49 Fun Facts About Juno

Who wrote the screenplay for Juno?

Diablo Cody, then a Minneapolis blogger and columnist, wrote the script after her manager Mason Novick found her online; it was her first produced screenplay.

Who directed Juno?

Jason Reitman, son of director Ivan Reitman, directed Juno as his second feature after Thank You for Smoking; it earned him a Best Director Oscar nomination.

In which Minnesota town is Juno set?

Elk River, Minnesota, is Juno's home town in the film, where she attends the fictional Dancing Elk High School; the Lorings live in nearby Saint Cloud.

What is Juno's surname?

Juno MacGuff's father Mac MacGuff is played by J. K. Simmons and her stepmother Bren MacGuff by Allison Janney.

Who plays Paulie Bleeker, the father of Juno's baby?

Michael Cera plays Paulie Bleeker; Cera, already known from Arrested Development, had broken out in Superbad a few months before Juno's December 2007 release.

Where does Juno find the adoptive couple?

Her friend Leah helps her look; the couple turn out to be Mark and Vanessa Loring.

Who plays Vanessa Loring, the prospective adoptive mother?

Jennifer Garner plays Vanessa Loring, the eager would-be mother, opposite Jason Bateman as Mark; the whole film was made for about $7 million.

What does Mark Loring do for a living?

Mark Loring composes commercial jingles, a job he treats as a compromise; his rock-band past survives only in the one room of memorabilia Vanessa allows him.

Juno and Mark bond over a shared taste in which two things?

Juno and Mark bond over punk rock and horror films, trading bands and arguing over who is the greater gore director, Herschell Gordon Lewis or Dario Argento.

Where do Juno and Leah run into Vanessa and see her happily interacting with children?

At the mall, Juno and Leah spot Vanessa happily playing with a small child; Juno then lets Vanessa feel the baby, which kicks for her.

What does Mark confide to Juno shortly before her due date?

Mark tells Juno he plans to leave Vanessa and move out on his own; when Vanessa comes home he admits he never felt ready to be a father.

What does the note Juno leaves on the Lorings' porch say?

Juno's note reads 'Vanessa: If you're still in, I'm still in', and the closing scenes show it framed on the nursery wall as Vanessa holds the baby.

Why does Juno deliberately not tell Paulie she has gone into labour?

Juno keeps quiet because Paulie has a track meet that day; he notices her missing from the stands, works it out and runs to the hospital.

Which song do Juno and Paulie sing together on the porch in the final scene?

Juno and Paulie close the film with the Moldy Peaches' 'Anyone Else but You', a duet originally sung by the band's Kimya Dawson and Adam Green.

Which cast member of The Office plays Rollo, the convenience store clerk?

Rainn Wilson, Dwight Schrute on The Office, plays Rollo, the clerk who sells Juno her pregnancy tests and tells her 'That ain't no Etch A Sketch'.

Olivia Thirlby, who plays Leah, had originally auditioned unsuccessfully to play whom?

Reitman still had her in mind from the start and included her in the group screen test.

Reitman cast the film's lead after admiring the actor's performance in which 2005 thriller?

The director had seen the lead in Hard Candy, David Slade's 2005 thriller about a teenager who turns the tables on a suspected predator, and wanted no one else for Juno.

Handed Reitman's script with no role specified, J. K. Simmons said he would have happily played whom?

Simmons had just worked with Reitman on Thank You for Smoking and got Mac MacGuff instead.

Which DJ and producer has a cameo as Juno and Paulie's chemistry teacher?

Cut Chemist, the Los Angeles DJ and producer born Lucas MacFadden and a former member of Jurassic 5, plays Juno's chemistry teacher, a nod to his name.

The screenplay was written over seven weeks in what unlikely spot?

The Target was in Crystal, Minnesota; she compared writing the script to breathing.

What was the title of Cody's memoir, which producer Mason Novick wanted her to adapt before she wrote Juno?

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper, published in 2005, grew out of her blog about a year spent working in Minneapolis strip clubs.

Which detail from Cody's own teenage life made it into the film?

Her hamburger phone: the screenwriter owned one as a teenager, and it became Juno's signature prop, on screen when she calls the clinic.

Which actor's production company, Mr. Mudd, took on Juno after major studios were scared off?

Mr. Mudd is the company John Malkovich founded with Lianne Halfon and Russell Smith; it had produced Ghost World, and Fox Searchlight went on to release Juno.

Where was Juno filmed, standing in for Minnesota?

Vancouver, British Columbia, stood in for Minnesota; Eric Hamber Secondary School played Dancing Elk High, and the shoot ran in early 2007.

What made the crew's plan to import snow for the winter scenes unnecessary?

