Trivia for
The Reader (2008) More at IMDbPro »

• Stephen Daldry's first choice for the lead role was Kate Winslet, who originally turned down the offer due to a scheduling conflict with Revolutionary Road (2008). When Nicole Kidman accepted the role, the producers built in a hiatus in order to allow her to finish filming Baz Luhrmann's Australia (2008). However, by the time Kidman was set to begin her scenes on the film, she withdrew because of her pregnancy, vacating the role. Winslet, who was now available, agreed to replace Kidman.
  
  
• Juliette Binoche was considered for the role of Hanna Schmitz.
  
  
• Producers Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella both died before the completion of the movie. As the film was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, the Academy made an exception from their rules not to name more than three producers as nominees because of this rare circumstance. In the end the two producers Donna Gigliotti and Redmond Morris who took over duties were nominated as well as the posthumously honored Minghella and Pollack.
  
  
• Three composers were considered to compose the original music - Nico Muhly, Ozren K. Glaser and Alberto Iglesias.
  
  
• There is a scene where Michael reads to Hanna from Lady Chatterley's Lover. She tells him he should be ashamed, but when he goes to put the book away, she tells him to read on. This is similar to a scene from Kate Winslet's film Quills (2000), where Madeleine (Winslet) is reading one of the Marquis de Sade's stories to her mother. Her mother says it is terrible, but after a pause urges her to read on.
  
  
• Producer Scott Rudin was originally a producer of the movie but he got into conflict with executive producer Harvey Weinstein. Rudin wanted to push the release date back to 2009 to avoid an Oscar campaign along with Doubt (2008/I) and Revolutionary Road (2008) both which were also produced by Rudin. Eventually Rudin left the film and had his name removed from the credits. Ironically, The Reader was nominated for an Academy Award 2009 in the Best Picture category (and thus got producer's nominations) but neither Doubt nor Revolutionary Road.
  
  
• Before Kate Winslet accepted the role of Hanna, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard and Naomi Watts were considered for the part.
  
  
• To avoid legal consequences, the crew delayed the filming of sexually explicit scenes until after actor David Kross' 18th birthday on July 4 2008.
  
  
• The concentration camp scenes were filmed at the Majdanek concentration camp, located in Lublin, Poland. This camp was functional at the time of its liberation by the Soviets in 1944, meaning that it is intact today. Most other camps (including Auschwitz) were either partially or completely destroyed by the Nazis in an attempt to cover up their actions when they realized they were going to be defeated.
  
  
• Hendrik Maaß, who plays Michael's court house assistant (uncredited role), had been vocationally trained as a paralegal in real life for some time.
  
  
• The film's original cinematographer was Roger Deakins. From September to October 2007, he shot scenes that didn't feature the character Hanna. After filming was shut down (to give Nicole Kidman, who had been cast as Hanna, time to finish filming Australia (2008) before joining the production), Deakins left to shoot Doubt (2008/I) and begin pre-production on A Serious Man (2009). Once Kidman withdrew from the film and was replaced by Kate Winslet, filming resumed in March 2008; the new cinematographer, Chris Menges, shot all of Winslet's scenes.
  
  
• As young Michael's literature teacher is discussing "the notion of secrecy", the name of German author "Goethe" is on the blackboard briefly, before being wiped off. Despite the slight difference in spelling, this could be a nod to the part of "Goeth", played by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List (1993)
  
  
• In the British TV show "Extras" (2005), season 1 episode 3, _Kate Winslet_ has a guest appearance playing herself. In it, she says to Ricky Gervais' character that "movies about the Holocaust are one of the the best ways to win an Oscar" (the other, she says, is playing a character who is mentally handicapped) and that is why she accepted the role she plays within the episode - at that point, Winslet had yet to win the award. This movie seems to prove she is right, since it gave her the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for a movie clearly associated with the Holocaust.
  
  

• SPOILER: It took a total of seven hours to transform Kate Winslet into Old Hanna.
  
  
• SPOILER: Before Hanna commits suicide by hanging in her prison cell, the books that Michael read to her (The Odyssey War and Peace etc.) are used as a platform before she hangs herself.
  
  

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