True Lies - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

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

[maureen]

Cinematographer Russell Carpenter says that he became an overnight name after "20 years of swimming upstream in very obscure rivers" (including Pet Sematary II (1992)) when James Cameron decided to hire a relative unknown to shoot True Lies. He was initially hired as director of photography (DP) for a much smaller project that ultimately fell through, but Cameron liked Carpenter so much that he kept him on for a much bigger shoot. Carpenter admitted that he initially had to get used to Cameron's demanding work style: during an early screening of the dailies, Cameron kept complaining that the image was too dark, yelling at him: "Where did you learn to read a light meter?" Carpenter was sure he was going to be fired, but the rest of the crew simply giggled, assuring him that "Jim does this with everyone". Sceptically, he called Mikael Salomon, Cameron's DP on The Abyss (1989); Salomon simply asked him "did Jim already ask where you learned to read a light meter?"

[oscar]

James Cameron was in a relationship with Linda Hamilton and would soon become a father for the first time when Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested the idea for the movie. Cameron, who had been divorced three times already, thought that he had enough experience with marriage to do a film about the burden of family life. He also felt that a comedy would be a nice departure from his usually dark and gritty science-fiction movies, and agreed.

[addison]

Arnold Schwarzenegger's 3rd collaboration with James Cameron.

[frederick]

Valeria Golino was offered a role in the film but she turned it down in order to shoot Slaughter of the Cock (1996).

[ivan]

The name on the door of the office which the Harrier backs into during the final aerial scene is "D. SIMPSON". This is a reference to legendary producer Don Simpson who produced the very aerial Top Gun (1986) among others.

[lynn]

Eliza Dushku broke some ribs during the filming of her Harrier jet stunt scenes. It was later revealed by Dushku that this likely wasn't entirely an accident (see other trivia).

[beth]

Tia Carrere named this as her favorite role of all time "because I got to be a villain."

[steve]

This was the first movie for Digital Domain, the special effects company founded by James Cameron and Stan Winston in 1993. They were Oscar-nominated for Best Special Effects on their first job.

[terry]

Art Malik had previously played a Mujahideen commander in the Bond film The Living Daylights (1987).

[sylvia]

Tia Carrere later starred opposite Kevin Sorbo in Kull the Conqueror (1997), which was originally written for Arnold Schwarzenegger as "Conan the Conqueror".

[ken]

Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, John Goodman and Steve Guttenberg were considered for the part of Albert Gibson.

[brent]

"Fear is not an option" was the theme of a technology lecture given by James Cameron in 2010.

[phyllis]

Jamie Lee Curtis called the film "without question, the greatest experience of my professional life so far."

[linda]

At one point in the film, Tasker uses a Mk II hand grenade to kill several terrorists. For those wondering where this grenade came from, it was originally in the script that Juno put a grenade between Helen's legs, saying all she has to do is keep her legs closed, which Helen remarks is a problem Juno seems to have. When the two escape, Harry re-pinned the grenade using Helens diamond earring for use again later. They cut this scene out of the film, causing this grenade's presence to be a continuity error, however the scene remains in the novelization by Dewey Gram and Duane Dell'Amico. This grenade, complete with the earring in place of the pin, is prominently visible on many of the posters for the movie and on the region 2 DVD cover.

[cameron]

A full scale model of a Harrier was built for all close shots of Arnold Schwarzenegger flying the plane; it was puppeteered from a crane on a nearby building which was painted out with CGI. As the Harrier lands in the street, practical dust and debris shot on a blacked out stage were digitally composited into the full-size model footage, along with CGI heat signature and "jet wash" while the steel cable suspending it in the air was digitally removed. As an extra gag a practical piece of paper, also shot on a stage, gets sucked into the Harrier's CGI air compressor fan through digital compositing.Additionally, this final shot took so long to complete to James Cameron's satisfaction that on his next project with the studio, T2 3-D: Battle Across Time, several artists wore pins that said "No MI29" inside a red circle with a diagonal strike-through, referring to this 29th shot in the Miami sequence for the film.

[tamara]

Harry's horse was really played by four different horses because they had different skills.

[ethel]

James Cameron described his creative process as "what I'm good at is working with actors to create scenes and then editing their performances to get the absolute best vibrating version of that scene and then share that with the audience. It's an amazing process to go through. Sometimes you think it's not going to work when you get started and then the characters come to life."

[veronica]

While director James Cameron and writer Randall Frakes were doing research into international terrorism for this movie, they were surprised to find out how easy it was to smuggle weapons into US territory with only a small chance of detection (something that changed radically in the post-9/11 era). Much of this research was incorporated into the movie to make the terrorists feel like a genuine threat. However, they also wanted to be careful not to give people ideas, so they decided to make the comedy as silly as the film would allow.

[bessie]

Arnold Schwarzenegger's biggest challenge for the movie was not doing all the physical stunts, but dancing a tango. He had to take dancing lessons to realistically perform the dance. He rehearsed the scene for about six months, as he wanted to make sure he was as good at the tango as Al Pacino was in Scent of a Woman (1992).