48 Fun Facts About Green Book

Who directed Green Book?

Peter Farrelly, who made his name with his brother Bobby on comedies such as Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary; Green Book was a drama he directed on his own.

Who plays Tony Lip in Green Book?

Viggo Mortensen. The director says he was the first actor who came to mind while writing the script, an unexpected choice for an Italian-American tough guy given his fame as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings.

Who plays Don Shirley in Green Book?

Mahershala Ali. When Shirley's relatives objected to the film's portrait of him, Ali phoned the pianist's nephew to apologise, saying he had not known there were close family he could have consulted.

In Green Book, what is Tony Lip's job when the story opens?

Bouncer at the Copacabana. The nightclub shuts for renovations, leaving him short of work, which is why he agrees to drive a concert pianist he has never met.

In Green Book, Don Shirley lives in a lavish apartment above which New York concert hall?

Carnegie Hall. The real Shirley lived in the artists' studios above the auditorium for more than fifty years, until a long legal fight ended with the last tenants being moved out in 2010.

What was The Negro Motorist Green Book, which gives the film Green Book its title?

A travel guide listing safe businesses. New York postal worker Victor Hugo Green launched it in 1936, and it ceased within a few years of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed the discrimination that had made it necessary.

Who gives Tony his copy of the Green Book?

Don's record label. Its executive pays Tony half his wage up front, warns that the rest depends on Don missing no shows, and hands over the book with the car keys.

In Green Book, in which city do white men beat Don in a bar before Tony rescues him?

Louisville, Kentucky. Afterwards Tony tells Don not to go anywhere without him for the rest of the tour; Shirley's brother later insisted that the real pianist was never beaten up.

In Green Book, what does Don help Tony to write during the tour?

Letters to his wife. The real Tony's letters home to Dolores survive, and their son drew on them, along with long interviews with his father, when he came to write the screenplay.

Who plays Dolores, Tony's wife, in Green Book?

Linda Cardellini. Some of the in-laws around her at the family table are the real thing: several members of the Vallelonga and Venere families appear in the film as their own relatives.

In Green Book, how does Tony get Don out of trouble after the YMCA shower incident?

He bribes the police officers. By the real Tony's account he handed two state troopers $200 and told them to buy themselves a couple of suits, and Shirley was angry with him for paying up.

In Green Book, whom does Don phone from a Mississippi jail cell to get himself and Tony released?

Robert F. Kennedy, then Attorney General. The real Shirley did make the call, though a year later than the film has it, only days before President Kennedy was assassinated.

What name was given to places like the Mississippi town in Green Book where Black people were barred after dark?

Sundown towns. The name came from signs ordering Black people to be gone by sunset; in the film a late-night traffic stop in one of them ends with Tony punching an officer and both men in a cell.

In Green Book, which city stages the last concert of Don's tour, where he is barred from the venue's own dining room?

Birmingham, Alabama. The film recalls why the date mattered: six years earlier Nat King Cole had been attacked on stage in the same city while singing to a white audience.

In Green Book, where do Tony and Don go instead of playing the final concert?

A Black blues club. Don refuses to perform where he is not allowed to eat, so the two walk out, and at the club he ends up joining the house band on piano.

In Green Book, which make of piano does Don insist on at every venue of the tour?

Steinway. The real Tony recalled finding a battered, rubbish-strewn piano waiting at one venue and refusing to let the show go on until a Steinway had been brought in from miles away.

In Green Book, why does an officer pull Tony and Don over in a blizzard on the way home?

A flat tyre. Braced for a repeat of their arrest in Mississippi, the two are surprised when the officer has only stopped to warn them and then helps them fix it in the snow.

How does Green Book end?

Don joins Tony's family for Christmas dinner. He first turns the invitation down and goes home alone, then reappears at the door, having driven the exhausted Tony through the snow himself.

Who co-wrote Green Book's screenplay from his father's stories?

Nick Vallelonga. He spent years gathering his father's stories, and Shirley told him to put everything in but to wait until after his death before making the film.

In Green Book, which food does Tony coax a reluctant Don into eating with his fingers as they drive through the South?

Fried chicken. Tony told the story himself in later interviews, but Shirley's brother Maurice bristled at the scene, insisting that nobody ever had to teach the pianist how to eat it.

How did the real Tony, the driver in Green Book, come by his nickname 'Lip'?

By talking people into things. Neither half was his first name: he was born Frank, 'Tony' came from his middle name, Anthony, and 'Lip' stuck from childhood.

Who coached the actor playing Don Shirley at the piano for Green Book and doubled for his hands in close-ups?

Kris Bowers, who also wrote the score. Still in his twenties, he says he had never heard of Don Shirley before joining the film and had to discover the pianist's music from scratch.

In which city was Green Book filmed?

New Orleans. Production was based in the city in late 2017, and the finished film came back the following autumn to open the New Orleans Film Festival.

Which rock star recommended obscure 1950s and 60s songs for Green Book's soundtrack over dinner?

Robert Plant. The Led Zeppelin singer was dating a friend of the director's wife; while the two women stepped outside to smoke, he pulled up forgotten songs on YouTube and the director noted them down.

Which filmmaker reportedly watched Green Book five times in two weeks and helped it reach Universal?

