Jack Nicholson’s estranged daughter, Tessa Gourin, is reflecting on her fatherless youth.
The 28-year-old spoke candidly in a recent interview with The Daily Beast about her passion for acting, the wasted potential of so-called “nepo babies” — and what it feels like not to be publically acknowledged by Nicholson as his daughter.
“From a very young age, my mother told me not to tell anyone that I have this famous dad,” Gourin told the outlet. “I knew he was powerful and Daddy Warbucks-level rich, so I kind of equated my life to being like Orphan Annie’s.”
Gourin said her single mother raised her and her younger half-brother in a two-bedroom apartment. She told the outlet Nicholson agreed to finance her private New York City education but that his absence spurred childhood outbursts and school expulsions.
“A few years ago, I was casually dating this guy who was also an actor, and I opened up to him… about how difficult it was for me growing up,” Gourin added. “His response was to start doing a monologue from ‘The Departed,’ in the accent and everything.”
“They used to make me say ‘Here’s Johnny,’ and obviously at 8 years old, I’d never even seen ‘The Shining,’” claimed Gourin about her childhood summer camp counselors.
Gourin first came to national attention earlier this month after Newsweek published her essay, “I’m Jack Nicholson’s Daughter — I Wish People Could Call Me a Nepo Baby,” as part of recent cultural discourse regarding the advantaged children of famous people.
“Having grown up without my father, I’ve sat on the sidelines and watched in frustration as other celebrity children have seamlessly secured roles,” she wrote. “…I have grown even more frustrated at what I think is a missed opportunity for these so-called ‘nepo-babies.’”
Gourin urged her more fortunate peers to “own their position and embrace it instead of complaining about it” and told The Daily Beast she “can also understand the frustration” — but that an actor’s main “driving force” should be to prove oneself regardless of labels.
Some actors like Allison Williams poignantly acknowledged their familial advantage. Others, like Lily-Rose Depp — Johnny Depp’s daughter — publicly decried the label. Ultimately, Depp’s pushback against the title, said Gourin, inspired her piece.
Kevork Djansezian via Getty Images
Gourin has wanted to act her entire life but said her mother prohibited her from following that passion as a child. Gourin was later hesitant to follow in her father’s footsteps but reassessed after “excruciating” therapy, and now she’s a fledgling New York actor.
When asked why her famous father had decided not to be involved in her life, Gourin said nobody had ever given her “a concrete answer.” She said Nicholson is “a complicated person,” and her mother “fights her own demons” as well.
Nicholson hasn’t starred in a major movie since “How Do You Know” in 2010, which was widely panned by critics and audiences alike, and has since retreated from the spotlight. He reportedly has at least five other children with four different women.
Some of them have followed Nicholson into show business — while Gourin has had to do so on her own.
“I was dealt a really shitty random card, but I’m not gonna let that destroy me,” she said. “In fact, I’m gonna use it to fuel me. I feel like every really good actor…what their ultimate hardships and conflicts are… that’s what drives them, and that just happens to be mine.”