48 Fun Facts About Donnie Darko

Who wrote and directed Donnie Darko, his debut feature?

Richard Kelly refused to let anyone else direct his script, which kept it unmade for more than three years until a star's production company finally backed him.

At dinner, Elizabeth Darko announces she is voting for which presidential candidate?

Michael Dukakis, which dates the story to the 1988 election: it is the script's opening line, a liberal teenager needling her conservative parents at the end of the Reagan era.

Donnie survives the accident at the start of the film because he was doing what?

Sleepwalking leaves Donnie waking up on a golf course the next morning, where the men who find him joke that he must have been sleep-golfing.

What falls onto the Darko house?

A jet engine hits the house and nobody can say where it came from; the director built the script on that image after reading of ice from an airliner landing in a boy's empty bedroom.

Frank appears to Donnie wearing what costume?

A rabbit, but not the Easter Bunny that early sketches kept suggesting: the director wanted Frank disturbing and animalistic, so the mask was sculpted with a twisted grin.

What does Frank tell Donnie will happen in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds?

The world will end, Frank says, and when Donnie realises at his Halloween party that the deadline is only hours away, he rushes his friends out to find Grandma Death.

Who plays Elizabeth, the eldest Darko sibling?

Maggie Gyllenhaal was cast at her brother's suggestion: the film's lead says the two were in a competitive phase, which fed straight into the Darkos' dinner-table squabbles.

Donnie's girlfriend Gretchen Ross has moved to town under a new identity to escape whom?

A violent stepfather, who stabbed her mother, is why Gretchen and her mother live in town under new names; Jena Malone plays her.

The book The Philosophy of Time Travel was written by which character?

Roberta Sparrow was a nun who left the church overnight, wrote the book and taught at Donnie's school; by the time of the film the town's teenagers know her only as Grandma Death.

Who gives Donnie the copy of The Philosophy of Time Travel?

Kenneth Monnitoff, who teaches science, hands the book over and warns Donnie not to say where he got it, then cuts a later talk short because going further could cost him his job.

Patrick Swayze's Jim Cunningham is what?

A motivational speaker, Jim Cunningham sells a 'Fear versus Love' philosophy that gym teacher Kitty Farmer turns into classroom attitude lessons.

What do firefighters find in the burned remains of Cunningham's house?

A hoard of child pornography turns up in the ruins after Donnie, on Frank's instruction, burns the house down; Cunningham is arrested.

Kitty's decision to defend Cunningham means Rose Darko has to chaperone what?

The dance troupe's flight to Los Angeles is for a spot on Star Search, and it matters more than it seems: the flight bringing Rose and the girls home is the one caught up in the film's final twist.

Which song does the dance troupe Sparkle Motion perform to?

'Notorious' by Duran Duran backs the routine, one of the hardest scenes to light: the cinematographer filled the auditorium with smoke so the girls would stand out as silhouettes.

Donnie's psychotherapist believes his visions of Frank are 'daylight hallucinations' symptomatic of what?

Paranoid schizophrenia is how Dr. Thurman explains the visions to Donnie's parents, and her answer is more hypnotherapy and a higher dose of his medication.

The Halloween party at the Darko house celebrates Elizabeth's acceptance to which university?

Harvard has just accepted Elizabeth, and with both parents out of town she and Donnie decide they can get away with throwing a Halloween party at the house.

In which fictional suburb is Donnie Darko set?

Middlesex is modelled on the suburb where the director grew up in the late 1980s, right down to the self-help lessons, which he says really were on his school's curriculum.

Where does Donnie shoot Frank?

In the right eye: the wound explains the hollow, bleeding eye of the Frank in Donnie's visions, who answers only 'I'm so sorry' when Donnie asks what happened to it.

Where does Frank first take off his mask in front of Donnie?

At a movie theatre, during a screening of The Evil Dead, Gretchen falls asleep beside Donnie and Frank appears in the next seat and removes his mask.

Which actress plays Kitty Farmer, the gym teacher in Donnie Darko?

Beth Grant plays Kitty Farmer, who champions Jim Cunningham, coaches Sparkle Motion and delivers the line 'Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.'

Which star's company, Flower Films, agreed to produce Donnie Darko?

Drew Barrymore was asked to play the English teacher and answered with a deal of her own: she would take the part if her company could produce the film.

What was Donnie Darko's production budget?

$4.5 million was the finance the director says he needed, and it arrived only once a star's production company signed on.

Which ER star plays the teacher Donnie quizzes about time travel?

Noah Wyle was one of the established names who came aboard once a star producer was attached, which reassured actors wary of working with a first-time director.

Where did Donnie Darko premiere in January 2001?

Sundance Film Festival audiences saw it first, in January 2001, but every major distributor passed on it there, and for months it looked likely to go straight to video.

What hurt Donnie Darko at the box office on its first release?

It opened just weeks after 9/11, when audiences were wary of a story built around an air disaster; it took barely half a million dollars in American cinemas before home video made it a cult film.

