Only Lovers Left Alive - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[russell]

Amongst the books Eve packs for her trip to Detroit are the play "Endgame" by Samuel Beckett, "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra, "Pequeños poemas" by Ramón de Campoamor, "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" by Yukio Mishima, "The Bastard of Istanbul" by Elif Shafak, "Basquiat" by Dieter Buchhart, "The Ambassadors" by Henry James, "The English at the North Pole" by Jules Verne, "Orlando Furioso" by Ludovico Ariosto, "The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece" by Gary M. Radke, "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, "Zwischen zwei Revolutionen" by Ernst Heilborn, "Madame Bovary" by Gustave Flaubert, and "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace.

[willard]

The bar where White Hills plays is on Jefferson Avenue, just southwest of Dearborn Street in Delray, one of the most devastated areas of Detroit, Michigan. It was a functioning bar called "Ideal" until 1986 when it closed. It was built in Art Deco style. The Zug Island steel mill can be seen behind the bar to the right, in the exterior shot.

[bryan]

Tilda swinton somewhat reprised her role in the series "what we do in the shadows"

[addison]

There was some action in this movie at first. But when Writer and Director Jim Jarmusch was asked to add more, he removed all of it instead.

[clayton]

Tom Hiddleston (Adam) and Tilda Swinton (Eve) went to school with a member of the Royal family: Tom attended Eton College in Berkshire with Prince William, while Tilda attended West Heath Girls' School in Kent with Princess Diana. Also, Tom's cousin is Tamara Vestey, who famously was linked romantically to Prince William back in the late 90s. Tamara's father (and another cousin of Tom's) is also a close friend of Prince Charles, and is also Prince Harry's godfather.

[stephanie]

The line "feel free to piss in the garden" may be a reference to a line from Michael Ondaatje's novel "Coming Through Slaughter", which is similarly about a tortured musician and a favorite of Writer and Director Jim Jarmusch.

[michele]

Tilda Swinton and Sir John Hurt appeared in Snowpiercer (2013).

[lonnie]

There's a bar in Delray, Michigan, where they filmed some outside shots. The bar was called "Ideal", and had been closed since 1986. The old man who owned the bar had to purchase the house next door, in order to have access to the cement stairway between the buildings, to get to the outside basement level of the bar. The old man told everyone on the cast and crew who would listen how it took him so long to purchase the bar, and to talk the old lady who owned the house into selling to him, although he didn't want the house (he only wanted the cement staircase that led to the basement level). Shortly after filming at the bar (which took place in late July 2012), the old man torched the house next door for the insurance money.

[jim]

This movie's two main settings, Delray and Tangier, are cities that lie on the edge of another country, separated only by a narrow body of water. Delray, Michigan is in the U.S. and right next to Canada (across the Detroit River), while Tangier, Morocco and right next to Spain (across the Strait of Gibraltar).

[jim]

During Adam's (Tom Hiddleston's) visit to Dr. Watson (Jeffrey Wright) twice throughout this movie, his name tags show "Dr. Faust", which pays homage to the classic German legend Faust (made into a play by Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (Sir John Hurt)). Then, he refers to him as "Dr. Calligari", like the 1920 German silent movie The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Dr. Watson also alludes to Adam as the title character of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Watson's own name recalls the sidekick of Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories.

[elmer]

Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton would both go on to be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Tom as Loki in Thor and Tilda as The Ancient One in Doctor Strange. Both would then go to play these respective characters in Avengers: Endgame (2019) but share no scenes or lines together.

[lonnie]

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (Sir John Hurt) and Ian (Anton Yelchin) are the only main characters to die. Coincidentally, their respective actors, Sir John Hurt and Anton Yelchin were the first, and as of 2017, the only cast members to die. Hurt died of cancer on January 25, 2017, and Yelchin died in a freak vehicle accident on June 19, 2016.

[ronnie]

Contrary to most viewers' assumption, Writer and Director Jim Jarmusch did not name the two main characters directly after Adam and Eve from the Bible. Rather, he was referring to Mark Twain's satirical work "The Diaries of Adam and Eve", which has rarely been published in its complete form. Jarmusch told a Hollywood Reporter interviewer that "It wasn't until shooting the film, that I realized everyone's first impression will be the Biblical reference. Whoops. It's too late now. What can I do?" Twain's is one of the faces visible on Adam's wall of framed portraits in the movie.

[melinda]

One of the books that Eve (Tilda Swinton) packs for her trip to Detroit is a catalogue of Jean Michel Basquiat's work. Jeffrey Wright (Dr. Watson) played the title character in Basquiat (1996).