Steven Spielberg. The director's agent also represented him and sent the film over; Spielberg watched it at eight one morning, rang back by ten, and took it to his own company, which had a deal with Universal.

Which Oscar-winning actress served as an executive producer of Green Book?

Octavia Spencer. The director says he sent her the script because no Black women had yet looked it over, and that she backed him whenever he doubted they were getting it right.

Which festival gave Green Book its premiere and its People's Choice Award?

Toronto. Universal slid the film into the line-up, and winning the audience prize, long watched as the starting gun of the Oscar race, turned a comedy director's drama into a contender.

Green Book was the fifth Best Picture winner without a Best Director nomination; which film was the fourth?

Argo. Its director, Ben Affleck, was left off the Academy's directing shortlist in 2013, an omission that fellow nominees publicly called a snub, and the film won Best Picture anyway.

What was unusual about the 2019 Oscar ceremony at which Green Book won Best Picture?

It had no host. Kevin Hart withdrew after old tweets of his resurfaced, and the Academy pressed on without a replacement, the first hostless ceremony in thirty years.

Green Book took Best Picture, but which film won the most Oscars that night, with four?

Bohemian Rhapsody. Its four wins came despite a troubled shoot: the credited director was fired before filming finished, and a replacement had to be brought in to complete the picture.

Which director tried to walk out of the Oscars when Green Book was named Best Picture?

Spike Lee. He headed for the exit, came back and stood with his back to the stage, later joking that 'the ref made a bad call' and recalling the year Driving Miss Daisy won while his Do the Right Thing was passed over.

Which country became Green Book's biggest market outside North America?

China, where it took about $70 million, not far short of its North American total; the release there had the marketing weight of the e-commerce giant Alibaba behind it.

Which basketball Hall of Famer defended Green Book in a Hollywood Reporter column on its controversies?

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Writing as a cultural critic, he argued that the rows over accuracy missed the film's value, because 'filmmakers are history's interpreters, not its chroniclers'.

After Don Shirley's family said he and Tony were never friends, what surfaced that suggested otherwise?

Recordings of Shirley himself. Interviewed for the 2010 documentary Lost Bohemia, he says of Tony, 'I trusted him implicitly', and that theirs was never an employer-employee relationship.

Where was the real Don Shirley born?

Pensacola, Florida. His parents had emigrated from Jamaica and his promoters billed him as Jamaican-born, which is why Kingston still turns up as his birthplace.

Which composer said of the real Don Shirley that 'his virtuosity is worthy of gods'?

Igor Stravinsky. Praise like his did not open concert halls to a Black classical pianist in 1950s America, so Shirley built a hybrid style of his own, working classical technique into popular songs.

The real Tony Lip turned actor and is best known as crime boss Carmine Lupertazzi in which TV series?

The Sopranos. He took up acting in his forties and made a second career of playing gangsters, two of them real mobsters, in Goodfellas and Donnie Brasco.

In Green Book, which New York borough is home to Tony Lip and his family?

The Bronx. The real Tony grew up there from infancy, and his son says the journey with Shirley changed the attitudes he had picked up on its streets, and the way he raised his own children.

In 1955 the real Don Shirley was soloist at the premiere of a piano-and-orchestra work by which jazz great?

Duke Ellington. The two became friends, and Ellington is said to have remarked that he would give up his own piano bench to let Shirley play.

The real Tony Lip of Green Book first appeared on screen in a small role in which crime classic?

The Godfather. He had met its director, Francis Ford Coppola, in New York, and he appears, uncredited, as one of the guests at the wedding that opens the film.

Which of the films Green Book beat to Best Picture had led the nominations with ten, level with The Favourite?

Roma. Alfonso Cuarón's Netflix drama won three Oscars, Best Director among them, on a night when the Best Picture winner's own director had not even been nominated.

The filmmaker who got Green Book to Universal called it his favourite buddy movie since what?

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He watched the film first thing one morning and rang its director within two hours to say so, then helped it find a studio.

Which company, founded by Jeff Skoll to make films with a social message, financed Green Book's $23 million budget?

Participant Media. It stepped in after another studio had passed on the project, and the gamble paid off: the film went on to gross more than $300 million worldwide.

A month before the Oscars, which Hollywood guild gave Green Book its top film award, often a pointer to Best Picture?

The Producers Guild. Since the prize began in 1989 its winner has gone on to take Best Picture in most years, which is why the result is read as a forecast of the Oscars.

As a young man in the early 1950s, the real Tony Lip did his Army service in which country?

West Germany. His service fell in the years of the Korean War, but he spent them stationed in Europe rather than at the front.

In Green Book the cellist Oleg is based on a real Estonian musician; what nationality does the film give him?

Russian. The real cellist, Jüri Täht, was frustrated by the change: his family had fled the Soviet Union, and by his account he and Shirley never spoke a word of Russian together.

Don Shirley's brother Maurice dismissed Green Book with which musical put-down?

'A symphony of lies'. Maurice, then 82, said his brother had never been cut off from his family as the film suggests, and had thought of Tony as a hired driver rather than a friend.

Which stand-up comedian plays Tony's brother-in-law Johnny in Green Book?

Sebastian Maniscalco. His character sees Tony off with a bet, giving ten-to-one odds that he will slap his new boss and be home in under a month; Tony lasts the full eight weeks.