Which New York cinema ran midnight screenings of Donnie Darko for more than two years?

The Pioneer Theatre in the East Village began the midnight screenings after the March 2002 video release and kept them going for more than two years, turning the flop into a cult hit.

What does Donnie leave buried in the head of the school's bronze mascot?

An axe is left in the skull of the school's bronze mascot on the night Donnie floods the building, beside the spray-painted words 'They made me do it'.

After reissues, roughly how much did Donnie Darko gross worldwide in cinemas?

$7.5 million is all it has grossed worldwide, reissues included, yet it earned more than $10 million on home video in the US, which is where its cult following was built.

Which singer's cover of 'Mad World', recorded for Donnie Darko, became the UK Christmas number one?

Gary Jules sang it for his schoolfriend Michael Andrews, the film's composer, and two years after the film flopped their single beat The Darkness to the 2003 Christmas number one.

'Mad World' was originally a 1982 hit for which band?

Tears for Fears made it a hit in 1982 with Curt Smith singing; for the film's final montage its composer stripped the song back to a sparse piano version sung by a schoolfriend.

Which song scores the long slow-motion tracking shot introducing the school?

'Head Over Heels' was choreographed into the scene before anyone had the rights to it, and the production managers fumed at an 'indulgent music video' until they saw it cut together.

In the 2004 Director's Cut, which INXS song replaces the original opening music?

'Never Tear Us Apart' opens the 2004 Director's Cut, which also put pages of The Philosophy of Time Travel on screen and ran about 20 minutes longer.

Which author's story was Karen Pomeroy barred from teaching after Kitty Farmer's complaint?

Graham Greene's story 'The Destructors', about boys wrecking a house, was on Pomeroy's syllabus; Kitty Farmer blames it for the school flooding and it is pulled.

Which actor made his film debut in Donnie Darko as one of the school bullies?

Seth Rogen arrived with a wave of auditions from the cast of TV's Freaks and Geeks and left with his first film role, the bully Ricky Danforth.

Classroom and hallway scenes were shot at which Los Angeles institution?

Loyola High School's hallway is also where the cast and crew first saw Frank's costume under the lights, and the director recalls the whole set falling quiet.

Donnie Darko's director based Grandma Death on a real woman from his hometown of Midlothian, in which state?

Virginia is where the director grew up, in a Richmond suburb, and he put his own school days into the film: Grandma Death was a real local figure, and so were the self-help lessons.

Which film beat Donnie Darko to first place on Empire magazine's list of the 50 greatest independent films?

Reservoir Dogs took first place with Donnie Darko second, a remarkable finish for a film that had sunk without trace in American cinemas only a few years earlier.

The 2009 straight-to-video sequel to Donnie Darko followed which character?

Samantha, the little sister, is the focus of S. Darko, with Daveigh Chase reprising her role; the original writer-director had no involvement.

Which distributor, fresh from releasing Memento, bought Donnie Darko after its festival premiere?

Newmarket was talked into it partly by Memento's own director, Christopher Nolan, who saw the film at a screening and urged the company to give it a chance.

What does Grandma Death whisper to Donnie?

'Every living creature on this earth dies alone' is what Grandma Death whispers in Donnie's ear by her mailbox; he later repeats it to Dr. Thurman in therapy.

Which physicist is cited in Donnie Darko when a wormhole is described as a shortcut through spacetime?

Stephen Hawking is name-checked for good reason: the director built the film's time travel and alternate universes after reading A Brief History of Time.

Which phrase does Karen Pomeroy tell Donnie a famous linguist called the most beautiful in the English language?

Cellar door comes up as Karen Pomeroy clears out after being fired; asked what to tell the other kids about her, she says that everything is going to be just fine.

Which actor agreed to play Donnie in early 2000, then dropped out over scheduling conflicts?

Jason Schwartzman's interest revived a script that its director had given up for dead and brought the backers running, yet he was gone before filming began.

Most of Donnie Darko was shot in which California city?

Long Beach stood in for the film's East Coast suburb, and the whole shoot there was squeezed into 28 days, starting just a month after its star first read the script.

Which Echo & the Bunnymen song plays over the opening sequence of the theatrical cut?

The Killing Moon opens the theatrical cut, but the 2004 Director's Cut moved it to a later scene at the Halloween party and gave the opening to a different song.

Which cartoon characters' backstory does Donnie set straight for his friends?

The Smurfs get an earnest defence from Donnie: he explains that Smurfette was created by the villain Gargamel as a spy to destroy the village, until the goodness of Smurf life transformed her.

When first shot, Sparkle Motion danced to which Pet Shop Boys song before rights fell through?

West End Girls was the track the girls actually danced to on set; when the rights proved too costly, a different 1980s hit replaced it in the edit.

Cinematographer Steven Poster had shot which Ridley Scott film before Donnie Darko?

Someone to Watch Over Me made Steven Poster a veteran more than twice his young director's age, and at their first meeting he made him justify every scene in the script.