The Prestige - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

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

[lonnie]

The editing includes one hundred forty-six time jump cuts, in which the next shot either flashes back or skips ahead to another time period of the storyline. This averages to almost one timeline jump per minute of movie.

[jessica]

This is one of two Christopher Nolan movies, in which a character has a two-headed coin. The other one was The Dark Knight (2008), in which Harvey Dent a.k.a. Two-Face used one to decide his fate, or the fate of his victims.

[scarlett]

Ricky Jay: Milton, a stage magician. Jay, a Guinness record holder, magic historian, and accomplished close-up performer, does not usually perform stage illusions.

[kim]

The main characters' initials spell "ABRA" (Alfred Borden Robert Angier), as in abracadabra, a common word used by magicians.

[fred]

When Nikola Tesla's machines are being exhibited in the Royal Albert Hall, a man in the audience protests that Tesla's electrical current is unstable. Later in the movie, the same man appears in Colorado Springs as one of Thomas Edison's associates, thus proving that magicians are not the only ones who hide within their rivals' audiences.

[bryan]

Nikola Tesla was a world-renowned inventor, physicist, and engineer. For a while, he conducted electrical experiments at his lab in Colorado Springs, where he was also known for his eccentric behavior.

[violet]

Ricky Jay, who played a magician in this movie, coached Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in their sleight-of-hand techniques.

[edgar]

Root, Angier's on-stage double, announces that he has played Faust and Caesar in the past. Both characters were destroyed by their own ambition, as is Angier.

[dustin]

It is hinted at in this movie and confirmed in the novel that the twins are named Albert and Frederick Borden, hence "Alfred" Borden.

[tamara]

The in-the-hands vanishing bird cage was developed and performed successfully for many years by Harry Blackstone, Sr. His son, Harry Blackstone, Jr. also performed the trick successfully for many years.

[caroline]

Christopher Nolan's and Christian Bale's second movie together.

[ruby]

Chung Ling Soo was a stage character created by William Ellsworth Robinson, a white man who disguised himself as a Chinese man to cash in on audiences' enthusiasm for the exotic. Robinson lived as Chung, never breaking character while in public. He died in March 1918, when a bullet-catch trick went wrong. "My God, I've been shot" were both his last words and the first English he had spoken on stage in nineteen years.

[toni]

One of two movies released in the fall of 2006 that featured Hugh Jackman and Andy Serkis. The other being Flushed Away (2006).

[frederick]

David Bowie initially declined the role of Nikola Tesla when it was offered to him. Christopher Nolan flew out to him personally to tell him that he was the only person he imagined for the role, and that his larger than life persona would make the idea of Tesla building a teleportation device believable. Upon hearing this, David Bowie changed his mind and took the role.

[jeffrey]

This is a magician's variation on Duel. Instead of scheming writers going after each other; fighting over the same woman; we have dueling magicians going after each other.

[liam]

Sarah's line, "I know what you are.", was not in the script. Rebecca Hall said that she felt terrible right after she said it, thinking she had given away the ending.

[terry]

In the novel, Borden and Angier's rivalry began when Borden wrecks a fake seance Angier is conducting. Injuring, but not killing, his wife in the process.

[caroline]

Josh Hartnett was considered for the part of Robert Angier.

[fred]

Early on in the movie, Sarah's nephew asks of the bird, "Where's his brother?" It is a supposed "foreshadowing" of the fact that Borden has a twin brother.