The King's Speech - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The King's Speech or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The King's Speech

[elmer]

When Archbishop Cosmo Lang attempts to dismiss Lionel Logue as the King's speech therapist, he says that he found a "replacement English specialist with impeccable credentials." He overly stresses the word "English" in an apparent display of English elitism and as a snub to Logue's Australian background, but Archbishop Lang was Scottish.

[wesley]

Claire Bloom plays Helena Bonham Carter's mother-in-law in this movie. She previously played her mother in Mighty Aphrodite (1995).

[russell]

The historical subject matter, including the major theme of King George VI's stammering, has been dealt with before, in the made-for-television movie Bertie and Elizabeth (2002).

[carla]

Colin Firth won the best actor Oscar for his performance as King George VI in this movie. The next year, he presented the Best Actress prize to Meryl Streep for her performance as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady (2011). Streep then subsequently presented Best Actor to Daniel Day-Lewis for portraying Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln (2012). So in a span of three years, lead acting Oscars were presented to the King of Great Britain to the British Prime Minister and then to the President of the United States.

[caroline]

According to EMI recording engineer Peter Cobbin, the original royal microphones had been in the EMI archives for over 70 years. The EMI Archive Trust granted permission for five of them to be loaned to Abbey Road Studios. Three were restored to good working condition and used for recording this movie's orchestral score. The microphones, designed for King George V, King George VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, were adorned with silver and chrome details bearing royal coats of arms and other individual insignia. They were state-of-the-art in the 1930s, and excellent even compared to much modern equipment. Composer Alexandre Desplat and director Tom Hooper were pleased with the result, and felt that the slight coloring of the sound caused by the older equipment gave the recordings an authentic "patina" of the time period.

[edgar]

Lionel refuses to let Bertie smoke during their speech sessions, saying "sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you." King George VI, who smoked 20 to 25 cigarettes a day, died from complications of lung cancer surgery on February 6, 1952, at the age of 56.

[carl]

The real Winston Churchill was seen with a large cigar so frequently that a specific cigar size was named in his honor. Churchill-sized cigars are seven inches long and 50/64-inch in diameter (or 50 ring gauge).

[chris]

King George's first successful attempt at speaking is reciting Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech. Many members of the cast have appeared in productions of Hamlet. Derek Jacobi played the title role in [Hamlet, Prince of Denmark](/category/13468/Hamlet) (1980), opposite Claire Bloom as Gertrude. In addition, he played the Prince in over four hundred performances on stage. Jacobi played Claudius in Hamlet (1996), in which Timothy Spall played Rosencrantz. This movie also featured Rosemary Harris, mother of cast member Jennifer Ehle. Geoffrey Rush played Horatio in the Australian theater. Helena Bonham Carter played Ophelia in Hamlet (1990).

[wesley]

Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth appeared in Shakespeare in Love (1998), in which Mark Williams played an actor with a horrible stammer.

[tom]

The casting of Colin Firth was criticized by some because he did not look or sound like the real King George VI, and was also nearly a decade older than the character.

[ivan]

When Princess Elizabeth meets Lionel Logue the first time, she says that the President for the Royal Society for Speech Therapists warned her that Logue's "antipodean methods were both unorthodox and controversial." Antipodean can mean the exact opposite of something, or it can refer to the collective region of Australia and New Zealand. This movie makes use of both definitions: Logue was an Australian, he is portrayed as a rogue character whose treatments go against conventional wisdom. Director Tom Hooper played on Logue's Australian nationality and his unconventionality because he felt that the British have an aversion to therapy.

[christina]

Guy Pearce has the distinction of appearing in consecutive Academy Award Best Picture winners: this movie and The Hurt Locker (2008). Max Glickman also worked on both movies in the camera department.

[harry]

Geoffrey Rush appeared in Les Misérables (1998) and Elizabeth (1998). Tom Hooper directed Les Misérables (2012), and Elizabeth I (2005).