended up taking the reins as director, and Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman were the screenwriters who received final credit, but Ashby can be felt all over the film. You know the Ashby touch. It’s when there’s a trouble-maker who is typically unlikable and caught in the middle of a complicated yet heartwarming scenario. It helps that Ashby sought out Jack Nicholson for the character, an actor that he previously worked with on 1973’s The Last Detail. Forman was the right guy for this project, but if it weren’t for Ashby, who knows who might have played McMurphy instead?

Jack Nicholson was one of the most in-demand actors of the mid-1970s. This guy just couldn’t be beat! So as he came on to Cuckoo’s Nest, Nicholson prepped by visiting psych wards and meeting with actual patients. For character motivation, Nicholson went beyond the source material and drummed up his own thought process for McMurphy. In a 1986 interview with the New York Times, he said, “…my secret design for it was that this guy’s a scamp who knows he’s irresistible to women and, in reality, he expects Nurse Ratched to be seduced by him. This is his tragic flaw.”

So essentially, it seems as though Nicholson had it in mind that McMurphy would romantically seek out Nurse Ratched, win her over, and take advantage of the power that she had at her disposal. You can read this throughout his performance. McMurphy carries himself around the institution like he owns the place, and, at first, talks to the nurses like they’re his buddies. Nurse Ratched gets his special attention though, and given that she’s the head of her branch, it means she’ll take more work to break. McMurphy spends about half of the movie either lightly flirting with her a bit or beyond, annoyed by her rigid nature. She never bites, so the two bicker back and forth for the entire movie, and eventually their dynamic becomes more hostile.

Jack Nicholson Let Louise Fletcher in on His Secret

Nicholson didn’t let anyone in on his idea other than Fletcher. In that same 1986 New York Times interview, Nicholson put it this way, “This is why he ultimately fails. I discussed this with Louise. I discussed this only with her. That’s what I felt was actually happening with that character — it was one long, unsuccessful seduction which the guy was so pathologically sure of.” Because we are rooting for McMurphy and his fellow inmates, Ratched is seen as a wicked nurse. She’s as cold and bitter as you could possibly be. That said, if you were put in her shoes and dealt a total animal like McMurphy, you’d probably be the same way.

With the way the movie ends, it’s easy to forget that she’s portrayed as kind and patient at first. She only breaks once McMurphy causes enough trouble and flirts with her a bit. In actuality, he broke everyone out of the ward, took them all fishing on a stolen school bus, and then came back and tried to seduce Nurse Ratched! No matter how much we love McMurphy, you can’t really blame Ratched for being fed up with this guy. By letting Fletcher in on his idea, she could add the slight element to Ratched that she’s aware of McMurphy’s intentions the entire time.

This stroke of creative genius between Nicholson and Fletcher no doubt helped lead to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest‘s success. McMurphy and Ratched have since been cemented as some of the best heroes and villains in movie history, and their actors acclaimed to similar degrees. Had anyone else filled their roles, we might not have as rich of a text as we do now. Artists like Nicholson and Fletcher rarely ever come along, so let’s study their works as long as we can.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is available to watch on Netflix in the U.S.

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