On April 22, Jack Nicholson celebrates his 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, one of his most celebrated films, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, will be re-released in UK cinemas this Friday (April 14). Here’s some intriguing trivia about the legendary Hollywood bad boy to whet your appetite.

1. Nicholson was a renegade from a young age. “I was always against authority, hated being told anything by my teachers, by parents, by anyone,” he told The Independent in 1993.”At school I created a record by being in detention every day for a whole year.”

2. Nicholson’s first job in Hollywood was working as an office assistant for animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the creators of Scooby Doo and The Flintstones. He showed enough promise to be offered a role as an animation artist, but turned it down so he could focus on acting.

3. Nicholson only landed his breakthrough role in 1969’s Easy Rider because Rip Torn, who had originally been cast, fell out with co-star Dennis Hopper. Looking back on his early career in 2008, Nicholson told the Irish Independent: “All I could see in the early films, before Easy Rider, was this desperate young actor trying to vault out of the screen and create a movie career.”

4. Nicholson is one of only two male performers to be nominated for an Academy Award in every decade from the ’60s to the ’00s; the other is Michael Caine. Nicholson’s 12 Oscar nominations are more than any other male performer, too. Only Meryl Streep, with 20 acting nominations, has more. 

5. On top of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Shining, Easy Rider, Chinatown and As Good As It Gets, Nicholson could have appeared in even more iconic movies. He also turned down huge roles in Apocalypse Now, Rain Man and Taxi Driver.