Trivia for
Doubt (2008/I) More at IMDbPro »

• The play won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
  
  
• The Broadway play ran for over a year at the Walter Kerr Theatre, with 525 performances. The original cast was: Cherry Jones (Sister Aloysius), Brian F. O'Byrne (Father Flynn), Heather Goldenhersh (Sister James) and Adriane Lenox (Mrs. Miller). All four were nominated for a Tony award. The play won four Tony awards: Best Play, Best Director (Doug Hughes), Best Actress (Jones), and Best Featured Actress (Lenox). Author John Patrick Shanley wrote both the stage play and the screenplay adaptation.
  
  
• Natalie Portman declined the role of Sister James.
  
  
• In the scenes in church when Fr. Flynn is wearing green vestments, he wears the stole over his chasuble. Although this fad became popular after Vatican 2, in 1964 the priest would have definitely worn the stole under the chasuble where it belongs.
  
  
• Oprah Winfrey reportedly lobbied for the role of Mrs. Miller, but John Patrick Shanley refused to even give her a reading.
  
  
• Viola Davis, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Mrs. Miller, in the film, is only in two scenes. The first is an extended dialogue with Meryl Streep's character, Sister Aloysius. In the second, she appears only for about 10 seconds and does not speak.
  
  
• In the play, Donald Miller is never seen.
  
  
• Meryl Streep and Amy Adams both played nuns in this film, but the two actresses had also played less celibate characters in previous movies. Amy Adams' character had three boyfriends in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), as did Meryl Streep's in Mamma Mia! (2008)
  
  
• The movie was dedicated to Sister Margaret McEntee, formally known as Sister James, John Patrick Shanley's first grade teacher.
  
  
• Meryl Streep reunited with Amy Adams in Julie & Julia (2009), her film role subsequent to Doubt (2008/I).
  
  
• Some scenes in the film are extremely lengthy. Some of the conversations between Sister Aloysius, Father Flynn, Sister James and Mrs Miller run to 10-15 minutes.
  
  
• John Patrick Shanley's first film since Joe Versus the Volcano (1990).
  
  
• Jimmy Hurley is based on John Patrick Shanley. Everything that he does at the beginning of the movie are the same things Shanley did as a boy.
  
  

• SPOILER: Just as he did with the play, John Patrick Shanley only told the actor who played Father Flynn whether or not Flynn was guilty. None of the other actors knew.
  
  

Related Links