48 Fun Facts About Catch Me if You Can

Who directed the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can?

Steven Spielberg joined only as a producer and offered the job to other directors before taking it himself, later saying he had never worked faster in his life.

Which actor plays FBI agent Carl Hanratty in Catch Me If You Can?

Tom Hanks came to the dogged FBI man straight from playing a Depression-era hitman in Road to Perdition, a switch Variety summed up as 'from gangster to G-man'.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor as Frank Abagnale Sr.?

Christopher Walken was first suggested for the part by producer Walter Parkes, who saw Frank Sr. as a modern Willy Loman, a charmer whom the American dream keeps eluding.

Which then little-known actress plays Brenda Strong, the nurse Frank gets engaged to in Catch Me If You Can?

Amy Adams won the part after a casting search that lasted months; the director loved her audition tape, and a producer called her as fresh and honest as anyone they had seen.

In Catch Me If You Can, which airline's pilot uniform does Frank wear while cashing forged payroll cheques?

Pan Am supplies the uniform itself: Frank phones the airline posing as a co-pilot whose hotel has lost his, and is sent straight to its uniform supplier.

Cornered in a motel in Catch Me If You Can, Frank poses as a Secret Service agent with what name?

Barry Allen is the Flash's real name, as Carl learns in a diner, and the comic-book slip is his first clue that the forger he is chasing is only a kid.

In Catch Me If You Can, under what name does Frank pose as a doctor at a Georgia hospital?

Dr. Conners is hired to supervise the emergency room's overnight shift, and gets through it by making his junior doctors agree every diagnosis among themselves.

Which state's bar exam does Frank pass in Catch Me If You Can with the help of Brenda's father?

Louisiana: Carl spends the rest of the film asking how he cheated on it, and Frank's final answer is that he studied for two weeks and passed.

In Catch Me If You Can, how does Frank escape when Carl turns up at his engagement party?

Through a bedroom window: first he tells Brenda he is no doctor or lawyer, shows her a case full of cash and begs her to run away with him.

In Catch Me If You Can, in which French town, his mother's home village, is Frank finally arrested?

Montrichard is where his father, a young GI, first watched his mother dance, and Carl finds it by recalling her remark about a village that had never heard of Sara Lee.

How does Frank get off the plane flying him back to America in Catch Me If You Can?

Through the lavatory: told on the descent that his father has died, he shuts himself in, unbolts the toilet and drops out beneath the plane as it lands.

In Catch Me If You Can, how does Frank end up serving most of his twelve-year prison sentence?

Working for the FBI: Carl has him released into the bureau's custody to examine bad cheques, a nine-to-five routine that soon bores him into nearly running again.

In Frank Sr.'s favourite story in Catch Me If You Can, two mice fall into a bucket of what?

Cream: the first mouse gives up and drowns, the second struggles until it churns the cream into butter and climbs out, and Frank later recites the tale as grace at dinner.

In Catch Me If You Can, with whom is Frank's mother having the affair that ends his parents' marriage?

His father's friend Jack Barnes, president of the Rotary Club that honours Frank Sr. in the first flashback, is the man she later marries, as Frank discovers years on.

In Catch Me If You Can, in which suburb does the Abagnale family live before tax troubles cost them their house?

New Rochelle's Rotary Club makes Frank Sr. a lifetime member in the first flashback, shortly before a tax investigation takes his shop and the family home.

In Catch Me If You Can, from which French port city does Carl collect his prisoner?

Marseille: Carl finds Frank feverish in a filthy cell and demands a doctor, only for the sick man to make one more dash for the door before agreeing to go home.

From which TV medical drama does Frank pick up the line 'Do you concur?' in Catch Me If You Can?

Dr. Kildare: Frank studies the show at home, then tries the line on his own junior doctors, one of whom can only ask what exactly he is supposed to concur with.

On his first day at a new school in Catch Me If You Can, Frank passes himself off as what?

A substitute teacher: teased over his old school blazer, he writes his name on the blackboard and runs the French class for a week before his parents are called in.

According to Frank Sr. in Catch Me If You Can, why do the New York Yankees always win?

Rivals stare at the pinstripes, he says, waving away his son's guess of Mickey Mantle, and the Broadway musical later built a song on the line.

Which Martin Scorsese film did Leonardo DiCaprio also have in cinemas when Catch Me If You Can opened?

Gangs of New York opened five days earlier, and waiting for DiCaprio to finish its overrunning shoot had already cost Catch Me If You Can one of its directors.

Catch Me If You Can opened in American cinemas on which holiday in 2002?

Christmas Day suits a film whose hunter and quarry keep meeting at Christmas: Frank rings Carl on Christmas Eve because, as Carl guesses, he has no one else to call.

Who composed the jazzy score for Catch Me If You Can?

John Williams dropped his usual large orchestra and broad themes for a progressive-jazz sound featuring a solo saxophone.

Which Frank Sinatra song features on the Catch Me If You Can soundtrack?

Come Fly with Me was a particular favourite of the director's, and the title alone suited a hero who talks his way into cockpit jump seats for free rides.

The real Frank Abagnale makes a cameo in Catch Me If You Can as what?

A French police officer: the real Abagnale helps arrest his own screen self, as one of the gendarmes who seize Leonardo DiCaprio's Frank.

Which director, then living in Paris, screen-tested French actresses to play Frank's mother in Catch Me If You Can?

