50 Fun Facts About Slumdog Millionaire

Accepting his Slumdog Millionaire Oscar, Danny Boyle jumped up and down in the spirit of which character?

Tigger: Boyle told the audience he had sworn to his children years earlier that, if this miracle ever happened, he would take the award in the manner of Winnie-the-Pooh's bouncing tiger.

Who made his feature film debut as Jamal Malik in Slumdog Millionaire?

Dev Patel had only ever tried out for one part before; he needed five auditions to land this one, and it brought him a BAFTA nomination for best actor.

Slumdog Millionaire is loosely based on which novel?

Q & A by Vikas Swarup has several separate storylines; the screenplay merged them into a single narrative framed around how Jamal comes to know each answer.

The quiz Jamal plays in Slumdog Millionaire is based on which real Indian game show?

Kaun Banega Crorepati is India's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, on air since 2000; on screen, though, the host welcomes Jamal to the show under its English name.

How many rupees can Jamal win in Slumdog Millionaire?

20 million rupees, or two crore, is the top prize; Jamal has already banked ten million when the host, convinced he must be cheating, has him arrested between episodes.

Which film star's autograph does young Jamal win by jumping into a cesspit in Slumdog Millionaire?

Amitabh Bachchan signs for a boy coated in sewage; his brother soon sells the autograph, but the memory later hands Jamal the answer to his very first quiz question.

Which Mumbai beach suburb is the brothers' home in Slumdog Millionaire?

Juhu's shantytown sits beside the suburb's small airport: in the first childhood scene the boys play cricket on its runway until they are chased off.

How is the mother of Jamal and Salim killed in Slumdog Millionaire?

In the Bombay riots, a Hindu mob attacking Muslims storms the slum and kills her; the orphaned brothers flee and, sheltering from the rain, take in a girl called Latika.

How does Slumdog Millionaire end, over its closing credits?

A dance number closes the film: its choreographer, Longinus Fernandes, was left off the credits by mistake, so the director apologised to him by name from the Oscar stage.

What does Maman do to street children in Slumdog Millionaire so they earn more as beggars?

Blinds the kids with hot oil, because blind singers earn double; witnessing it is what makes Salim flee with Jamal and Latika.

Why does Slumdog Millionaire's Salim let go of Latika's hand at the train?

Revenge for a prank the night before: Latika had rubbed crushed chillies on him as he slept and he told her she was dead; left behind on the tracks, she is recaptured by Maman.

At which monument do Jamal and Salim pose as tour guides in Slumdog Millionaire?

The Taj Mahal: on first seeing it Jamal takes it for some hotel; soon the boys are posing as guides for its visitors and stealing from them.

Danny Boyle's teenage daughter spotted the future star of Slumdog Millionaire in which British teen drama?

Skins: Boyle had considered hundreds of actors and found Bollywood's young leads too strong and handsome, until his 17-year-old daughter told him to watch the show's skinny newcomer.

What job is Jamal doing when he goes on the quiz show in Slumdog Millionaire?

Chaiwala at a call centre: he fetches tea for operators who are coached to pass as British, which is how he later knows which city has a Cambridge Circus.

Where does Jamal promise to wait for Latika at five o'clock every day in Slumdog Millionaire?

Victoria Terminus is where he waits each day; when Latika finally comes, Javed's men, led by Salim, seize her before she reaches him.

Why does Jamal go on the quiz show in Slumdog Millionaire?

He knows Latika watches it: with no other way to reach her after she is taken from him, he gets himself onto the show in the hope that she will see him.

How does Slumdog Millionaire's quiz host try to sabotage Jamal?

Feeds him a wrong answer to the penultimate question: in the washroom the host traces a letter on the steamed-up mirror, but Jamal distrusts the tip and picks a different answer.

Which Bollywood star plays quiz host Prem Kumar in Slumdog Millionaire?

Anil Kapoor's host cannot believe a boy from the slums knows the answers, so before the final question he has the police take his own contestant away.

Which Bollywood star, a past host of the real show, turned down Slumdog Millionaire's quiz-host role?

Shah Rukh Khan said he passed because the host in the film is a bit of a cheat, and viewers might have thought he had behaved the same way on the real programme.

Who plays the police inspector who comes to believe Jamal in Slumdog Millionaire?

Irrfan Khan's inspector begins by having Jamal tortured as a cheat, then hears out the story behind each answer and sends him back to the show for the final question.

What does Slumdog Millionaire's Salim do after giving Latika his car keys?

Fills a bathtub with money and sits in it: he waits there with a loaded gun for Javed to learn that he let Latika go, and kills the gangster before he is shot himself.

What does Jamal's final question ask for in Slumdog Millionaire?

The name of the third musketeer: as boys the brothers called themselves Athos and Porthos but never learned the third, so Jamal can only guess Aramis, and he is right.

Why does Jamal phone Salim as his lifeline in Slumdog Millionaire?

It's the only number he knows, he tells the host as it rings; the phone is by then with Latika, who picks up just in time, cannot help with the answer, but tells him she is safe.

Who plays the adult Latika in Slumdog Millionaire?

Freida Pinto had never acted in a feature film before, yet her first role brought her a BAFTA nomination for best supporting actress.

Who wrote the screenplay for Slumdog Millionaire?

Simon Beaufoy made three research trips to India to talk to street children, and came away wanting the script to show the slums' fun, laughter and sense of community.

Which earlier film by Slumdog Millionaire's screenwriter persuaded a reluctant Danny Boyle to read the script?

