Meet Jack Nicholson’s estranged daughter Tessa Gourin: the actor’s 30-year-old offspring looks just like him, is also an actress, and would rather be called a ‘nepo baby’ than ‘illegitimate’

Lara Flynn Boyle – the Twin Peaks actress who dated Jack Nicholson for seven years – recently admitted she still talks to the actor, despite reports he has become a recluse, per People. Now 87, Nicholson hasn’t been in a film since 2010’s How Do You Know and never goes out any more, according to US media.

However there’s one woman for whom Nicholson has always been elusive – his daughter Tessa. The 30-year-old has never had a relationship with the famous actor, and despite reportedly being told not to talk about it as a child, has been opening up about what it’s meant to her. Here’s what you need to know about Tessa Gourin.

Who is Tessa Gourin’s mum, and how did she meet Jack Nicholson?

Tessa’s mum is a woman named Jennine Gourin, who was working as a waitress in the early 90s when she met the actor, per People. “I was the result of a womanising actor’s fling with someone who was then a young waitress,” Tessa wrote in an essay for Newsweek last February. Jennine went on to have a career in New York property according to The Daily Beast, and raised Tessa as a single mum.

Why doesn’t Jack Nicholson want to know his daughter?

While Nicholson has never publicly acknowledged his daughter, per The Daily Beast, he reportedly funded her private school education, and there’s no denying she is the spitting image of The Shining actor. But she says she’s never really been given a “concrete answer” why he doesn’t want to be a part of her life.

“I formed my own opinion, she told the outlet. “He’s a complicated person, and I think my mum fights her own demons, and with the combination of the two, I was simply collateral damage.”

She’s struggled with her identity her whole life

In her 2023 Newsweek essay, Gourin was open about how her father refusing to acknowledge her has affected her mental health over the years. “The most frustrating part of my life is being described as Jack Nicholson’s ‘alleged’ daughter or ‘illegitimate’ child,” she wrote. “I feel like I’m living in the 1500s when that term is used to describe me. Whatever the dictionary definition, I’m very much legitimate. I’m not something to be ashamed of. I’ve grown up feeling like I have to apologise for existing, and it’s exhausting.”

Tessa Gourin is an aspiring actress

It seems even before she knew how famous her father was, she had acting in her bones. “As a little girl, I would dress up as Orphan Annie and refused to take that curly red wig off. Looking back, I’m sure genetics were instrumental in my instinctual desire to act,” she wrote in Newsweek.

She’s getting acting lessons from Tony Greco, who taught Philip Seymour Hoffman, per The Daily Beast, but so far has only landed roles in a handful of short films, according to IMDB. In fact, she’s gone on record saying she wishes people would call her a nepo baby.

She’s also a ceramicist

Gourin is also artsy, per The Daily Beast, and not only paints but honed her pottery skills during the pandemic. She has a small business – Mushrooms by Tessa – that was featured in The New York Times and sekks one-of-a-kind ceramic mushroom-shaped candleholders created by the budding actress.

How many other children does Jack Nicholson have?

Jack Nicholson has six children by five different women, per People magazine, and Gourin has been open about how hard it is knowing that Nicholson “is actively in the lives of [his] other children”.