Trivia for
Finding Forrester (2000) More at IMDbPro »

• Stock footage of housing projects in the Bronx is reused from Q & A (1990).
  
  
• Star Rob Brown got the role after initially auditioning as an extra. Brown had no aspirations of being an actor and was only hoping to make some money to pay his $300 cell phone bill. But Gus Van Sant invited him to audition for the role of Jamal and liked his natural ability.
  
  
• The character of Robert Crawford is based on a real life Robert Crawford, who teaches history at Phillips Academy Andover, a private school outside of Boston.
  
  
• The movie that Forrester is watching when Jamal first enters the apartment is The Big Heat (1953) starring Glenn Ford.
  
  
• Joey Buttafuoco's elusive "Night Man" bit part comprises a few seconds of on-screen time as he offers Jamal a flashlight just before Jamal escorts Forrester onto an empty baseball field (R1 DVD Time 1:21:34)
  
  
• When Forrester arrives to defend Jamal at the Mailer School, Dr. Charles Bernstein is present in the background (as Dr. Simon). Dr. Bernstein is a real poet and poetics professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
  
  
• The scenes in the Mailor-Callow School were actually filmed at Regis High School in Manhattan, an all-scholarship high school on the upper east side.
  
  
• In addition to being based on J.D. Salinger, William Forrester is also heavily inspired by John Kennedy Toole. Toole wrote the book "A Confederacy of Dunces", a mysteriously autobiographical book, but when no one would publish it, he gassed himself to death in his car. Years later, the book was published and won the Pulitzer Prize.
  
  
• DVD features two deleted choir scenes ("Lacrymosa" and "Lean On Me"). Additionally the trailer contains a line by Jamal's mother ("Have you seen my son's backpack?") that is not used in the final film.
  
  
• When Jamal checks out the data on Forrester with the school's computer, the facts he discovers are actually Sean Connery's real life data.
  
  
• Cameo: [Matt Damon] star of Gus Van Sant's earlier film Good Will Hunting (1997) appears as a lawyer.
  
  
• In the scene where Busta Rhymes is eating dinner with his mother, he is wearing a Bushi T-shirt. Bushi is Busta's new clothing line.
  
  
• During filming, it was discovered that Sean Connery could not type. When you see Forrester's hands on the keys, they are the hands of someone else.
  
  
• Jim Titus (Student) was originally on the set as an extra. The director and assistant director, noticed him joking with the actress who played the teacher and they offered him a line in the film.
  
  
• Director Cameo: [Gus Van Sant] Library assistant (at a computer in background) where Jamal attempts to check out Forrester's "Avalon Landing" novel (R1 DVD Time: 1:07:48)
  
  
• As Robert Crawford places entries for the school writing competition on a desk, some of the essays' authors' names are those of the movie's crew members: 'James Pollard' (Dolly Grip) and Joyce Tollefson (Assistant to Mr. Connery), etc (R1 DVD Time 1:30:19)
  
  
• When Connery is speaking to the man delivering his shopping, Connery replies, "Of course you are." This same remark is also said by Connery in The Rock (1996), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Rising Sun (1993) and also by Clancy Brown in the film Highlander (1986) which also stars Sean Connery.
  
  
• The sketch used to portray a young Forrester in the New Yorker and on the wall of famous writers at the school is based on a young Sean Connery from the James Bond period. The same picture is on a desk in Mark Trevor's house in Another Time, Another Place (1958), in which Connery was introduced to a big audience.
  
  
• The song missing from the distributed soundtrack is titled "Gassenhauer" ("Street Song"). It is the background tune used while Forrester rides his bike. Composer Carl Orff (1895-1982), whose rendition is used in the film, gave its possible year of origin as 1536 by lutenist Hans Neusiedler.
  
  

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