Payback - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[norma]

Ed Pfeifer is the actors name Porter steals the wallet and ID off of at the beginning of the movie. He has a birth date on his license of 1940. If this movie took place at present time that would make him 59 years old. He was actually born in 1962 which would make him 37 at the time of the films release.

[marc]

When this film is broadcast on television, the scene when Porter (Mel Gibson) kneecaps Val Resnick (Gregg Henry) while he was bullying Rosie (Maria Bello), then talks to him and says, "Have you got a light, Val?" He replies, "No", after searching himself and Porter says, "Well, what good are you?" He then shoots Val through the cushion. When this film was released on VHS, Porter said, "Well, what fucking use are you?"

[linda]

Coburn was unhappy with the cheap cigars they had available for his character to smoke, and after assistants failed to locate any good ones nearby the actor suggested Gibson's trailer was worth a shot. Gibson wasn't on-set yet, so Coburn entered his trailer, ransacked it, and found what he was searching for.

[tammy]

Porter makes a disparaging remark (crooked cops) about police detectives after dealing with the two detectives. Immediately after filming wrapped, Mel Gibson would go on to reprise the character of LA police detective Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), a role he had played three times before.

[fred]

A studio executive sent a note saying she didn't understand why the Chinese gangsters wanted to kill Stegman. He replied that they're actually trying to shoot Porter but that he's using Stegman's body as a shield. "She said she didn't think that was clear, so that's what I was up against."

[addison]

Initially scheduled for release in mid-1998, the film's first theatrical trailer was ironically attached to Hard Rain (1998), another action film that Paramount had extensively delayed. However, issues with Hard Rain were primarily rooted in an attempt to revamp the marketing campaign. Payback's post-production complications and reshoots, as well as an effort to ensure it would not go head to head with Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), Mel Gibson's other action film that year, led to its delay to February 1999.

[kenneth]

At 14 mins.) The flashback of Porter on the phone was meant to have him shirtless so we could see his back free of bullet wounds, "but for some reason we shot it with a shirt on which I can never remember why we did that." explained Helgeland.

[addison]

Helgeland was in post-production on this film the night of the Academy Awards, and having been nominated for his L.A. Confidential (1997) script he really hoped he would be named the winner. "I knew that they were getting close to finally removing me off this movie," and he thought winning the Oscar would mean they couldn't fire him. He won, Sean Connery tussled his hair backstage while congratulating him, and that was his Sunday night. "And on Tuesday I got fired. So much for the magic of an Academy Award."

[janice]

There was originally a scene where Porter rips out the eye of one of the guards in the Outfit's building where his ex partner Val is. For some reason, this scene was not included in either the theatrical or Director's Cut of the movie, and is only available in a very rare, bad quality, workprint.