97 Fun Facts About The Notebook

Who plays the young Noah Calhoun?

Ryan Gosling: the director wanted an unknown who was 'not handsome', and the actor's first thought on reading the script was 'He's crazy. I couldn't be more wrong for this movie.'

Who plays the young Allie Hamilton?

Rachel McAdams read the script and auditioned just two days later, and the director said that as soon as she read for the part it was apparent she was the one.

Who directed The Notebook?

Nick Cassavetes took the job in 2002, after the project had spent six years in development, and gave the small part of Allie's friend Sara to his then wife, Heather Wahlquist.

The Notebook is based on the debut novel of which author?

Nicholas Sparks wrote The Notebook, his first published novel, in six months in 1994, inspired by his wife's grandparents, who had been married more than 60 years.

In which state is Seabrook Island, where Noah and Allie meet, located?

Seabrook Island is a real South Carolina town about 20 miles southwest of Charleston; the film was shot around Charleston and Mount Pleasant rather than on Seabrook itself.

Where does Noah work when he first meets Allie?

Noah works at the local lumber mill alongside his friend Fin; Allie rushes to the mill to find him the morning her family leaves, but he is out.

Where does Noah threaten to drop from unless Allie agrees to a date?

A Ferris wheel: Allie is riding it with another boy when Noah climbs up to ask her out, and only after she says no does he let go with one hand and get his yes.

Which New York school is Allie due to attend at the end of the summer?

Sarah Lawrence College, then a women's college just north of New York City: Noah only learns that she is going there as the summer draws to an end.

What is the name of the abandoned house Noah dreams of restoring?

Windsor Plantation: Noah shows Allie the ruin that summer and tells her his dream of repairing it, and after the war he buys the place and does the work himself.

For how long does Noah write to Allie every day after she leaves?

Noah writes Allie one letter a day for a year, 365 letters in all, none of which reaches her until years later.

Who intercepts Noah's letters so they never reach their intended reader?

Her mother hides the letters for years, then hands them over after admitting that she too once loved a working-class man.

What happens to Noah's friend Fin during World War II?

He is killed in battle: the two friends enlist together when America enters the war, but only Noah returns.

Who plays Fin, Noah's best friend?

Kevin Connolly, soon to be known as Eric 'E' Murphy in Entourage: his Fin is the friend who finds the couple at the old house to warn them that Allie's parents are looking for her.

Allie meets her fiancé Lon Hammond Jr. while doing what during the war?

Nursing wounded soldiers: Lon is one of her patients, a lawyer from old Southern money, and her parents are as delighted by the engagement as they were appalled by Noah.

Who plays Lon Hammond Jr.?

James Marsden: Bradley Cooper was considered and the studio pushed for Cole Hauser, but the part of Allie's fiancé went to the actor who played Cyclops in the X-Men films.

What causes Allie to faint while trying on her wedding dress?

A newspaper photo of Noah, standing in front of the house he has finished restoring: the shock sends her back to Seabrook alone to see him before her wedding.

How can Noah afford the old plantation house when he returns from World War II?

His father sold their home so that Noah could buy the place, then died soon afterwards, leaving Noah to do the repairs alone.

Who plays Noah's father, Frank Calhoun?

Sam Shepard: the young actor playing his son said he modelled Noah's 'quiet strength' on Shepard's own performance in the film Days of Heaven.

Who plays Anne Hamilton, the parent who bans Allie from dating Noah?

Joan Allen, by then a three-time Oscar nominee: her Anne Hamilton judges working-class Noah not good enough for Allie and cuts the family's summer short to part them.

In the nursing home, the elderly Noah reads to Allie under what pseudonym?

Noah calls himself 'Duke' so as not to frighten Allie, whose dementia has erased him; only briefly does she realise that Duke is her Noah.

Why did Allie fill a notebook with the story of her romance with Noah?

To help her remember: as dementia took her memories she wrote their story down so that he could read it back to her, and Noah keeps his promise to do so every day.

Which standard do Noah and Allie dance to as 'their song' when she briefly recognises him?

I'll Be Seeing You, heard in Billie Holiday's recording: the dance lasts only minutes before Allie's dementia returns and she panics at the sight of him.

How does The Notebook end for Noah and Allie?

They die in their sleep holding hands: after a heart attack, Noah slips into Allie's room at night, she knows him again, and the two are found together in the morning.

Who plays the elderly Noah?

James Garner: when the script arrived he asked his agent whether it was meant for television, then read it again and decided the story had universal appeal.

Gena Rowlands, who plays the elderly Allie in The Notebook, has what relationship to its director?

His mother: she had made her name in films directed by her husband, among them A Woman Under the Influence and Gloria, and three decades later it was their son behind the camera.

Which director wanted to make the film in 1998 with Tom Cruise as Noah?

