47 Fun Facts About Shutter Island

Which actor plays Teddy Daniels, the lead investigator in Shutter Island?

Leonardo DiCaprio. He signed on with his director in 2007, and his being unavailable to promote the film abroad was later reported as one reason its release was held back.

Which Clint Eastwood film was also adapted from a novel by Shutter Island's author, Dennis Lehane?

Mystic River. Lehane says that when that novel was praised as literature, his contrary side made him write Shutter Island next as a homage to gothic tales, B movies and pulp.

Teddy Daniels arrives on Shutter Island believing he works for which agency?

The US Marshals. He hands over his gun on arrival like a real lawman, but the badge is part of his delusion: he had been a federal marshal before he became a patient.

Shutter Island lies in the harbor of which city?

Boston. The island on screen is the harbor's real Peddocks Island, and Lehane modelled the setting on another, Long Island, which he visited as a boy during the blizzard of 1978.

What is the name of the missing patient Teddy is sent to find on Shutter Island?

Rachel Solando. She is said to have vanished from a locked cell, leaving her shoes behind; Cawley later admits that she never existed and that the whole search was staged.

In Shutter Island, the missing patient was committed for killing her three children by what method?

Drowning. Teddy dreams of the woman and three dead children long before the finale shows why the case grips him: it is a disguised version of what happened to his own family.

Who plays Teddy's partner Chuck Aule in Shutter Island?

Mark Ruffalo. A patient warns Teddy not to trust him, and with reason: Chuck is no lawman but a member of the hospital's staff, playing along to keep Teddy safe.

Which Oscar winner plays Dr. John Cawley, the man running the hospital in Shutter Island?

Ben Kingsley. His Cawley looks like the villain but is the reformer: he stages the entire investigation in the hope of curing his patient with a role-play instead of the era's harsher methods.

Which Swedish screen legend plays Dr. Naehring, the German-accented doctor who tries to sedate Teddy in Shutter Island?

Max von Sydow. Teddy, a veteran haunted by what he saw in the war, takes the doctor for a former Nazi and taunts him for being German.

Who plays Teddy's late wife, who appears in his dreams in Shutter Island?

Michelle Williams. In his dreams she insists the missing patient is still on the island and urges him on, long before the film reveals what really passed between them.

Two actresses play versions of the missing patient in Shutter Island: Emily Mortimer and which other?

Patricia Clarkson. Her version, a knife-wielding woman hiding in a sea cave, confirms every one of Teddy's suspicions, which is the clue that he has imagined her.

Which actor plays George Noyce, the scarred patient who warns Teddy not to trust his partner in Shutter Island?

Jackie Earle Haley. His Noyce says the whole investigation is a game staged for Teddy, and blames Teddy for the scars on his own face.

In Shutter Island, Teddy's wartime flashbacks are to the liberation of which concentration camp?

Dachau. An abandoned textile mill at Taunton was dressed as the camp, where Teddy remembers his unit shooting the remaining guards along the wire.

Which name, an anagram of Edward Daniels, belongs to the man Teddy blames for his wife's death?

Andrew Laeddis. Cawley sets the two names side by side in the finale to show they share the same 13 letters: the man Teddy is hunting is himself.

In Shutter Island, the missing patient's name is an anagram of Teddy's wife's full name, which is what?

Dolores Chanal. Both of the story's anagrams come from Lehane's novel, and Cawley spells them out in the finale as proof that Teddy made the missing woman up.

In Shutter Island, which restricted block does Teddy break into?

Ward C. It holds the most dangerous patients and is off limits without the doctors' permission, so Teddy slips in during the chaos of the storm.

Where on Shutter Island does Teddy believe the hospital carries out its secret experiments?

The lighthouse. When he finally fights his way in, he finds no laboratory, only Cawley at a desk, waiting to tell him who he really is.

In Shutter Island, the woman Teddy meets in a sea cave claims to be a former what?

Psychiatrist. She says she was locked up for uncovering the hospital's mind-control experiments, which is exactly what Teddy wants to hear; Cawley later calls her a delusion.

In Shutter Island's finale, Cawley says Teddy's symptoms are withdrawal from which drug he has taken for two years?

Chlorpromazine. Teddy believes the hospital has been drugging his food and cigarettes; Cawley's answer is the opposite, that he is suffering because his usual medication was stopped.

In Shutter Island, what awaits Teddy if Cawley's role-play fails?

A lobotomy. The hospital's board ordered it after his attack on another patient, and Cawley warns that an earlier breakthrough, nine months before, did not last.

Shutter Island's final line asks whether it is worse to live as a monster or to do what?

Die as a good man. The line is not in the novel: the film's medical adviser read it as a sane man choosing his fate, while Lehane heard only one moment of sanity among the delusions.

In Shutter Island's finale, Teddy grabs his gun from Cawley's desk and fires; what does it turn out to be?

A harmless toy. Nothing in the case is real: Cawley reveals that the whole investigation was a role-play, staged in the hope of breaking through his delusion.

In Shutter Island, a note hidden in the missing patient's cell asks 'Who is' which number?

67. The hospital admits to only 66 patients, so Teddy assumes a 67th is being hidden from him; the finale gives the number a very different owner.

