Boogie Nights Trivia
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This Boogie Nights trivia quiz has 87 free questions with answers about Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997 breakthrough: the rise of dishwasher Eddie Adams into porn star Dirk Diggler, the makeshift family around Jack Horner's San Fernando Valley pool, and the long, cocaine-fuelled slide into the 1980s that ends with firecrackers, a shotgun and a Night Ranger song. The questions cover the plot, the huge ensemble cast, the two soundtrack albums and the production stories that have become movie lore. Some are easy for anyone who has seen the film once (what Rollergirl never takes off, what Buck wants to sell). Others go deeper: which stars turned down Eddie and Jack, what rating Anderson originally wanted, why Burt Reynolds fired his agent, how a firecracker-throwing bit player ended up in the drug-deal scene, and how a teenage Anderson paid for the mockumentary short the film grew out of. It suits a movie-night round, a film-buff showdown or a solo test of how well you know the Valley. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, its cast and crew and the people who inspired it, and each question links to the page and sentence that supports it.
30 of 87 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The writer-director of Boogie Nights finally won his first Oscars for which later film?
One Battle After Another
One Battle After Another ended a long losing streak: he had been nominated eleven times before, for films including There Will Be Blood and Licorice Pizza, and gone home empty-handed every time.
Q 02In which part of the Los Angeles area is Boogie Nights mostly set?
The San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is where Anderson was born and raised, in Studio City, so he set the story on streets he knew, such as Reseda and Van Nuys boulevards.
Q 03In which California city does Eddie Adams live with his parents at the start of Boogie Nights?
Torrance
Torrance is a long bus ride from the Reseda club where he works, and a puzzled Jack asks why he doesn't just find a job in Torrance.
Q 04What job does Eddie have at the Reseda nightclub where Jack first spots him?
Dishwasher
Dishwasher: Jack walks into the club kitchen where Eddie is washing up, introduces himself as a filmmaker and says he senses something wonderful waiting to get out.
Q 05Boogie Nights opens at which disco?
Hot Traxx
Hot Traxx is where the opening Steadicam shot glides in from the street and loops around the dance floor, meeting most of the main characters in a single take.
Q 06In the action series Dirk and Reed pitch to Jack, Dirk plays Brock Landers and Reed plays whom?
Chest Rockwell
Chest Rockwell and Brock Landers headline 'Angels Live in My Town', and Jack, hearing the two names for the first time, simply says they are great names.
Q 07Before Boogie Nights, Wahlberg was famous as a rapper and as an underwear model for which fashion label?
Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein's ads hung over the casting: 35 pages into the script, Wahlberg asked to meet Anderson to check he wasn't wanted just as the guy who strips to his underwear.
Q 08Burt Reynolds, who plays Jack Horner, became a 1970s box-office king with which road comedy?
Smokey and the Bandit
Smokey and the Bandit was 1977's second-biggest hit behind Star Wars, but by 1997 his career had faded, and a co-star's on-set joke about the film nearly earned a punch.
Q 09How does Jack audition Eddie for the business?
By watching him have sex with Rollergirl
By watching him have sex with Rollergirl on the living-room couch: that is Jack's idea of an audition, and Eddie moves into the house soon afterwards.
Q 10Who plays Rollergirl in Boogie Nights?
Heather Graham
Heather Graham landed the part after Drew Barrymore had been attached and Tatum O'Neal had auditioned on tape; the casting director says actresses feared the role's nudity.
Q 11What is Rollergirl's real name, revealed when an old classmate recognises her?
Brandy
Brandy is what a former high-school classmate calls her when he recognises her mid-shoot; after he insults her, she and Jack leave him bloodied on the pavement.
Q 12What is the real name of leading lady Amber Waves?
Maggie
Maggie is what the judge calls her at the custody hearing she loses, and earlier her young son phones Jack's house asking for a Maggie nobody there has heard of.
Q 13Who plays Amber Waves in Boogie Nights?
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore loved the script as soon as she read it, and the casting director credits her early yes with getting the whole production moving.