Steven Spielberg was set to direct in 1998 with Tom Cruise as Noah, but his other commitments got in the way; two more directors came and went before the job was filled in 2002.

Early in development, which actor was set to play Noah, with Paul Newman as the older version?

George Clooney was set to play young Noah opposite Paul Newman; after watching Newman's old films he decided he could never pass as a young Newman and dropped out.

Which pop star was the last rival left when the part of young Allie in The Notebook was cast?

Britney Spears: a nationwide search came down to the singer and the eventual star, who won the director over the first time she read for him.

Before filming, the actor cast as young Noah spent two months in Charleston doing what?

Rowing and making furniture: he moved there ahead of the shoot and spent the time on the Ashley River and at a workbench, living something like Noah's life before playing it.

Which real Lowcountry plantation served as Allie's summer house?

Boone Hall: nothing was actually shot on Seabrook Island, so this Mount Pleasant plantation became the Hamiltons' summer house and Rice Hope Plantation the nursing home.

Where were The Notebook's World War II battlefield scenes shot?

Outside Montreal: the snowy combat scenes were shot in Quebec, far from the Charleston Lowcountry where most of the film was made.

Which studio released The Notebook in June 2004?

New Line Cinema bought the film rights in 1996, the year the novel came out, then took eight years and several changes of director to get it onto the screen.

Roughly how much did The Notebook gross worldwide on a budget of about $29 million?

$120 million or so: it opened only fourth, with $13.5 million, yet went on to take roughly four times its budget.

The Notebook's two young leads won which prize at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards?

Best Kiss: in their reunion in the rain, Allie accuses Noah of never writing, learns that he did, and moments later the two are kissing in the downpour.

Which film topped the US box office on The Notebook's opening weekend in June 2004?

Fahrenheit 9/11: Michael Moore's documentary took about $24 million from just 868 cinemas, while The Notebook opened fourth with $13.5 million from 2,303.

In 2019, UK Netflix subscribers noticed that The Notebook had been supplied with what?

An alternate, lighter ending: viewers complained that the emotional final scene had been swapped for a gentler one, and Netflix said the cut had been supplied in error and restored the original.

How much was the advance that the agent for The Notebook's author secured for the novel in 1995?

$1 million: agent Theresa Park had pulled the manuscript from her agency's slush pile, and in 1995 she sold the unknown writer's first novel to Time Warner's book group.

Which singer-songwriter wrote the music and lyrics for the stage musical of The Notebook?

Ingrid Michaelson: the show was due in 2020, and when the pandemic delayed it she and book writer Bekah Brunstetter used the time to workshop it over Zoom.

Where on Broadway did the musical open in March 2024?

The Notebook musical opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in March 2024 after a pre-Broadway run at Chicago Shakespeare Theater in autumn 2022.

How long have Noah and Allie been apart when she returns to Seabrook to see him?

Seven years: she arrives engaged to another man and still believing Noah never wrote, until he tells her about the letters and they kiss.

Which director was in talks to helm The Notebook in 2001?

Martin Campbell, who went on to direct Casino Royale (2006), was in talks in 2001; Jim Sheridan had been attached in 1999 after Spielberg's other commitments pulled him away.

What classes did the actress cast as young Allie take in Charleston to prepare for the role?

Ballet and etiquette: she moved to Charleston ahead of the shoot for the classes and worked with a dialect coach on Allie's Southern accent.

Where in South Carolina is the private house that Noah restores actually located?

The house Noah rebuilds is a private home on Wadmalaw Island, a rural sea island southwest of Charleston; the crew dressed it to look derelict for the early scenes.

Which campus appears on screen as Allie's New York college?

College of Charleston: on screen it is a New York school that takes Allie far from Noah, yet its campus stands in the same city as the theatre where the two go to see a film on their date.

Which prize did Gena Rowlands win for playing the elderly Allie?

James Garner was nominated at the SAG Awards for his supporting turn as the elderly Noah.

Roughly how many DVD copies had The Notebook sold by February 2010?

11 million: the film that had opened only fourth at the box office found a second life at home, where the DVD kept selling for five years after its 2005 release.

What average grade did cinema audiences polled by CinemaScore give The Notebook?

A, on a scale from A+ to F: reviewers were divided, with Metacritic rating the notices 'mixed or average', but paying audiences embraced it.

The actors who play young Noah and Allie in The Notebook were both born in which Canadian city?

London, Ontario was the birthplace of both young lovers, two years apart. She grew up in St. Thomas, while his family moved on to Cornwall and Burlington.

In 2024 the director of The Notebook revealed that Gena Rowlands, his elderly Allie, was living with which illness?

Alzheimer's disease had been part of her life for five years by then, echoing the character she played two decades earlier. She died that August, aged 94.

David Thornton, who plays Allie's father John Hamilton in The Notebook, married which pop star in 1991?

