Trivia: Bob Geldof hates this film. He is quoted as saying "I hated it! I was embarrassed. I didn't know what I was getting into... I thought my acting was terrible. The script was ridiculous. And I hate Pink Floyd. As you may recall I was a punk rocker, so if you want to say something just keep it to three minutes..." He had to be physically restrained by director Alan Parker when he tried to get up and leave during the preview screening of the film at Cannes. In his autobiography "Is That It?" he trashes the film at length, labelling the script as puerile nonsense, and is particularly scathing about the political stance it appears to take. He had a miserable time on the set (reportedly, so did everyone else) and now refuses to even talk about the film or his experiences making it.
Trivia: John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten despises this film. He accused it of glamorizing the squalor of Sid and Nancy's life and making heroin addiction seem cool. He has referred to the film as "a f*ck*ng fantasy." Amongst his more scathing quotes : "To me this movie is the lowest form of life. I honestly believe that it celebrates heroin addiction. It definitely glorifies it at the end when that stupid taxi drives off into the sky." "I don't think they ever had the intent to research properly in order to make a seriously accurate movie. It was all just for money, wasn't it? To humiliate somebody's life like that - and very successfully - was very annoying to me." "I went to see it and was utterly appalled. I told [director] Alex Cox, which was the first time I met him, that he should be shot, and he was quite lucky I didn't shoot him. I still hold him in the lowest light. Will the real Sid please stand up?" "As for how I was portrayed... it was so off and ridiculous. It was absurd. Champagne and baked beans for breakfast? Sorry. I don't drink champagne. He didn't even speak like me. He had a Scouse accent." (Lydon is a Londoner.) Alex Cox later admitted that many of Lydon's criticisms of the film were correct and he should have shown the squalor and ugliness of Sid and Nancy's life in a far more realistic manner.
Trivia: In the scene where Johnny and Baby practice dancing, and she keeps laughing when he runs his arm down hers, it was not part of the scene, she was actually laughing and his frustration was genuine. They left it in the movie because it was effective. Baby falling over in this scene was unplanned too.
Trivia: Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon both did their own singing for the film.
Trivia: When Tony Manero's father slaps him on the back of the head during an argument at the dinner table, Tony replies, "Would you just watch the hair? You know, I work on my hair a long time and you hit it! He hits my hair!" John Travolta ad-libbed this line. Director John Badham thought it was so perfect for the character of Tony Manero that he decided to leave it in the film.
Trivia: Although they play mother and son in this film, Bryce Dallas Howard is only eight years older than Taron Egerton.
Trivia: The blonde woman that Edward Furlong hooks up with in the bar is played by Shannon Tweed, the real-life partner of Gene Simmons from Kiss.
Trivia: Selena's Grammy acceptance speech wasn't as emotional or as detailed as the one in the movie. In real life, she never mentioned Chris or the fans.
Trivia: Most of Prince's dance moves are his own personal tribute to the "Godfather Of Soul" James Brown.
Trivia: This movie set a long-standing Guinness World Record for the largest number of automobiles ever destroyed in a movie, 104, including 60 refurbished and reinforced police cars wrecked (most beyond repair) in the various chase scenes. This record held until the belated sequel, "Blues Brothers 2000," (1998) deliberately set the new record by wrecking one additional automobile for a total of 105.
Suggested correction: It possibly depends on what one counts as "destroyed." Sources suggest there were 104 cars destroyed in BB, with 105 in BB2000. The record has been broken several times since and now stands at 532. It'd be great to see evidence of the numbers for verification. whatculture.com/film/20-things-you-didn't-know-about-the-blues-brothers?page=12 www.startrescue.co.uk/news/top-10/the-10-films-that-destroyed-the-most-cars.
The trivia entry is mostly correct and doesn't need a correction. Just a word change to make it accurate. "Blues Brothers" (1980) did hold the record. 60 police cars were wrecked, but so were an additional 43 cars for a total of 103. "Blues Brothers 2000" beat their own record by 1 car. It seems person who made the entry found on the internet that "Blues Brothers" wrecked 60 cop cars and thought that was the record and assumed 61 was the new record.
Trivia: Miranda Cosgrove, who plays Summer Hathaway, actually has a good voice and plays guitar. She had to take a 45-minute class to learn how to sing badly for the scene where she sang "Memories."
Trivia: George Clooney (Everett) was going to sing "Man of Constant Sorrow" for the film but his singing voice was very poor so he ended up lip-synching the songs instead. He said "I'm not my aunt [referring to the late singer/actress Rosemary Clooney, best known for her role in "A White Christmas" (1954)]. I decided it would be easier to just do a passionate lip-sync." He was so nervous that the tapes of his singing would get out that he returned to the studio to ensure all the evidence had been erased. The musical director of the film confirmed this but said "George is a very good singer but that style of music is very difficult and one almost has to grow up singing it in order to sing it convincingly. George did a really good version of the tune but it wasn't as good as he wanted."
Trivia: Adrian Brody insisted on learning to play the piano himself because he detested the idea of him being in a long shot pretending to play the instrument and then the camera showing someone else's hands on a close up shot actually playing. He said he hated that, not just for him, but on any other film that had such a scene. So he went and took lessons, practicing for hours on end.
Trivia: When Ms. Ungermyer takes Ethen's headphones off he is listening to "Girl in the Band" by Haley Duff, Hilary Duff's sister.
Trivia: Throughout the entire movie, no one ever says the bass player's name. Even in the credits, he is listed as T.B. Player and The Bass Player.