'Hacking down the door with an axe was easy – all Jack had to do was make the wood crack well'

Jan Harlan, executive producer

Stanley Kubrick thought hard about whether to do The Shining, because horror wasn't his thing. Then Stephen King gave him the go-ahead to change his book, so Stanley agreed – and wrote a much more ambiguous script.

It's clear instantly there's something foul going on. At the little hotel, everything is like Disney, all kitsch wood on the outside – but the interiors don't make sense. Those huge corridors and ballrooms couldn't fit inside. In fact, nothing makes sense.

Stanley didn't travel, so he never went to Oregon where the exteriors were done. Whenever you see actors outside, they're in the backlot of Elstree Studios in London. The snow was made of formaldehyde and salt, while the fog was finely sprayed vegetable oil.

Stanley never considered any other actors for the lead. Jack Nicholson was the only choice. And you don't audition Jack. Shelley Duvall, who played his wife, was spotted in another film. It would have been totally wrong to have a screen beauty – we needed a good character actor.

Some scenes were easier than people imagine: Jack hacking down the door with an axe was peanuts. All he needed to do was make the wood crack well. Shelley had a much harder time, because she had to be over-the-top scared all the time. Stanley was constantly telling her to look more afraid.

He always said never try to explain something you don't understand: the moment you do, you fall on your face. So Jack writes that silly sentence over and over and starts chewing the curtains. It doesn't make sense that he doesn't realise he's sick. Or that there are ghosts. It's a great film – but if you want an explanation, forget it.

'Lloyd, how the hell are you?' ... Jack Nicholson in a bar scene with Joe Turkel. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar/Cinetext/Warner Bros

Joe Turkel, actor

I had devised four interpretations of my character, Lloyd the barman, and I wondered which Stanley would like. I showed him the first – the quiet, good-to-see-you one – and he picked that. Things were always either fine or good with him. He didn't do hyperbole.

He worked Shelley to death. She called her boyfriend in LA and said, "Get your ass out here and look after me." Her scenes were so difficult, all that screaming – and when you're dealing with Stanley, you can't wing it. You have to hit it.

Halfway through shooting one of our takes, Jack leaned over to me, at the bar, and said: "Joe, we've been shooting this thing for three weeks. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go crazy – I'm gonna start four feet in the air then go up into the stratosphere." The opening line should have been: "Hi Lloyd, it's good to see you." But he said: "Lloyd, how the hell are you? I haven't seen you in a month of fucking Sundays." I was saying, "Splendid, Mr Torrance", as he was getting wilder and wilder. I could see Stanley getting mad. After we finished, Stanley walked on and said: "Gee Jack, that opens up a whole new can of corn." I cracked up, Jack fell on the floor laughing, and Stanley knew he was being had. And he roared.

Another day, Jack said to me: "Let's go to the fight tonight." Stanley asked who was fighting. Jack said Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks, for the heavyweight title. Stanley was standing there, looking through a camera at an angle, and he said: "Ali's the champ, you're wasting your time." Jack replied: "No, Spinks is the champ." Stanley stood up, summoned his secretary and said: "Call my bookie." Jack and I looked at each other. He put $5,000 on Ali then he said: "Boxing is as crooked as the picture business. There's no way they'll let Spinks win – the fight business won't make a dime. It's a fix."

Ali won. Jack and I went. Stanley didn't because he edited footage every night. "Stanley hustled as a kid," I said to Jack, "and he's hustling now." He'd been a chess hustler: he used to beat everybody when he was 12, grown men in the parks of Manhattan. He would go to the movies with his winnings.

• The Shining is rereleased on Friday with nationwide Halloween previews tomorrow.