Movie Film Trivia

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In the 2002 comedy 'Big Fat Liar' which starred Frankie Muniz and Amanda Bynes, Jason (Muniz) is banished to summer school for failing English. There he is assigned to the class of the most boring teacher imaginable, who slowly spells out the name 'Wilkerson'. At the time, Muniz was starring in the sitcom 'Malcolm in the Middle', where the surname of the family was never said once in the show, but seen once on a letter in the pilot episode - Wilkerson.

Another interesting name convention in this movie is that Jason's surname is 'Shepherd' and the name of the bad guy played by Paul Giamatti is named Marty Wolf, an analogy of the fable 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'.
 
The iconic Australian film 'Strictly Ballroom' made its debut 30 years ago, making stars of then unknown young actors Paul Mercurio, Sonia Kruger, Tara Morice and Gia Carides. Some veteran Australian actors like Bill Hunter, Peter Whitford and Barry Otto appear in the movie, and Lauren Hewett who as a teenager in the 1990s starred in a number of Australian kids' shows played Scott's (Paul Mercurio) younger sister Kylie.

Sadly though one actress who played the memorable role of Scott and Kylie's mother Shirley - Pat Thomson - did not live to see the movie premiere as she died prematurely at age 51 of a brain aneurism on the Easter Long Weekend in 1992. Oddly enough, another actor from a yet-to-be-released Australian movie that would become a classic had died prematurely in Sydney the weekend before, this Daniel Pollock from Romper Stomper.

Pat Thomson's early death was somewhat ironic, as she was born in London on Saturday 7th September 1940 - the day that London was bombed for the first time in the Second World War, resulting in mass destruction and a heavy loss of life, these German bombing raids the first of many for English cities during 1940-1941 that would become The Blitz.
 
emuboy said:
The iconic Australian film 'Strictly Ballroom' made its debut 30 years ago, making stars of then unknown young actors Paul Mercurio, Sonia Kruger, Tara Morice and Gia Carides. Some veteran Australian actors like Bill Hunter, Peter Whitford and Barry Otto appear in the movie, and Lauren Hewett who as a teenager in the 1990s starred in a number of Australian kids' shows played Scott's (Paul Mercurio) younger sister Kylie.

Sadly though one actress who played the memorable role of Scott and Kylie's mother Shirley - Pat Thomson - did not live to see the movie premiere as she died prematurely at age 51 of a brain aneurism on the Easter Long Weekend in 1992. Oddly enough, another actor from a yet-to-be-released Australian movie that would become a classic had died prematurely in Sydney the weekend before, this Daniel Pollock from Romper Stomper.

Pat Thomson's early death was somewhat ironic, as she was born in London on Saturday 7th September 1940 - the day that London was bombed for the first time in the Second World War, resulting in mass destruction and a heavy loss of life, these German bombing raids the first of many for English cities during 1940-1941 that would become The Blitz.
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So her life was bookended by a ballroom blitz.
 

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There have always been different fashions in making TV shows and movies and one forgotten trend in the early 1990s was making live action sitcoms based on movies popular at the time. Sometimes actors from the original movies would return and reprise their roles, but more often there would be a whole new cast.

Some movies from the late 1980s and early 1990s that had sitcoms based upon them include Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Uncle Buck, A League Of Their Own, Bill and Ted and the Indiana Jones movies. All however proved unsuccessful and were soon cancelled and forgotten apart from small snippets of trivia, such as a young Jennifer Anniston making her debut in the Ferris Bueller sitcom, playing Ferris's twin sister Jeannie.
 
emuboy said:
In 'Wedding Crashers' in 2005 Owen Wilson's character had feelings for a character played by Rachel McAdams and won her over in the end. Seven years later, Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams played an unhappily married couple in 2012's 'Midnight In Paris', a film about time travel.

In 2013 another time travel film was released called 'About Time' in which Domhnall Gleeson's character in the early part of the movie fell in love with Margot Robbie's character, but his crush went unrequited. He was however able to find love with another woman more suited to his personality - played by Rachel McAdams. And four years later, Domhnall Gleeson and Margot Robbie would play an unhappily married couple in the 2017 biopic 'Goodnight Christopher Robin'.
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Rachel McAdams also played the wife of a time traveller in… The Time Traveller’s Wife.
 
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Jaws (1975) is one of the most famous films of all time. It launched the summer blockbuster movie, and also the career of Steven Spielberg. It differs from the Peter Benchley book in a major way though; the character Matt Hooper, played in the movie by Richard Dreyfuss, actually dies the book. He is killed by the shark while in a shark cage. This was originally going to happen in film also, but for one problem.

The shark cage scene we see in movie was actually filmed in Port Lincoln by Aussie legends Ron and Valerie Taylor. Real great white sharks rarely grow beyond 5m, while the shark in the film was supposed to be 8m long. To compensate for this, they made a smaller shark cage and actually hired a dwarf stunt man - seriously!

