The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Perks of Being a Wallflower or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Perks of Being a Wallflower

[miriam]

In an interview with LAYouth.com, Stephen Chbosky said that he wrote the book for personal reasons, but realized that many people related to it, while reading the book's customer reviews on Amazon.com.

[michele]

Stephen Chbosky is a native of Pittsburgh, where the movie was filmed. When he was young, he watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) in the same theater where they filmed the scenes for The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012).

[maureen]

Stephen Chbosky said that he imagined what the story would become, at the moment he thought of the title of the book.

[kenneth]

The shop teacher, Mr. Callahan, is a Vietnam veteran. Tom Savini, who plays Mr. Callahan, was also in Vietnam (and later became a legendary special effects artist for horror movies).

[tom]

In the director's commentary on the DVD and Blu-ray, Stephen Chbosky mentions that Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Breakfast Club (1985) were two of his favorite films growing up, and that they influenced him.

[jeffrey]

Joan Cusack, Mae Whitman, Erin Ailhelmi, Ezra Miller and Nicholas Braun have all appeared as guests on Law & Order: SVU.

[nicholas]

Emma Watson has admitted that she refuses to watch her kissing scenes or The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) scene.

[dustin]

The scene, in which Mr. Anderson asks Charlie's English class several literary questions, to which everyone except Charlie, doesn't know the answers, he instead, writes the answers down in his notebook, is a reference to a similar scene in the Marathon Man (1976).

[claude]

During the scene, where the cast rides the back of the truck through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, the cast wore safety wires.

[kenzi]

Mae Whitman and Johnny Simmons previously worked together on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010).

[morris]

Some critics and other audience members had trouble believing that the movie's characters would not only not recognize the "tunnel song" (David Bowie's 1977 hit "Heroes") but would not be able to discover its identity for many months. In an October 2012 interview in Vanity Fair magazine, Stephen Chbosky admitted that this detail was true to his own life as a teenager in the early 1990s: "You (interviewer Bruce Handy) and John Malkovich and Jim Powers (both producers on the film) could all gang up on me and say, 'We don't believe it,' and I will put my hand on a Bible and say, 'In the early '90s, David Bowie was "Let's Dance" to me. He was that guy.' The whole '70s Bowie, because I was more into grunge, I came late to him. Listen, if you say to me, 'The kids not knowing "Heroes," it's not realistic,' I will cop to it! Anyone who has a bone to pick, I can't argue. But I swear to god, it was real!"

[oscar]

Logan Lerman and Emma Watson have starred in a Chris Columbus film. Watson appeared in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) and Lerman appeared in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010). Not only that, writer/director Stephen Chbosky wrote the screenplay for Rent (2005), which Columbus directed.

[clayton]

The list of books, Mr. Anderson gives to Charlie, is the following: - The Stranger, Albert Camus. - On the Road, Jack Kerouac. - The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. - To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee. - A separate peace, John Knowles. - Walden, Henry David Thoreau. The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger.

[marc]

Ezra Miller did his initial audition for the film over Skype, and he was so charismatic in the interview, that they cast him within five hours of the audition.

[cassandra]

Mae Whitman plays a character called "Mary Elizabeth". She previously worked with Mary Elizabeth Winstead in "Scott Pilgrim vs The World" in 2010 (3 years prior)

[terry]

Was originally rated R by the MPAA for "teen drug and alcohol use, and some sexual references" but was later changed to PG-13 after an appeal for "mature thematic material, drug and alcohol use, sexual content including references, and a fight - all involving teens"

[norma]

Emma Watson is, of course, best known for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise. Ezra Miller would later become part of the franchise through the prequel (though author and scriptwriter J.K. Rowling prefers the phrase "extension of the Wizarding World") Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016).

[ava]

At the time of filming Ezra Miller was seventeen years old, about the same age as his character. Logan Lerman was eighteen years old, two years older than his character, who turned sixteen the day before Christmas, and was an old freshman after being held back a year. In reality, Lerman is nine months older than Miller. Emma Watson was 21 years old at the time of filming, making her the eldest of the three leads.

[jessica]

In the book, Patrick and Mary Elizabeth were chain smokers, and Charlie had a smoking phase. That detail was removed in the film, likely to score a PG-13 rating.