100 Fun Facts About Heathers

Who plays Veronica Sawyer in the 1988 film Heathers?

Winona Ryder took the part against her agent, who got down on her knees and begged her not to, warning that she would never work again; the two later parted ways.

Who plays Jason 'J.D.' Dean in Heathers?

Christian Slater walked out of his audition convinced he had blown it and, by his own account, had a big tantrum and threw the script in the garbage; he was cast anyway.

Which future superstar, then an unknown acting student, read the part of J.D. at an early Heathers script reading?

Brad Pitt came up to the writer afterwards and said, "I know I'm not anybody, but for what it's worth, that was brilliant"; the writer only later learned who the kid was.

What is the name of the high school in Heathers?

Westerburg sits in the Midwest on screen but was shot entirely in Los Angeles, stitched together from three campuses: one supplied the gym, another the front steps of the final scene.

Heathers writer Daniel Waters is the older brother of the director of which later high-school comedy?

Mean Girls was directed by Mark Waters, and in 2014 the brothers worked together, Mark directing Daniel's script for Vampire Academy.

Which actress plays queen bee Heather Chandler?

Kim Walker was a late pick: the director had begged another young actress's mother to let her daughter play the part, and only then did the casting director suggest the inexperienced newcomer.

In Heathers, what does J.D. serve Heather Chandler as a 'hangover cure', killing her?

Drain cleaner: Veronica had mixed milk and orange juice just to make her sick, but J.D. filled a second mug with the toxic stuff and let Veronica pick up the wrong one.

In Heathers, how do Veronica and J.D. cover up Heather Chandler's death?

They forge a suicide note in her handwriting, and the school reads it as the cry of a troubled soul, making its tyrant more worshipped in death than she ever was alive.

In Heathers, what does J.D. tell Veronica his bullets are before they ambush two football players?

Tranquilizers, he says, promising the boys will only be knocked out and humiliated; Veronica learns the bullets are real when the first one drops dead.

In Heathers, the staged deaths of Kurt and Ram lead the town to mourn the two jocks as victims of what?

Homophobia: the scene is staged so the two bullies appear to have been secret lovers who could not face the world, and overnight they are remembered as sensitive, misunderstood martyrs.

Writer Daniel Waters first imagined Veronica in Heathers as a female version of which movie antihero?

Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver was the model: in early drafts Veronica was nearly as twisted as J.D., until the casting of a sympathetic young star made her the audience's stand-in.

In Heathers, what do students think J.D.'s petition is asking for?

A band for the prom is all the students think they are signing for; J.D. means their names to explain away what he has planned for the pep rally.

How does J.D. die at the end of Heathers?

He blows himself up on the school steps: Veronica has already shot him and the bomb under the gym has failed, so he follows her outside with another strapped to his chest.

At the very end of Heathers, whom does Veronica invite to spend prom night watching movies?

Martha Dunnstock, the school's most bullied girl, gets the invitation; it closes the gentler ending the studio insisted on after rejecting the writer's far bleaker one.

How did Daniel Waters's original script for Heathers end, before the studio demanded a change?

With a prom in heaven: the first script ended in a fatal blast and an afterlife dance, and the studio refused to finance a satire in which the teenagers really died.

Which director did screenwriter Daniel Waters originally want for Heathers?

Stanley Kubrick had made his horror film and his science-fiction film, Waters reasoned, so why not a teen film; he wrote a three-hour script and truly believed the director would say yes.

The director of Heathers used which war film as his visual guide for the lunchtime-poll scene in the cafeteria?

Full Metal Jacket was the director's visual guide, above all in the first cafeteria sequence, where the lunchtime poll plays like the barracks scene that opens the war film.

Who directed Heathers, in his feature debut?

Michael Lehmann was just out of film school, known for a scabrous student short, when mutual friends handed him a 200-page script he assumed could never get made.

Which actress turned down the queen-bee role in Heathers because her parents disapproved of the script?

Heather Graham, then 16 or 17, gave a great reading, but her parents found the script offensive; the director begged her mother, insisting the filmmakers were not tools of Satan.

When Shannen Doherty refused to go blonde like the other Heathers, what did the producers settle for?