Cyndi Lauper married him in November 1991 after the two met on the set of the film Off and Running, and they have a son together.

Whose 1944 recording of the lovers' song in The Notebook later became NASA's final message to a Mars rover?

Billie Holiday's version was sent to the Opportunity rover in February 2019 as its mission ended, fifteen years after the film featured it.

Which actor, then a supporting player on the spy series Alias, was considered for Lon Hammond Jr. in The Notebook?

Bradley Cooper, years before he directed A Star Is Born, was in the running while the studio pushed for Cole Hauser, but neither man ended up playing the wealthy fiancé.

During filming of The Notebook, what did the actor playing Noah ask the director to do about his co-star?

He asked the director to replace her off-camera, feeling she was uncooperative. The two leads clashed throughout the shoot, and he later said they brought out the worst in each other.

The novel behind The Notebook was inspired by which couple in its author's life, married over 60 years?

His wife's grandparents had been married for more than 60 years when he met them, and he wrote the book to capture a love that had lasted that long.

The actress who plays young Allie in The Notebook had another 2004 hit as queen bee Regina George in which comedy?

Mean Girls came out earlier the same year, and Variety's reviewer found it hard to tell that the scheming Regina and the Southern heiress were the same performer.

The stage musical of The Notebook moves the story forward so that Noah goes off to fight in which war?

The Vietnam War replaces the film's Second World War battlefields because the musical begins the romance in the late 1960s, a generation later than the film.

Which blockbuster-series star was considered for Noah Calhoun in The Notebook before the director chose an unknown?

Hayden Christensen, then starring as Anakin Skywalker, was an early candidate, but the director wanted an unknown who was not conventionally handsome and chose a different Canadian instead.

The actor who plays Lon Hammond Jr. in The Notebook also played which mutant in the X-Men films?

Cyclops was his role in four X-Men films, and two years after jilted Lon he played another fiancé in the way: Lois Lane's partner in Superman Returns.

The actor who plays Noah's friend Fin in The Notebook starred as Eric Murphy in which HBO series?

Entourage began in 2004, the same year as the film, and his turn as E, a movie star's manager and best friend, earned a Golden Globe nomination in 2009.

The actor who plays young Noah in The Notebook spent two years as a child performer on which TV show?

The Mickey Mouse Club signed him at twelve and moved him to Orlando, where he later said he appeared on screen infrequently because other children were considered more talented.

Which director was approached to make The Notebook in the late 1990s but was busy with his own breakthrough film?

M. Night Shyamalan had to pass because he was committed to The Sixth Sense, one of several directors who came and went during years of rewrites.

In the novel of The Notebook, what is the profession of Lon Hammond Jr., the wealthy Southerner engaged to Allie?

A lawyer from old Southern money, he is everything her parents want in a son-in-law, which is why the engagement delights them.

In The Notebook, what do Allie's parents do when she stays out late with Noah at the abandoned house?

They call the police to find her, and the night ends with Allie forbidden to see working-class Noah again.

Which film, starring Kevin Costner, was the first screen adaptation of a book by The Notebook's author?

Message in a Bottle reached cinemas in 1999, five years before the story of Noah and Allie, even though that romance was the earlier book.

In the original novel of The Notebook, Allie grows up to have a notable career as what?

A painter of some note, the book's Allie has a full career behind her before illness takes her memories, and the stage musical gives her a song about her art.

Before The Notebook made him a bestselling novelist, its author worked in sales for which industry?

Pharmaceuticals paid the bills while he wrote, and he had already finished two novels that were never published before this one found an agent.

The actor who plays the elderly Noah in The Notebook first found TV fame as a gambler in which Western?

Maverick made him a household name in the late 1950s and stunned the industry by beating The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings.

The actor who plays Noah's father in The Notebook won which major honour for his play Buried Child?

A Pulitzer Prize for Drama crowned his playwriting career, and on screen he earned an Oscar nomination as test pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff.

The battlefield scenes in which Noah goes to war in The Notebook were filmed just outside which Canadian city?

Montreal stood in for wartime Europe, while almost everything else in the film was shot on location in the American South.

Which critic awarded The Notebook three and a half stars out of four and praised its striking photography?

Roger Ebert admired the rich, saturated look of the images and felt the actors were blessed by good material, a warmer verdict than most reviewers gave.

At which 2005 ceremony did The Notebook collect eight prizes, including ones for its chemistry and love scene?

Teen Choice Awards voters gave it eight wins in a single night, among them best drama, best date movie and acting prizes for both young leads.

The original novel of The Notebook is set not on Seabrook Island but in which North Carolina town?

New Bern is where the author made his own home, and he has set several of his later love stories in the town as well.

In which city did the stage musical of The Notebook have its world premiere in 2022, before reaching Broadway?

Chicago saw it first, two years late: the run planned for 2020 was delayed by the pandemic, and the writers used the time to hold online previews.