On the day of the shoot they located a big shark, 5m long, and put the cage in the water. The shark went ballistic and they obtained some fantastic footage. The plan was then to put another cage in the water, this time with the stuntman inside. But after having seen what had just happened, he flat out refused. This left the filmmakers in a quandary. They had some amazing footage that was just too good not to use, but the cage was clearly empty. So, they filmed an extra scene where Hooper exits the cage and heads to the bottom.

And that's how Hooper lived.

 
Tidbit from TMNT 2 secret of the ooze.

Vanilla Ice was arguably at the height of his fame and was cast in a cameo concert in TMNT 2.

On his first day on the set, the actor who played Michaelangelo ran over to introduce himself only for one of Vanilla Ice's body guards to push him off the stage. In a case of hilariously wrong place to ever do that. The sound stage and set was full of well over 100 blackbelts that did not take too kindly to their popular Co Star being treated like that. Lets just say Vanilla Ice and his body guards had to make a very quick exit.
 
The ultra-violent 1983 crime-thriller '10 to Midnight' sees an experienced LA homicide detective played by Charles Bronson who along with a rookie detective played by Andrew Stevens trying to stop a vile serial killer played by Gene Davis from killing more women.

Just a year before, Andrew Stevens had played an evil, cunning Ted Bundy-like serial killer of young women in the movie 'The Seduction'. And in 1985, Gene Davis would play a cop who is part of a team trying to stop a serial killer of young women in the movie 'The Hitcher'.
 
Watching Under Siege 2 on tv.... Looking up sone trivia for this film....

According to Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg, she auditioned for the role of Kelly for Steven Seagal. She claimed that during the audition, Seagal ordered her to strip naked after he found out she had been Playboy Playmate of the Year, even though the role did not require nudity. She angrily told him that if he wanted to see her naked, he should buy the Playboy edition that she posed for, and stormed out. Years later, in the wake of several women accusing Seagal of sexual misconduct, McCarthy added that Seagal wanted her to strip because the nudity would be "off screen". Seagal's spokespersons and lawyers have denied McCarthy's story.

During an event for the film, Steven Segal was photographed grabbing Katherine Heigl's right breast and laughing. She was 16 at the time.

The casting director drew the ire of Steven Seagal after the action star returned from a vacation in Indonesia and discovered that Gary Busey had been hired to play the villain - Busey famously played one of the villains in the first film, who was dispatched via explosion. Matters got worse when it was discovered that Busey had a "pay-or-play" deal which meant he got his fee if he was in the film or not. Ultimately, Busey was paid his $750,000 dollar salary - which allegedly came out of Seagal's pocket as a producer - but didn't work a day on the picture.

During this production Steven Seagal started wearing a girdle to contain his stomach, this was apparently a temporary fix as he intended to lose the excess weight eventually. This has not occurred
Filmmakers pioneered a new technique that enabled them to film all the interior train scenes (practically all the film) in the studio. Tennis balls glued on the studio walls were used as reference points to allow computers to insert footage of Colorado scenery, even when the camera moved around.
 
“The last day of shooting, and again, I had just turned 16 on this movie. And he said, ‘You know Katie, I got girlfriends your age.’ And I said, ‘Isn’t that illegal?’ And he said, ‘They don’t seem to mind.’ And I said, ‘Mom!’ I’m not making that up.”
 
Jeopardy is one of my favourite shows. Tonight it provided me with inspiration for a post in this, my favourite BF thread.

The question revealed that Christopher Lee and Ian Fleming were cousins. I'd never heard this, but a quick search found this gem:

"When Lee's mother remarried following his parents' divorce, it was to a man with the remarkably English name of Harcourt George St-Croix Rose. This man was the uncle of Ian Fleming, so Lee and Fleming became step-cousins."

Not quite full cousins, but still pretty good!

Not only that, but I've also just learned that Fleming actually based James Bond on his cousin, after discussions about Lee's (amazing) military service. From his Wikipedia page:

"For the final few months of his service, Lee, who spoke fluent French, Italian and German, among other languages, was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects. Here, he was tasked with helping to track down Nazi war criminals. Of his time with the organisation, Lee said: "We were given dossiers of what they'd done and told to find them, interrogate them as much as we could and hand them over to the appropriate authority..." "

And to complete the circle, Lee played the highly memorable villain Francisco Scaramanga in The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), which IMO is the second best of the Roger Moore movies.* Lee said of his performance: "In Fleming's novel he's just a West Indian thug, but in the film he's charming, elegant, amusing, lethal... I played him like the dark side of Bond." This film also contains the greatest car stunt ever caught on film.



* In case anyone is interested, the best is For Your Eyes Only.
 

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There is a television writer and producer in Hollywood named Speed Weed. He has written for such series as NCIS, Law and Order SVU and New Amsterdam.

Weed has stated on Twitter that "Speed" is a nickname given to him by his father on the day he was born, while "Weed" is his family name.

www.imdb.com

Speed Weed | Producer, Additional Crew, Writer

Known for: Political Animals, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Arrow
www.imdb.com www.imdb.com
 
In Scream 4 in 2011, the character Jill Roberts was played by actress Emma Roberts.