Red hair was the compromise: Doherty says bleaching would have destroyed her hair, so everyone settled on making her a redhead instead.

Why did Shannen Doherty reportedly leave the first cast screening of Heathers in tears?

She had expected a drama: by her co-stars' account she ran out sobbing that no one had told her it was a comedy, though Doherty herself admits only to a few tears.

What did Lisanne Falk, who plays Heather McNamara, lie about at her Heathers audition?

Her age: a former child model of 23, she said she was 18 or 19, and the filmmakers gasped when she mentioned at her celebration dinner that she lived with her boyfriend.

Heathers was sold abroad under which title, a nod to a 1987 thriller hit?

Lethal Attraction was the export title, a bid to borrow some heat from Fatal Attraction after the film had flopped at home.

Where did Heathers, a flop in US cinemas, later find its cult audience?

On home video: its distributor was going bankrupt and barely advertised the release, which took about $1.1 million, so it was on video that the flop became a cult favourite.

Which song does Sly and the Family Stone sing over the end credits of Heathers?

Que Sera, Sera also opens the film, in a version by Syd Straw, so a comedy about murder starts and finishes on the same shrug.

In Heathers, which fictional band has a hit with "Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It)"?

Big Fun, the film's made-up band, got its song to order: the plot needs a hit on the radio for J.D. to shoot at, so one was written and recorded for the film.

Betty Finn in Heathers is played by Renée Estevez, whose father is which actor?

Martin Sheen was born Ramón Estévez and took a stage name; his daughter Renée, like her brother Emilio, kept the family's real one.

Which prize did Daniel Waters win for the Heathers screenplay?

The Edgar Allan Poe Award comes from the Mystery Writers of America, who judged a high-school comedy about faked suicides the best crime screenplay of its year.

In Heathers, Heather Chandler drags Veronica to a frat party at which university?

Remington University is where a disgusted Veronica throws up on Heather's shoes and is promised social ruin by Monday, the threat that sets the killings in motion.

In Heathers, how does J.D. answer two jocks who bully him at lunch?

He fires blanks at them across the lunch table, a stunt that scares the school's bullies and is exactly what first draws Veronica to him.

In Heathers, how does Veronica escape J.D.'s plan to kill her?

She fakes her own suicide by hanging from the rafters, and J.D., who had come to kill her, pours out his love and his whole plan to what he takes for a corpse.

In Heathers, how does Heather McNamara's suicide attempt end?

Veronica stops her in the bathroom before she can swallow the pills; McNamara had fled class after her anonymous call to a radio show was exposed and mocked.

Which two writers created Heathers: The Musical?

Laurence O'Keefe and Kevin Murphy first tried the show out in readings with Kristen Bell as Veronica, then unveiled it to the public in a New York concert in 2010.

Which Heathers: The Musical song is the Heathers' ultimatum to Veronica?

Candy Store is Chandler's ultimatum: help humiliate Veronica's best friend, or go back to being a nobody. The show opened Off-Broadway in 2014.

Who played Veronica in the 2018 London premiere and West End transfer of Heathers: The Musical?

Carrie Hope Fletcher took the part from The Other Palace into the West End, the writers adding a new song for her ahead of the transfer, and won a WhatsOnStage Award for it.

Which new song for Veronica was added to Heathers: The Musical during its 2018 London run?

I Say No gives Veronica a number in which she finally breaks up with J.D., after he turns up with a gun and urges her to help kill again.

In Heathers: The Musical, what does J.D. do at the 7-Eleven?

Gives himself brain freezes, to numb himself: his song "Freeze Your Brain" is set in a 7-Eleven, a name the 1988 film could not use because the chain refused permission.

In Heathers: The Musical, Heather Duke takes which of Chandler's accessories as her badge of power?

A red scrunchie marks whoever rules the clique: Duke puts it on and turns into a worse tyrant than Chandler, until Veronica takes it from her in the final scene.

Which channel ordered the 2018 Heathers TV reboot to series before it moved to Paramount Network?

TV Land ordered the dark-comedy anthology in 2017, then passed it to the new Paramount Network, which pulled it a week before its premiere after the Parkland school shooting.

Which teen drama built a whole episode around a school production of Heathers: The Musical?

