50 Fun Facts About Argo Movie

Who directed and starred in Argo?

He also produced it with George Clooney and Grant Heslov.

Which real CIA officer does the director play?

The real Mendez wrote four memoirs about his CIA career.

The rescue operation is known by what nickname?

The CIA's role stayed secret until Bill Clinton declassified it in 1997.

How many US diplomats are hidden at the Canadian ambassador's home?

Sixty-six others were taken hostage at the embassy.

Which film gives Mendez the idea for the cover story?

He watches it on TV while criticising the State Department's other proposals.

What is the escapees' cover story?

The fake film is pitched as a 'science fantasy adventure' in the style of Star Wars.

Who plays the Hollywood make-up expert who helps set up the fake film?

The real Chambers created Spock's ears and the Planet of the Apes make-up.

Who plays producer Lester Siegel?

He was the first actor cast and earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

Lester Siegel is a fictional character. Whose personality is he based on?

His name and some contribution come from Robert Sidell.

Under what alias does Mendez enter Iran?

He poses as a producer for Argo.

How do the revolutionaries realise some embassy staff are missing?

Child workers piece the shreds back together.

Where does the scouting trip go wrong?

A hostile shopkeeper harasses them before their Iranian contact hustles them away.

Why is the operation cancelled at the last minute?

Mendez pushes ahead anyway, forcing Jack O'Donnell to re-obtain authorisation.

Who plays Mendez's boss, Deputy Director Jack O'Donnell?

Victor Garber plays Ambassador Ken Taylor and Kyle Chandler plays Hamilton Jordan.

Which airline flies the group out of Tehran?

The real flight was a Douglas DC-8; the film shows a 747-300 that didn't fly until 1983.

What decoration is Mendez secretly awarded?

It was returned to him after the operation was declassified in 1997.

How many days does the epilogue say the remaining hostages were held?

Ken Taylor received the Congressional Gold Medal from Reagan in 1981.

Who wrote the screenplay?

He won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar and later co-wrote Batman v Superman.

The script drew on a 2007 article in which magazine?

Joshuah Bearman's 'How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran'.

What was the title of Mendez's 1999 memoir the film also adapted?

He co-wrote a longer account, Argo, with Matt Baglio in 2012.

Which novel was the real fake-film script actually an adaptation of?

Producer Barry Geller had tried to make it under the original title before the CIA renamed it Argo.

How many scripts arrived at the fake Studio Six office after the rescue, according to Mendez?

One of them was from Steven Spielberg.

Where were most of the CIA interior scenes actually shot?

Only the lobby scene was shot at the real CIA original headquarters building.

Which city stood in for Tehran?

Filming also took place in Los Angeles, McLean, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Which Rolling Stones song in the film is an anachronism, released a year after the events?

Dire Straits, Van Halen and Led Zeppelin also feature on the soundtrack.

Which vintage studio logo opens the film?

Warner also repainted its water tower with The Burbank Studios logo.

Who was the first person cast in the film?

That was in June 2011; the rest of the cast followed before an August shoot.

Which critic named Argo the best film of 2012, the last such pick before his death?

He also correctly predicted its Best Picture win after Toronto.

How many Oscars did Argo win?

Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay and Film Editing, from seven nominations.

Argo was the first Best Picture winner without a Best Director nomination since which film?

Only Wings, Grand Hotel and Driving Miss Daisy had done it before.

Which actor declared that the film's director 'got robbed' after the nominations?

The ceremony's host joked that Argo was so top-secret its director remained unknown to the Academy.

Who hosted the 2013 Oscars where Argo won?

It was the first ceremony officially branded 'The Oscars'.

Which film led the nominations that year with twelve?

Life of Pi took home the most awards, with four.

George Clooney's Oscar for Argo made him only the third person to win in which two capacities?

His acting Oscar was for Syriana.

Argo gave one of its supporting actors back-to-back Best Picture winners. What was the other film?

He played the studio boss in the silent-film homage the year before.

Which former president said 90% of the plan was Canadian and Ken Taylor was the main hero?

The CIA man, he noted, was only in Tehran a day and a half.

Which country's parliament passed a motion censuring the film's director?

It said the film misled the world about diplomats Chris Beeby and Richard Sewell.

How long did Carter actually delay authorising the mission?

And that was before Mendez had even left Europe for Iran.

According to Mark Lijek, why did the group turn up for a 5:30 a.m. flight?

The immigration officers barely looked at them; there was no runway chase.

Which comic-book legend's concept art is misattributed in the film as Argo storyboards?

He had drawn it years earlier for the abandoned Lord of Light production.

Roughly how much did Argo gross worldwide?

It reached first place at the US box office in its third weekend.

Who composed Argo's score?

The score was singled out alongside the acting, direction, screenplay and editing in the film's reviews.

At which 2012 film festival did Argo preview, prompting complaints that it sidelined Canada's role?

Maclean's said the movie rewrote history at Canada's expense, and Affleck later softened the postscript text.

Which president declassified the Canadian Caper in 1997, letting Mendez get his Intelligence Star back?

Make-up artist John Chambers received the Intelligence Medal of Merit and stayed friends with Mendez until his death.

What did Argo win at the 19th Screen Actors Guild Awards?

Alan Arkin was also nominated individually there and at the Golden Globes, where the film took Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director.

Tate Donovan plays which real US consular agent among the escapees?

In reality he and the Lijeks and Staffords spent six days on the run before reaching the Canadians, a stretch the film skips.

What honour did President Reagan present to Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor in 1981?

Jimmy Carter later called Taylor the main hero of the escape, a role the film downplays.

In reality, part of the group hid at the home of which other Canadian diplomat and his wife?

Mark Lijek recalled walking freely in the Sheardowns' interior courtyard garden, contrary to the film's house-arrest feel.

Which New Zealand First leader initiated the 2013 parliamentary motion censuring Argo's director?

The House thanked diplomats Chris Beeby and Richard Sewell, who had driven the Americans to the airport in 1980.

The real Swissair jet that flew the group out of Tehran was a DC-8 named after which Swiss canton?

The film instead shows a Boeing 747-300, a type that only entered service in 1983.