It snowed on location during the early-2007 shoot, so the schedule was rearranged to film the winter scenes in real snow, allowing far wider shots than planned.

How many days of actual shooting did Juno's six-week schedule allow?

Fake leaves, touched-up cherry blossom and a leaf-blowing fan created the seasons that mirror Juno's three trimesters.

Whose idea was it to use The Moldy Peaches' music in the film?

Page played the songs on Reitman's computer; Kimya Dawson then sent him CDs of about 120 songs.

Roughly how many songs did Kimya Dawson send Reitman on CD after reading the script?

None was written for the film; all had been recorded before she was contacted.

Which children's songwriter's 'All I Want Is You' plays over the opening titles?

Barry Louis Polisar, a children's singer-songwriter active since the 1970s, wrote 'All I Want Is You', which the director laid over the rotoscoped opening titles.

Which Kinks song introduces Paulie Bleeker?

'A Well Respected Man', the Kinks' 1965 satire of a conventional young man, plays as Paulie Bleeker first appears running in his track shorts.

Juno's opening title sequence shows a rotoscoped Juno walking through town drinking what?

SunnyD: in the rotoscoped opening Juno swigs from a big jug of SunnyD on her walk to the store, then drinks more of it to take the pregnancy tests.

Reitman first conceived Juno as a fan of which genre before deciding on punk?

He rejected it as inauthentic and gave her the Runaways, Patti Smith and the Stooges instead.

Whose baby is actually seen on Juno's ultrasound monitor?

The footage of Scott Sanders's son Matthew was composited in during post-production.

What is the name of the clinic where Juno books her abortion appointment?

Juno phones Women Now to book a 'hasty abortion', then walks out of the clinic after classmate Su-Chin tells her the baby already has fingernails.

Juno premiered in September 2007 at which event, where it received a standing ovation?

Juno premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2007, where the audience gave it a long standing ovation.

Juno opened in limited release on December 5, 2007, in how many theatres?

Juno opened on just seven screens on December 5, 2007, posting one of the year's best per-screen averages before Fox Searchlight went wide over the Christmas holidays.

Which sweet does Paulie Bleeker eat constantly?

Paulie Bleeker is hooked on orange Tic Tacs; near the end Juno pours boxes of them into his mailbox as a peace offering.

Which Academy Award did Juno win?

Juno won Best Original Screenplay at the 80th Academy Awards in February 2008, its only win from four nominations, which also covered Best Picture, Director and Actress.

Roughly how much did Juno gross worldwide on a budget of about $6.5m?

Juno grossed about $232 million worldwide, including roughly $143 million in North America, the highest total of the five Best Picture nominees at the 80th Oscars.

The Juno soundtrack was the first to top the album chart since which 2006 soundtrack?

It was also Fox Searchlight's first No. 1 soundtrack.

Juno was often grouped by critics with which two other 2007 films about unplanned pregnancy?

Knocked Up and Waitress, both released in 2007 and both about women who carry unplanned pregnancies to term, were paired with Juno in review after review.

Where was Juno first shown to an audience, a week before its official premiere?

Juno was previewed at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado on September 1, 2007, a week before its official premiere; Telluride's Labor Day weekend slot often launches awards contenders.

Which Los Angeles design house spent 7-8 months creating Juno's rotoscoped opening titles?

Shadowplay Studio, run by Gareth Smith and Jenny Lee, hand-finished every rotoscoped frame of the titles; the same studio had designed the credits for Thank You for Smoking.

Time magazine coined the 'Juno Effect' in 2008 after a pregnancy spike at a high school in which state?

Gloucester High School in Massachusetts reported 17 pregnancies in one school year in 2008, and Time's story on the supposed 'pregnancy pact' tied the spike to Juno.

Where did the Writers Guild rank Juno's screenplay in its 2021 list of the 21st century's greatest?

The list was compiled by members of WGA West and WGA East.

How many days did it take Juno to earn back its $6.5 million budget?

It managed that with only the final day in wide release, after averaging $60,016 per screen at seven theatres on opening weekend.

Jennifer Garner recommended Jason Bateman for Juno after working with him on which 2007 film?

The Kingdom, Peter Berg's 2007 thriller about an FBI team in Saudi Arabia, starred the two alongside Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper.

Why was Juno ruled ineligible for the Genie Awards despite Reitman's protests about its origins?

Juno had no domestic financing: Genie rules required at least some Canadian money, and a Canadian director, lead and shooting location did not count.

Page suggested a Cat Power cover of which song, which Reitman hesitated over because a 1989 film had used it?

'Sea of Love', Phil Phillips's 1959 hit, appears in Cat Power's 2000 cover near the end of the film; the 1989 Al Pacino thriller Sea of Love had used the original.