10 Actors Who Gave Two WILDLY Different Performances In The Same Year
4. Shelley Duvall - Popeye & The Shining
After being put through near-literal hell on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, it's little surprise that Shelley Duvall followed it up with something decidedly frothier - Robert Altman's infamous musical-comedy Popeye.
In The Shining, Duvall played Jack Torrance's (Jack Nicholson) long-suffering, evidently deeply traumatised wife Wendy; a victim-with-a-capital-V who nevertheless musters the wherewithal to extricate herself and her son Danny (Danny Lloyd) from Jack's psychopathic grasp.
In Popeye, Duvall also played the central love interest and mother character, albeit in distinctly less-combative terms - this time as the lover of Robin Williams' Popeye the Sailor Man.
While The Shining saw Kubrick allegedly bully Duvall to the point that she had a legitimate psychotic break while shooting the film, Duvall's work with Altman was decidedly lighter. She didn't need to brandish a knife nor play perpetually terrified, but instead sang her heart out and goofed around with one of cinema's all-time comedic greats.