Riverdale staged it as a musical episode in 2019, a neat fit: the film's Betty and Veronica were named after the Archie comics that the series adapts.

A 2009 report said a Heathers sequel would bring J.D. back as what?

A kind of Obi-Wan figure was the lead actress's idea, the dead J.D. returning to guide an older Veronica; the writer's own pitch made her a page to a politician named Heather, and neither was ever made.

Which studio released Heathers theatrically in the US in March 1989?

New World Pictures was sliding into bankruptcy as the film opened and would not buy newspaper ads for it in many cities.

The high school in Heathers stands in which Ohio town?

Sherwood was built out of Southern California: every scene was shot around Los Angeles, with a church in Pasadena standing in for the town's string of teenage funerals.

Heathers won Best First Feature in 1990 at which ceremony?

Independent Spirit Awards voters named it Best First Feature a year after it had flopped at the box office under a distributor that was going bankrupt.

Before its 1989 release, Heathers played which film festival alongside sex, lies, and videotape?

Sundance Film Festival, then still called the U.S. Film Festival, split over it: Variety's first review was a rave, while some in the audience found a comedy about teen suicide irresponsible.

Which two actresses turned down the role of Veronica in Heathers before it was cast?

Justine Bateman and Jennifer Connelly both passed, Bateman after an offer from the studio itself; the part went to a teenager the writer first thought wrong for it.

Where was Daniel Waters working when he began writing Heathers?

In a video store: newly arrived in Los Angeles, Waters turned out a first draft that sprawled to 200 pages, enough for the three-hour teen epic he had in mind.

The cruel love-letter prank in Heathers was drawn from the real school days of which person?

The writer's sister really did slip letters written in popular boys' names onto other girls' lunch trays, and Daniel Waters built his clique out of her school days.

In Heathers, what kind of business does J.D.'s father run?

A demolition company: Big Bud Dean is obsessed with explosives and levels buildings for a living, which is how his son comes by his dangerous expertise.

Who played Veronica in the original 2014 Off-Broadway cast of Heathers: The Musical?

Barrett Wilbert Weed had already played Veronica in the show's Los Angeles tryout the previous autumn, and took the part to New York with it.

In Daniel Waters's unmade Heathers sequel, Veronica works in Washington for a politician named Heather, played by whom?

Meryl Streep was the writer's dream casting for a story that ended with Veronica committing an assassination and getting away with it. The film's director saw no future in the idea.

Which singer refused to let Heathers use her famous original recording of the song heard over its credits?

Doris Day would not lend her name to a film with such strong language, so the song is heard in two cover versions instead.

The actor who plays the rebel J.D. in Heathers has said he channelled which Hollywood star in the role?

Jack Nicholson was the comparison critics reached for at the time. The film's writer has insisted that is simply the way the actor talks.

By 2014, the invented teen slang of Heathers had made it one of the most cited films in which reference work?

The Oxford English Dictionary quotes the script 11 times as evidence for words and senses. Daniel Waters made up the slang so that the dialogue would never date.

Heathers is set in small-town Ohio, but in which city was the whole film actually shot?

Los Angeles supplied everything, with three different local schools stitched together to make a single Ohio campus.

Who went down on hands and knees to beg the future star of Heathers not to play Veronica?

Her agent was sure the dark script would end a promising career before it had begun. The actress took the part anyway, and the two later parted ways.

The teenager who won the part of Veronica in Heathers wanted it so badly that she offered to do what?

Work for free was her offer after she had begged the writer for the role. He was slow to agree, thinking at first that she did not look right for it.

Heathers was written as a cynical answer to the sunny teen films of which writer-director?

John Hughes made adolescence look survivable in hits such as The Breakfast Club. Daniel Waters enjoyed those films but wanted one in which the teenagers themselves were to blame.

Shannen Doherty, Heather Duke in Heathers, soon became a household name as Brenda Walsh in which series?

Beverly Hills, 90210 brought her worldwide fame in 1990. Heathers had been her first major film role, after a childhood spent on television.

The Heathers script so impressed one director that he hired Daniel Waters to write which superhero sequel?