Q 21What is Scotty J.'s job on Jack's film crew?
Boom operator
Boom operator Scotty J. is hopelessly in love with Dirk, and when Dirk is fired he leaves too, joining him and Reed in their bid to become rock musicians.
Q 22Who plays Scotty J. in Boogie Nights?
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman kept asking for tighter clothes, because Anderson wanted Scotty dressed like a 14-year-old boy, as if he had never outgrown his teenage wardrobe.
Q 23Theater magnate Floyd Gondolli wants Jack to cut costs by shooting on what?
Videotape
Videotape is cheaper, but Jack refuses, saying it will cheapen his films; when events finally force his hand he gives in, and soon hates the work.
Q 14What colour is the Corvette Dirk buys with his first success?
Competition orange
Competition orange is what an admiring Todd calls the paint, ten hand-rubbed coats of it; Anderson's script had pictured the car in candy apple red.
Q 15Who plays Reed Rothchild, Dirk's best friend and co-star?
John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly, a holdover from Anderson's first feature, co-wrote the song 'Feel the Heat' with him and performs it with Wahlberg on the soundtrack album.
Q 16At which holiday party does Dirk first try cocaine?
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve, as 1979 turns into 1980: the same party ends on the stroke of midnight, when the assistant director shoots his wife, her lover and then himself.
Q 17Who plays the assistant director Little Bill in Boogie Nights?
William H. Macy
William H. Macy plays the mild assistant director who keeps finding his wife with other men at Jack's parties, until the humiliation finally turns violent.
Q 18Little Bill's serially unfaithful wife is played by which real-life adult film star?
Nina Hartley
Nina Hartley got the call because Anderson had been a fan of her films, and she reckoned he also wanted a performer for whom nude scenes were simply part of the job.
Q 19Where does Little Bill fetch the gun he uses on his wife and her lover?
From his car
From his car: he walks out past the partygoers to his station wagon, takes a revolver from the glove compartment and loads it as he heads back inside.
Q 20What is the name of the rival leading man Jack recruits, whom Dirk fears will replace him?
Johnny Doe
Johnny Doe is an eager 18-year-old who tells Dirk it's great to meet him; Dirk's jealousy feeds the cocaine-fuelled argument with Jack that gets him fired.
Q 24Who plays the theater magnate Floyd Gondolli in Boogie Nights?
Philip Baker Hall
Philip Baker Hall trod carefully in his big scene with Burt Reynolds, who seemed ready to explode on set, and was surprised when Reynolds finished it with compliments.
Q 25Robert Ridgely played Jack Horner in Anderson's teenage short; which character does he play in Boogie Nights?
The Colonel James
The Colonel James, the money behind Jack's films, is Ridgely's part in the feature, where the director he had played in the short became Burt Reynolds's role.
Q 26Who plays Buck Swope in Boogie Nights?
Don Cheadle
Don Cheadle plays the salesman whose cowboy outfits and country music get him scolded by his boss; the New York Times called him too nice for porn stardom.
Q 27What kind of store does Buck Swope dream of opening?
Stereo equipment
Stereo equipment at a discount is the dream, under the name Buck's Super Stereo World, but a bank refuses him the loan because of his past in adult films.
Q 28Buck ends up the sole survivor of a holdup at what kind of business?
A donut shop
A donut shop: Buck is buying a dozen for his pregnant wife when the robber, the clerk and an armed customer shoot one another, and he walks out with the cash.
Q 29Buck marries which fellow porn performer?
Jessie
Jessie St. Vincent, played by Melora Walters, warms to Buck when he tells her about the business he dreams of opening, and in the 1984 epilogue she gives birth to their son.
Q 30Dirk, Reed and Todd try to sell drug dealer Rahad Jackson a half-kilo of what, disguised as cocaine?
Baking soda
Baking soda is Todd's idea, and the plan is to be gone before anyone tests it, until Todd pulls a gun to grab more money and the deal becomes a shootout.