Actors who play characters with the same first name are reasonably common. Tony Danza often played characters called Tony during his career, and Charlie Sheen played Charlie Harper on Two and A Half Man. Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm is of course playing a fictionalized version of himself, but there's also Cheryl David (played by Cheryl Hines), Jeff Green (played by Jeff Garlin) and Susie Green (played by Susie Essman). There's also the 1970s British sitcom Bless This House, where Sid James played Sid Abbott and Sally Geeson played the daughter Sally Abbott, however the wife, son and neighbors were all portrayed by actors with different names than their characters.

However, unless actors are playing themselves or fictionalized versions of themselves (like Matt LeBlanc from Episodes or Drew Carey from The Drew Carey Show), its much rarer to find an actor playing a character with the same surname, either on TV or in movies. I can't think of any other examples other than Emma Roberts playing Jill Roberts, can you think of any more?
 
emuboy said:
In Scream 4 in 2011, the character Jill Roberts was played by actress Emma Roberts.

Actors who play characters with the same first name are reasonably common. Tony Danza often played characters called Tony during his career, and Charlie Sheen played Charlie Harper on Two and A Half Man. Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm is of course playing a fictionalized version of himself, but there's also Cheryl David (played by Cheryl Hines), Jeff Green (played by Jeff Garlin) and Susie Green (played by Susie Essman). There's also the 1970s British sitcom Bless This House, where Sid James played Sid Abbott and Sally Geeson played the daughter Sally Abbott, however the wife, son and neighbors were all portrayed by actors with different names than their characters.

However, unless actors are playing themselves or fictionalized versions of themselves (like Matt LeBlanc from Episodes or Drew Carey from The Drew Carey Show), its much rarer to find an actor playing a character with the same surname, either on TV or in movies. I can't think of any other examples other than Emma Roberts playing Jill Roberts, can you think of any more?
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Fresh Prince Reaction GIF by MOODMAN
 
emuboy said:
In Scream 4 in 2011, the character Jill Roberts was played by actress Emma Roberts.

Actors who play characters with the same first name are reasonably common. Tony Danza often played characters called Tony during his career, and Charlie Sheen played Charlie Harper on Two and A Half Man. Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm is of course playing a fictionalized version of himself, but there's also Cheryl David (played by Cheryl Hines), Jeff Green (played by Jeff Garlin) and Susie Green (played by Susie Essman). There's also the 1970s British sitcom Bless This House, where Sid James played Sid Abbott and Sally Geeson played the daughter Sally Abbott, however the wife, son and neighbors were all portrayed by actors with different names than their characters.

However, unless actors are playing themselves or fictionalized versions of themselves (like Matt LeBlanc from Episodes or Drew Carey from The Drew Carey Show), its much rarer to find an actor playing a character with the same surname, either on TV or in movies. I can't think of any other examples other than Emma Roberts playing Jill Roberts, can you think of any more?
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Got a couple here: in Chaplin (1992) Geraldine Chaplin played Hannah Chaplin, her real-life grandmother. I'm not sure if that counts, but this one does, and is near to my heart. In Heaven's Gate (1980) Jeff Bridges played John L. Bridges.

And a good one from TV: Wilford Brimley played a character named Horace Brimley in The Waltons.
 
emuboy said:
In Scream 4 in 2011, the character Jill Roberts was played by actress Emma Roberts.

Actors who play characters with the same first name are reasonably common. Tony Danza often played characters called Tony during his career, and Charlie Sheen played Charlie Harper on Two and A Half Man. Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm is of course playing a fictionalized version of himself, but there's also Cheryl David (played by Cheryl Hines), Jeff Green (played by Jeff Garlin) and Susie Green (played by Susie Essman). There's also the 1970s British sitcom Bless This House, where Sid James played Sid Abbott and Sally Geeson played the daughter Sally Abbott, however the wife, son and neighbors were all portrayed by actors with different names than their characters.

However, unless actors are playing themselves or fictionalized versions of themselves (like Matt LeBlanc from Episodes or Drew Carey from The Drew Carey Show), its much rarer to find an actor playing a character with the same surname, either on TV or in movies. I can't think of any other examples other than Emma Roberts playing Jill Roberts, can you think of any more?
Click to expand...

This isn't exactly the same as what you are asking but actor Charlie Barnett played a character named Chuck Mills in an episode of Law and Order SVU and two years later played an ongoing character named Peter Mills in Chicago Fire.
Has anyone else played two characters with same surname (who have no relation to each other)?
 
Not the same, but I saw a movie a few months ago, cant be ****ed remembering what it was, maybe Blood Punch??? I dunno. But all the characters used another characters name. Eg, Sandra Whatever played Jane. Jane Whatever played Sandra. Andy Whatever played Peter. Peter Whatever played Andy.
 
worbod said:
This isn't exactly the same as what you are asking but actor Charlie Barnett played a character named Chuck Mills in an episode of Law and Order SVU and two years later played an ongoing character named Peter Mills in Chicago Fire.
Has anyone else played two characters with same surname (who have no relation to each other)?
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Pam Grier played the title characters in Foxy Brown (1974) and Jackie Brown (1997).
 

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Movie Film Trivia

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