Batman Returns needed a darker, stranger tone, and its director had admired the black comedy of Heathers. Producer Denise Di Novi worked on both films.

Which lawn game do Veronica and J.D. turn into a strip contest in her garden in Heathers?

Croquet is one of the film's signature images, and this game on the lawn is played the night before the pair visit Heather Chandler with a fake hangover cure.

Where in the school does Veronica finally confront J.D. at the climax of Heathers?

The boiler room sits directly beneath the gymnasium, where the rest of the students have gathered with no idea of the danger below.

Which school event fills the gymnasium with students as J.D. makes his final move in Heathers?

A pep rally was J.D.'s chosen target because it put almost every student under one roof. The cheering crowd notices nothing until it is all over.

Which harmless mixture does Veronica stir up as her own prank drink for Heather Chandler in Heathers?

Milk and orange juice was meant only to make the queen bee throw up. J.D. had filled another mug with something far worse, and Veronica picked up the wrong one.

A CliffsNotes guide to which novel lies in Heather Chandler's bedroom in Heathers, inspiring J.D.'s cover-up?

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's novel of a young woman's breakdown, gives J.D. the idea of passing the death off as the act of a troubled teenager.

Where do the two football players take Veronica and Heather McNamara on their double date in Heathers?

A cow pasture is the jocks' idea of a night out, and one of them is soon too drunk to stand. Veronica walks away with J.D. when he appears out of the dark.

How do Veronica and J.D. fool the two police officers who arrive after the ambush in the woods in Heathers?

Kissing in a car, the two pass for ordinary teenage lovers and get away unquestioned. Veronica is furious with J.D. by the time they are back in class.

In Heathers, where does Heather McNamara anonymously admit her unhappiness, only for Heather Duke to expose her?

On a radio call-in show, she assumes nobody will know her voice. Heather Duke happens to be listening with Veronica and makes sure the whole school hears about it.

Which garment does J.D. open on the school steps at the end of Heathers to reveal his last surprise?

A trench coat hides what he is carrying as he follows Veronica outside, away from the students cheering in the gym.

What cruel nickname do the students in Heathers give their classmate, the target of the love-letter prank?

Dumptruck is the name the whole school uses for her. The forged love letter sends her to a football player's table while the cafeteria laughs.

Glenn Shadix, the priest Father Ripper in Heathers, is best known as the decorator Otho in which comedy?

Beetlejuice gave him his breakthrough as the interior decorator, and he later voiced the Mayor of Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Patrick Labyorteaux, the jock Ram in Heathers, grew up on screen as Andy Garvey in which family series?

Little House on the Prairie kept him busy from 1977 to 1981, and he later spent a decade as Bud Roberts in the military legal series JAG.

Phill Lewis made his film debut as Dennis in Heathers; which Disney Channel sitcom character later made him famous?

Mr. Moseby, the long-suffering hotel manager of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, arrived some seventeen years after Lewis played a student in Heathers.

The writer and director of Heathers reunited on which Bruce Willis caper that won the Razzie for Worst Picture?

Hudson Hawk won three Golden Raspberries, including Worst Director and Worst Screenplay, though it later found a cult audience of its own.

Penelope Milford, teacher Pauline Fleming in Heathers, was Oscar-nominated for which film about Vietnam veterans?

Coming Home brought her a Best Supporting Actress nomination for playing Vi Munson. She had made her name on Broadway, creating a role in the musical Shenandoah.

Lisanne Falk, Heather McNamara in Heathers, was a child model who appears on the cover of which Foreigner album?

Head Games put her on record racks in 1979. She had modelled since childhood and once shared a much-discussed Life magazine pictorial with Brooke Shields.

John Ingle, Principal Gowan in Heathers, later spent years as patriarch Edward Quartermaine on which soap opera?

General Hospital cast him in 1993. The man who played the principal had really spent thirty years as a high-school theatre teacher before turning actor.

Which composer, from a famous Hollywood scoring family, wrote and performed the electronic score of Heathers?

David Newman is the son of Alfred Newman and a cousin of Randy Newman, and he later earned an Oscar nomination of his own for Anastasia.

Which producer of early R.E.M. albums wrote the fake hit single about teenage suicide heard in Heathers?