The Full Monty was one of Boyle's favourite British films, and its writer's name was the only reason he opened a script about a quiz show he had no wish to film.

Nearly a third of Slumdog Millionaire's dialogue was translated from English into which language?

Hindi: the director thought the street children's English lines sounded fake, so he switched languages, telling his American backers the change would affect about 10% of the script.

Slumdog Millionaire's director called which Bollywood film, about brothers on opposite sides of the law, 'absolutely key to Indian cinema'?

Deewaar pits a policeman against his gangster brother; Slumdog Millionaire borrows the pattern, with one brother chasing money while the other stays honest.

Slumdog Millionaire became the first film shot mainly in which format to win the Oscar for cinematography?

Digital video: finding that bulky 35mm cameras kept the slums at a distance, the director used digital units the size of a wine bottle.

Who composed the score for Slumdog Millionaire?

A. R. Rahman says he planned the score for two months and finished it in two weeks, where the Indian film musicals he usually writes take him about six months.

Which song from Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscar for Best Original Song?

Jai Ho was first written for another 2008 film, Yuvvraaj, whose director passed on it as too subtle and soft; it reached the Oscars through Slumdog Millionaire instead.

Which artist shared the Oscar nomination for the Slumdog Millionaire song 'O Saya'?

M.I.A. and the film's composer began the track together in India, then finished it by emailing it back and forth; it lost the Oscar to another song from the same film.

Which girl group recorded an English-language version of Slumdog Millionaire's Oscar-winning song?

The Pussycat Dolls' lead singer Nicole Scherzinger co-wrote the pop rework at her label's request, though she later admitted she had been scared to death to touch the song.

What did Warner Bros. propose for Slumdog Millionaire after its indie arm, the film's US backer, shut down?

Sending it direct to video was the plan because the studio doubted there was a big enough audience; instead a rival took a half share, put it in cinemas and saw it gross $378 million.

Which film beat Slumdog Millionaire to the Sound Editing Oscar?

The Dark Knight took Sound Editing; of ten nominations, Slumdog Millionaire's only other defeat was to itself, because two of its songs were up for the same Oscar.

Who hosted the 2009 Oscars ceremony at which Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture?

Hugh Jackman had never been an Oscar nominee himself, but he had hosted Broadway's Tony Awards three years running and won an Emmy for it.

Which film led the nominations with thirteen at the Oscars where Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture?

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button converted thirteen nominations into three wins and lost Best Picture to a film made for a tenth of its $150 million budget.

Slumdog was the eleventh film to win Best Picture without what?

Its two young leads both got BAFTA nods but no Oscar ones.

Jamal's cesspit dive in Slumdog Millionaire recalls a notorious toilet scene in which earlier Danny Boyle film?

Trainspotting, Boyle's 1996 breakthrough, has Ewan McGregor's addict climb into a filthy toilet after his drugs; twelve years on, the director sent a small boy through a cesspit for an autograph.

In Slumdog Millionaire, a child dressed as which Hindu god helps Jamal answer a question about a bow and arrow?

Rama: Jamal glimpsed the child, bow in hand, on a day he would rather forget, and tells the police he wakes every morning wishing he didn't know the answer.

A young street singer in Slumdog Millionaire teaches Jamal the name of which American statesman, later a quiz answer?

Benjamin Franklin: Jamal hands the boy a $100 bill and describes the portrait, the boy names the face, and years later the show asks who appears on that note.

Which Rocky Mountain film festival gave Slumdog Millionaire its world premiere in August 2008?

Telluride showed the film on 30 August 2008, days after a rival studio agreed to rescue its American release, and the first audience's response gave it its early buzz.

Which of Slumdog Millionaire's casting directors ended up credited as its co-director?

Loveleen Tandan found the child leads on Mumbai's streets; by her own account she urged the film-makers to let them speak their own language, wrote those lines and was then asked to step up.

Which studio label released Slumdog Millionaire in American cinemas after Warner Bros. doubted its prospects?

Fox Searchlight took a half share in August 2008, after Warner's indie arm, which had paid $5 million for the US rights, was shut; six months later its pick-up won Best Picture.

The actress cast as the adult Latika had never made a feature film; what was her job before Slumdog Millionaire?

Model: her agency put her forward when the casting team asked for candidates, and she was paired with a leading man who had only one television role behind him.

Slumdog Millionaire's opening chase copies a 12-minute police chase in which Indian film about the 1993 Bombay bombings?

Black Friday's chase runs through the Dharavi slum after suspects in the bombings; Boyle restaged it with truant slum children fleeing a policeman in place of the militants.

Before Slumdog Millionaire, its composer wrote the music for which Andrew Lloyd Webber-produced stage musical?

Bombay Dreams opened in 2002; he recalled that, Lloyd Webber aside, the Slumdog Millionaire director's praise was about the first compliment he had heard from a Western director.

Who won the cinematography Oscar for shooting Slumdog Millionaire?

Anthony Dod Mantle, who had shot 28 Days Later for the same director, worked in such heat that his camera rigs had to be packed in dry ice to keep them running.

At which September 2008 festival did Slumdog Millionaire win the People's Choice Award?

Toronto's audiences, not a jury, pick the People's Choice winner; they chose a film whose studio had been trying to sell it off only weeks earlier.

Slumdog Millionaire's post-Oscars jump in US ticket sales was the biggest since which film's?

Titanic was the last film to get a bigger lift from the Oscars: a week after the ceremony, in its sixteenth week on release, the $15 million film's weekend takings rose 43% instead of fading.