In The Notebook, how does Lon Hammond Jr. respond when Allie confesses that she has been unfaithful?

He forgives her and still wants to marry her, which makes the choice she faces harder rather than easier.

In The Notebook, lonely Noah has a casual relationship with Martha Shaw, who is what?

A war widow, she keeps him company while he rebuilds the house, but he cannot bring himself to sell the place because it ties him to Allie.

In The Notebook, what secret about her own youth does Anne Hamilton confess to her daughter Allie?

She loved a working-class man herself and still wonders how life with him would have gone, then tells Allie to choose wisely.

In the film of The Notebook the elderly Noah has a heart attack; what strikes him in the original novel?

A stroke keeps the book's Noah from Allie's bedside, on top of arthritis, heart and kidney trouble and a third bout of cancer.

In the novel of The Notebook, Noah's promised surprise for Allie is a canoe ride among which birds?

Swans and geese crowd the small lake he paddles her across, and a storm on the way back leaves them both soaked.

In the novel of The Notebook, the night nurse lets Noah slip past to Allie by saying she is fetching what?

A coffee is her excuse, though she already has one, and she warns him not to do anything foolish while she is gone.

Bekah Brunstetter, who wrote the book for The Notebook musical, was a writer and producer on which NBC drama?

This Is Us brought her Emmy nominations as a producer, and her script for the stage romance earned a Tony nomination for best book of a musical.

The Notebook musical was co-directed by Michael Greif, who staged the original production of which rock musical?

Rent won him an Obie for its direction before he took it to Broadway, and he later directed Dear Evan Hansen and Next to Normal there.

Which screen star played Middle Allie when The Notebook musical was workshopped at Vassar College in 2019?

Vanessa Hudgens took the part in the early workshop, though a different cast carried the show to its premiere three years later.

Which bandleader's recording of A String of Pearls appears on the soundtrack album of The Notebook?

Glenn Miller took the tune to number one after recording it in November 1941, just weeks before America entered the war that parts Noah and Allie.

The Notebook's director had previously made which 2002 drama starring Denzel Washington as a desperate father?

John Q. was dedicated to the director's daughter Sasha, who was born with a heart defect; its hero takes a hospital hostage to get his son a transplant.

The Notebook's director and screenwriter reunited in 2009 to film which bestselling novel?

My Sister's Keeper reunited the pair, though its author, Jodi Picoult, later said she regretted the choice of director because he changed her ending.

At which city's international film festival did The Notebook have its world premiere in May 2004?

Seattle hosted the first screening five weeks before the film opened across America, where it went on to become a sleeper hit.

Which cable channel premiered an extended cut of The Notebook, with deleted scenes restored, in November 2012?

ABC Family aired the longer version eight years after the cinema release, putting cut scenes back into the original storyline.

Which network was reported in 2015 to be developing a TV series based on The Notebook?

The CW planned to follow the couple's courtship in the years just after the war, but the series never reached the screen.

For The Notebook, the actor who plays the elderly Noah was nominated for which supporting-actor honour?

A Screen Actors Guild Award nomination came in the same season the guild gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award; the competitive prize went to Morgan Freeman.

When first offered The Notebook, the actor who plays the elderly Noah asked his agent if the script was for what?

A TV movie was his first guess, until a second read convinced him that the story had universal appeal.

In The Notebook, the dialogue links the old house Noah restores to which hero of the Revolutionary War?

Francis Marion never lived there in reality: the general's own plantation lay elsewhere, and the house used on screen was a private home dressed for the film.

Which swamp garden near Moncks Corner served as a location for The Notebook, with trained birds brought in?

Cypress Gardens, built around a blackwater swamp, is where Noah rows Allie through the flock of birds, and it also appears in The Patriot and Cold Mountain.

The actor playing young Noah in The Notebook modelled his quiet strength on his screen father's role in which 1978 film?

Days of Heaven launched the older man's acting career, as a land baron, and a quarter of a century later the two were cast as father and son.

Which Irish director was attached to The Notebook in 1999 before leaving to make In America?

Jim Sheridan, the maker of My Left Foot, took over when an earlier director's schedule filled up, then backed out himself by October 2000.

The actress who plays Allie's mother in The Notebook also played CIA official Pamela Landy opposite which screen spy?

Jason Bourne first crossed her path in The Bourne Supremacy, released a month after the romance, and she returned to the role in two later films.

In The Notebook, what message does Allie ask Fin to give Noah on the morning the Hamiltons leave Seabrook?

That she loves him is all she can leave behind: she hurries to his workplace to apologise, finds him away, and is gone before he hears it.

Gena Rowlands, the elderly Allie of The Notebook, earned an Oscar nomination for which 1974 drama?

A Woman Under the Influence was directed by her husband, one of ten films they made together, and a second nomination followed for Gloria in 1980.