Don Dixon also performed it, forming a one-off studio group with musician friends to play the film's invented pop act.

Daniel Waters directed the star of Heathers again, nearly twenty years on, in which black comedy?

Sex and Death 101 won him a best director prize at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2007. Its DVD release was timed to a Heathers anniversary edition.

Months before any American audience saw it, Heathers premiered in which Italian city?

Milan saw the film in the autumn of 1988, well ahead of its American festival debut in January and its release at home that March.

What was happening to the studio behind Heathers just as the film reached American cinemas in 1989?

It was going bankrupt, and the film took only about a third of its small budget during five weeks in American cinemas.

To look right for Veronica in Heathers, the film's very pale young lead had a makeover at which retailer?

Macy's staff made her over after the writer doubted she was pretty enough for the part. She turned 16 while the film was being shot.

Daniel Waters drew on a chapter of which Simone de Beauvoir book when writing the clique in Heathers?

The Second Sex has a chapter on how female identity is cultivated, which he combined with true stories of high-school cruelty.

Daniel Waters wanted Heathers to borrow the narration of which film about young lovers on a killing spree?

Badlands, the 1973 Terrence Malick film, supplied the idea for Veronica's voice-over. The satire he was aiming for came from a famous Cold War comedy.

Daniel Waters at first dismissed the future lead of Heathers as merely the girl from which teen film?

Lucas had been her first film, and the writer admits he met her with his arms folded before realising how wrong he was.

The three Heathers began in a college script by Daniel Waters about a girl meeting which fate at a football game?

Burned at the stake was the heroine's fate in that short script, and readers liked its three supporting Heathers so much that he built a whole film around the name.

The director of Heathers began his film career answering phones at the company of which famous filmmaker?

Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope later had him supervising cameras on The Outsiders, years before he directed a high-school story of his own.

Which Cruel Intentions actress has a recurring role as Heather Duke's stepmother in the 2018 Heathers reboot?

Selma Blair plays Jade, a gold-digging stepmother biding her time until her elderly husband's money is hers.

Where does Veronica record her vow to end Heather Chandler's tyranny after their quarrel in Heathers?

In her journal, Veronica works through the whole story, later admitting that the staged tragedies have turned her victims into heroes.

What does a drunk Veronica do at the college party in Heathers that makes Heather Chandler swear revenge?

Vomits on her shoes, to be exact, after a miserable evening among the college boys. Chandler vows to destroy her reputation in revenge.

What does J.D. use to blackmail Heather Duke into pushing his petition around the school in Heathers?

Old photographs of her with an unpopular former friend are enough to frighten a girl whose standing depends on who she is seen with. He destroys them once she agrees.

Why did Paramount Network pull the 2018 Heathers reboot from its planned March premiere at the last minute?

A school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School that February made a comedy about teenagers killing classmates impossible to launch.

After American television dropped it, the 2018 Heathers reboot was first shown on which service?

HBO Europe began showing all ten episodes in July 2018, more than three months before a cut-down version reached American screens.

Which Broadway star sang J.D. when Heathers: The Musical was first heard in concert at Joe's Pub?

Jeremy Jordan performed the role in 2010, more than three years before the show's proper Off-Broadway opening with a different cast.

In Heathers: The Musical, which ballad has Veronica beg J.D. to give up violence and simply be normal with her?

Seventeen returns as the closing number, led by Veronica and joined by the whole company once the danger has passed.

Which director has staged Heathers: The Musical from its earliest workshop readings to its London revivals?

Andy Fickman is better known for screen comedies such as She's the Man and The Game Plan, but he has guided the show on both sides of the Atlantic.

The composer of Heathers: The Musical won the job after turning which other film comedy into a Broadway show?

Legally Blonde showed the producers how well he could move a film to the stage, so they paired him with a writer from an earlier cult musical.

A filmed London performance of Heathers: The Musical reached American viewers in 2022 on which streaming service?

The Roku Channel released the capture that September, four months after it was shot at The Other Palace.

The London production of Heathers: The Musical was named Best New Musical in 2019 at which theatre honours?

WhatsOnStage Awards went its way a few months after the show moved from a small Off West End venue to the Theatre Royal Haymarket.