Trivia for
Boyz n the Hood (1991) More at IMDbPro »

• Director Cameo: [John Singleton] the mailman.
  
  
• The self-hating black police officer was based on a cop whom John Singleton witnessed as a kid. Singleton felt it was critical to show this officer to show how racist black police could be towards black people.
  
  
• Ice Cube was John Singleton's first choice for Doughboy, he approached him at a rap music concert a couple of times, and Cube was reluctant to audition via a screen test, conducted by Singleton himself.
  
  
• The opening and closing scenes are direct references to Rob Reiner's movie Stand by Me (1986).
  
  
• A pickpocket in this film, who tries to rob Doughboy's crew and gets beat up, wears a T-shirt reading "We Want Eazy". This is a reference to Eazy-E, Ice Cube's former N.W.A. band mate, with whom he was feuding at the time of the movie.
  
  
• Many of the people portrayed in the film were based on people in John Singleton's life.
  
  
• In order to maintain a sense of realism (i.e. shots firing unexpectedly), Singleton never gave the actors cues as to when the shots would be fired. As such, their reactions are real.
  
  
• John Singleton's Oscar nomination for Best Director at the age of 24 makes him the youngest director to ever receive such an accolade, beating Orson Welles by a good 2 years.
  
  
• In terms of investment, this was 1991's most financially successful film, making $56.1 million from a budget of only $6.5 million.
  
  
• At the beginning of the movie the voice of a little boy says, "They shot my brother". This is the voice of Kenneth A. Brown, who plays Little Chris as well in the younger years of Tre's life.
  
  
• Laurence Fishburne who plays Cuba Gooding Jr.'s father is only six and a half years older than him in real life
  
  
• In the scene where Furious (Laurence Fishburne) and his son (Cuba Gooding Jr.) are sitting on the rocks having a father-to-son chat, Furious mentions fighting as a young soldier in Vietnam. Laurence Fishburne starred in Apocalypse Now (1979) as a young soldier in Vietnam.
  
  
• Ice Cube owns the gold Chevrolet Impala that his character drove in the movie.
  
  
• Columbia wanted to make the picture, but at first wanted someone else to direct it. Singleton believed only he could do it saying, "They asked me if I would consider anybody else directing it?" Singleton replied, "Hell, no, I'm not gonna let somebody from Idaho or Encino direct a movie about living in south-central Los Angeles. They can't come in here and cast it and go through the rewrites and know exactly what aesthetics are unique to this film."
  
  

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