The Theory of Everything - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

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

[marc]

Emily Watson previously appeared in War Horse (2011) with Benedict Cumberbatch, who has also played Hawking.

[gerald]

Around half of the movie, we see Jane holding a handbook manuscript while transcribing it from old Spanish to the English language. The manuscript contains verses 132 to 163 from Silva al Verano by Aragonese poet Matías Ginovés and verses 126 to 136 from Canción a San Gerónimo by baroque poet Adrián de Prado.

[charlie]

Jane Hawking requested that she and Stephen never make love on screen. Her request was honored as this is no more than alluded to in the finished film.

[eli]

The math problem, "Calculate the stress tensor for source free electromagnetic and show that it is conserved using Maxwell's equations," is the fourth math problem from the set passed out by Professor Sciama that Hawking digs out on his room/dorm's desk at Cambridge University.

[terry]

Ex-professional footballer Frank Leboeuf played a Swiss doctor in this film.

[jamie]

Screenwriter Anthony McCarten spent nearly three years convincing Jane Hawking to agree to a film adaptation of her book.

[manuel]

David Thewlis and Eddie Redmayne have both appeared In J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

[jesse]

Stephen Hawking said that the film was "broadly true." He then went on to lend his voice for the final parts of the film.

[jessica]

Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones both attended Stephen Hawking's funeral.

[wallace]

In addition to his copyrighted voice, Stephen Hawking also lent the filmmakers his Companion of Honour medal and his signed thesis to use as genuine props in the film.

[kristina]

The quote, "Daisy, Daisy. Give me your answer, do," that Hawking uses while experimenting with his new speech-generating device, comes from the lyrics of the well-known song "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)," written by Harry Dacre in 1892. This is the song that was used for the earliest known demonstration of computer speech synthesis in 1961, when it was "sung" by an IBM 704 computer. As a tribute to that event, "Daisy Bell" was also sung by the fictional HAL 9000 computer in a memorable scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), coincidentally also at a point where HAL's performance is slowly deteriorating (like Hawking's).

[liam]

It took screenwriter Anthony McCarten ten years to bring this story to the screen.

[phyllis]

While celebrating Stephen's PhD, Brian calls Stephen "Doctor Who." In real life, Harry Lloyd was a Doctor Who (2005) villain in the episodes Doctor Who: Human Nature (2007) and Doctor Who: The Family of Blood (2007).

[nicholas]

Felicity Jones and Emily Watson both starred in the 2010 comedy Cemetery Junction (2010), also playing mother and daughter.

[sylvia]

Eddie Redmayne met with Stephen Hawking only once before filming. "In the three hours I spent with him, he said maybe eight sentences," recalls Redmayne. "I just didn't feel like I could ask him intimate things." Therefore, he found other ways to prepare for the role. He lost about fifteen pounds and trained for four months with a dancer to learn how to control his body. He met with forty ALS patients, kept a chart tracking the order in which Hawking's muscles declined, and stood in front of a mirror for hours on end, contorting his face. Lastly, he remained motionless and hunched over between takes, so much so that an osteopath told him he had altered the alignment of his spine. "I fear I'm a bit of a control freak," Redmayne admits. "I was obsessive. I'm not sure it was healthy."

[michele]

When Jane Hawking is on the medical air ambulance looking out the window of the airplane at Jonathan Jones standing on the tarmac, the other airplane visible in the foreground (with twin mounted turbine engines) is a modified Boeing 747 film prop that was featured in the James Bond movie Casino Royale (2006). The airplane is not airworthy and is located at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, England, which is also the filming location for the hit U.K. television show Top Gear (2002). Just prior to Jane boarding, in the frame where the two are hugging each other, the snow-capped mountains in the background are digitally added (there are no mountains in Dunsfold).

[lynn]

In the scene with Jane and Stephen on the bed after moving it down to the kitchen, Stephen whispers, "Thank you." According to Eddie Redmayne, there were originally no words for this scene, but he added it in himself. It turned out to be one of James Marsh's favorite scenes in the film.

[stephanie]

When driving around in his wheelchair using his computer voice, Stephen Hawking would say, "Exterminate! Exterminate!" just like the Daleks in Doctor Who (1963).

[cameron]

In an e-mail to director James Marsh about the portrayal by Eddie Redmayne, Stephen Hawking said there were certain points when he thought he was watching himself.