Which composer's piano quartet is playing when Teddy first meets Dr. Naehring in Shutter Island?

Gustav Mahler. Teddy takes the German doctor for a former Nazi, though Mahler's music was banned under the Nazis.

Besides writing the novel, what credit did Dennis Lehane take on the film of Shutter Island?

Executive producer. Laeta Kalogridis wrote the screenplay and Lehane says he stayed out of the scripting, which is how the film came by a last line that is not in his book.

When Teddy asks where his partner has gone, what does Cawley tell him in Shutter Island?

That he came alone. Teddy answers 'What partner?' and plays along, but the claim is half true: there never was a second lawman, only a member of staff in a borrowed role.

Where was most of Shutter Island actually filmed?

A disused state hospital. Medfield State Hospital, about 20 miles inland from the film's harbor setting, plays the asylum's main building and its first two wards.

At the start of Shutter Island, how does Teddy say his wife died?

In an apartment fire. He blames a firebug he believes is hidden on the island; the finale reveals that he invented the man and that his wife's death was his own doing.

Where does the family tragedy revealed in Shutter Island's finale take place?

A lakeside cabin. The family had moved out of the city to it; the scene was shot at a stone lodge beside Leach Pond in Borderland State Park.

Whose recording of 'This Bitter Earth' is blended with Max Richter's strings on the Shutter Island soundtrack?

Dinah Washington. The blend of her 1960 vocal with modern strings outlived the film: Christopher Wheeldon set a ballet duet to it, which New York City Ballet took into its repertory in 2012.

Which longtime Scorsese collaborator chose the music for Shutter Island?

Robbie Robertson. The former guitarist of the Band said he had long wanted to show off these composers, and that when the script arrived 'this is just where it went'.

Which Max Richter piece, later heard in Arrival, is used in Shutter Island?

"On the Nature of Daylight". It comes from Richter's 2004 album The Blue Notebooks, and returns as the soundtrack's last track with a classic vocal laid over it.

The 'Passacaglia' from a Third Symphony, used in Shutter Island, is by which Polish composer?

Krzysztof Penderecki. Horror cinema already knew his music: it is heard in The Exorcist and in The Shining, by Stanley Kubrick, whose soundtracks this one was said to take its cue from.

Scorsese said his main reference for Shutter Island's Teddy was Dana Andrews's detective in which 1944 film noir?

Laura. It was the key film he screened for his two leads, for the way Andrews wears his tie and walks through a room without looking at anybody, intent only on the facts.

Shutter Island had its world premiere at which film festival in February 2010?

Berlin. It screened there out of competition on February 13, six days before opening in American cinemas, having missed the autumn release first planned for it.

Shutter Island reunited its star and director after which Best Picture winner?

The Departed. That thriller finally won Scorsese his directing Oscar; the follow-up with the same star was held back from awards season and opened in February instead.

Which critic praised Shutter Island's 'flawless directorial command'?

Roger Ebert. He gave it three and a half stars; paying audiences were cooler, grading it C+ in CinemaScore's exit polls, yet it went on to take three times its opening weekend.

In Shutter Island, the 'missing patient' who turns up alive is later revealed to be who?

A nurse. She plays the part for Teddy's benefit and is at his bedside when he wakes after the truth comes out; the woman he was sent to find never existed.

Shutter Island's October 2009 release was pushed to February 2010 for reported reasons that included what?

Paramount lacked money to market it. An awards campaign was reported to need $50 to $60 million, and the studio's chief said its 2009 slate had been approved in a very different economic climate.

What ailment strikes Teddy again and again during his stay on Shutter Island?

Migraines. A woman hiding on the island tells him they come from drugs slipped into his food; Cawley's version in the finale is that they come from stopping his medication.

Months after Shutter Island, its star played another man haunted by his dead wife in which Christopher Nolan film?

Inception. Both 2010 films gave him a hero undone by a wife's death, and both sent audiences away arguing over what really happens in the final scene.

In Shutter Island, Chuck Aule is revealed to be which member of the hospital staff?

Dr. Lester Sheehan. On the first day the visitors are told that he has just left the island on holiday, when in fact he is standing beside Teddy with a badge.

Which actor plays the menacing Warden of the island hospital in Shutter Island?

Ted Levine. His Warden picks Teddy up on the road after his night on the cliffs and drives him back to the hospital, telling him on the way that violence is God's gift.

On Shutter Island, the most dangerous patients are held in what kind of old building?

A Civil War fort. Teddy breaks into it convinced that the man he blames for his wife's death is locked inside, and instead finds a prisoner who says the whole investigation is a game.

What is troubling Teddy in the opening scene of Shutter Island?

Seasickness. He pulls himself together and goes up on deck to meet his new partner for the first time, a meeting the finale shows was staged for his benefit.

Scorsese said he matched Shutter Island's mood to low-budget 1940s RKO chillers made by which producer?

Val Lewton. Scorsese had presented a documentary about the RKO producer three years earlier, and named Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie among the films that set this one's tone.

What is the name of the hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island?

Ashecliffe. Cawley runs it on the belief that patience and talk can do what the era's harsher treatments cannot, a wager he stakes on a single patient.