Magnolia - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[addison]

Many things happen in pairs throughout the movie. Two characters are named Jim. Two women take drugs (Claudia and Linda). The game show host (Jimmy Gator) and game show producer (Earl Partridge) are dying of cancer. Both of those characters also cheated on their spouses and have children that denounce them. There are two quiz kids (Donnie Smith and Stable Spector). There are two caretakers: Officer Jim Kurring for Claudia and nurse Phil Parma for Earl Partridge. Two characters are humiliated on television simultaneously: Frank T.J. Mackey at an interview and Stanley Spector on a game show. Voice over is heard when Jim Kurring takes a shower towards the beginning of the movie and Claudia towards the end. Both Jimmy Gator and Donnie Smith mention the catchphrase "Rub-a-dub" and they also drink. Frank T.J. Mackey and Donnie Smith say "Go! Go! Go!"

[alyssa]

The Mason symbol is on various walls in the WDKK studio. When Jimmy Gator's producer puts his hand on his shoulder, before the show starts, we see he is wearing a ring with the Mason's symbol on it. Similar to the Masonic farewell, "We met upon the level and we're parting on the square", the phrase is a Kipling quote, "tried on the square" is part of the official Masonic farewell. One of Stanley's library books is "A History of Masonry". The 82nd Mason lodge (8 and 2 being prominently featured throughout the film) is located in Magnolia, Arkansas.

[clayton]

Paul Thomas Anderson said this was his favourite film of his own at the time of release.

[jamie]

Tom Cruise loved Boogie Nights (1997) so much, he asked Paul Thomas Anderson to consider him for a part in his next film. Cruise, while initially rather terrified at playing such a change in pace, relished the role as it was so completely different from the repressed character he played in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

[amber]

Aimee Mann's music inspired Paul Thomas Anderson to write the script and at least one lyric (and possibly more) from an Aimee Mann song was lifted and used as dialogue. In the song "Deathly" the lyric goes: "Now that I've met you / Would you object to / Never seeing / Each other again". In the film, Melora Walters's character says "Now that I've met you, would you object to never seeing me again?"

[jessica]

According to Philip Baker Hall, the scene where Frank T.J. Mackey visits Earl Partridge on his deathbed is loosely based on Paul Thomas Anderson's experiences of watching his father, the late WABC-TV announcer Ernie Anderson, die of cancer.

[brent]

Debra Winger was considered for Linda Partridge.

[harry]

Philip Seymour Hoffman stated during the deathbed scene, everything after Frank's "I'm not going to cry for you" was improvised by Tom Cruise. Cruise didn't feel the scripted lines worked and Paul Thomas Anderson told Cruise to think of when his own father died and to let it move him. During the next take Cruise broke down sobbing, resulting in the scene seen in the film. Hoffman stated Phil's reaction to Frank sobbing was his own, since he didn't know Cruise would enter such a zone and he felt the purity of Cruise's emotion.