Brian De Palma filmed the tests at the request of his friend the director, who wanted a real Frenchwoman as Frank's French mother, and they turned up Nathalie Baye.

Which future Hunger Games star plays Lucy, the cashier Frank takes to dinner in Catch Me If You Can?

Elizabeth Banks's Lucy tells her charming date how cheques carry routing numbers along the bottom, a lesson he at once turns into a new kind of forgery.

The director spotted Jennifer Garner in which TV series before casting her in Catch Me If You Can?

Alias had Garner playing a different character every week, and it won her a one-scene part as a call girl who thinks she is the one doing the hustling.

Which future Grey's Anatomy star plays Marci, one of the young women Frank charms in Catch Me If You Can?

Ellen Pompeo's Marci is the flight attendant who greets Frank on his first free ride in a cockpit jump seat, and whom he takes on what he calls the best date he has ever had.

Who wrote the screenplay for Catch Me If You Can?

Jeff Nathanson was hooked by a twenty-minute tape of Abagnale telling his own story, sent by a producer, and his script then waited years while directors came and went.

Which regular collaborator of the director shot Catch Me If You Can as its cinematographer?

Janusz Kamiński's speed suited a shoot that sometimes took in three locations a day; the producer said he and the director share an unspoken shorthand like nothing he had seen.

For which award was Leonardo DiCaprio nominated for playing Frank Abagnale Jr.?

Golden Globe for Best Actor – Drama was the nod for a part DiCaprio researched in person: he spent time with the real Abagnale and found a man who looked unable to 'steal a postage stamp'.

The Broadway musical of Catch Me If You Can stages Frank's life story in the style of what?

A TV variety show: cornered at an airport, Frank asks to tell his story 'Live in Living Color', and the whole chase is played as a 1960s television special.

Who won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for playing Carl Hanratty on Broadway?

Norbert Leo Butz took the show's only win from four Tony nominations for playing the lawman, having won his first Tony as a con man in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Which songwriting team wrote the score for the Catch Me If You Can musical?

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman had written Hairspray, and the new show reunited them with that hit's director and choreographer, Jack O'Brien and Jerry Mitchell.

In Catch Me If You Can, which James Bond film does Frank watch before ordering the same suit Bond wore?

Goldfinger: a newspaper has just dubbed the phony pilot 'the James Bond of the sky', so Frank studies the film, orders three of the suits and gives his name as Mr. Fleming.

Records dug up for a 2020 book put the real Abagnale where during most of his supposed years on the run?

In prison: Alan C. Logan found that Abagnale was held in a New York state prison for most of the years between 17 and 20, the very period of his claimed pilot, doctor and lawyer careers.

At the Strongs' dinner table in Catch Me If You Can, where does Frank claim to have studied law?

Berkeley, which turns out to be Roger's own law school; asked the name of an old professor's little dog, Frank reckons the years between them and answers that the dog is dead.

The real Frank Abagnale long claimed to have held which job at Brigham Young University?

A sociology professor, by his own account, but the university found 'absolutely no record' of him, and pressed by a Utah reporter in 2006 he said he had only helped with 'a couple of weeks of a summer course'.

After fleeing his engagement party in Catch Me If You Can, Frank tells Brenda to meet him at which city's airport?

Miami: Frank arrives to find Brenda ringed by plainclothes agents, realises she has been followed, and drives away without her.

In Catch Me If You Can, Frank slips past the airport agents surrounded by eight young women dressed as what?

Stewardesses: Frank stages a fake airline recruiting day at a college, picks eight winners, and strolls through the terminal among them while every agent watches the women.

Which actor plays Roger Strong, Brenda's attorney father, in Catch Me If You Can?

Martin Sheen had what the producer called an intimidating presence, enough to make Frank anxious, helped by the fact that audiences knew him as television's President.

After giving the airport agents the slip in Catch Me If You Can, Frank flies to which European city?

Madrid is only the first stop: his cheques then surface across Europe, and Carl, plotting them on a map, sees that the forger is travelling in a circle.

Shown a fraudulent check during a jail visit in Catch Me If You Can, Frank instantly deduces that who was involved?

A bank teller: Frank notices the date was hand-stamped, as banks do, with a stamp worn down by constant use, so the forger had to be working behind the counter.

Which Sopranos star was originally cast as Carl Hanratty when Gore Verbinski was to direct Catch Me If You Can?

James Gandolfini had to give up the part when the long-delayed shoot was finally set for early 2002, dates that clashed with filming his television series.

Place Royale in which Canadian location stood in for the French village where Frank is arrested in Catch Me If You Can?

Quebec City's old quarter was picked for its atmosphere, and the church seen behind the arrest is Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, which faces the square.

Who played Frank Abagnale Jr. in the Broadway musical version?

Aaron Tveit took a leave from Broadway's Next to Normal in the summer of 2009 to try out the part of Frank, then went back to playing Gabe that September.

To promote Catch Me If You Can, Game Show Network re-aired a 1977 episode of which show featuring Abagnale?

To Tell the Truth also opens the film: three men each say they are Frank Abagnale, DiCaprio among them, while the show's real host and a panellist appear as themselves.

Which bossa nova classic recorded by Stan Getz and João Gilberto is heard in Catch Me If You Can?

The Girl from Ipanema sits on the soundtrack beside Sinatra and Dusty Springfield, period records picked to place the story in the jet-age sixties.