50 Fun Facts About Crash Movie

Paul Haggis also wrote which Clint Eastwood film, the Best Picture winner the year before Crash?

Million Dollar Baby. Haggis wrote it on spec with no buyer in sight and struggled to sell it, yet the script he could not place ended up winning Best Picture.

What crime against Paul Haggis in 1991 gave him the idea for Crash?

A carjacking. Two armed men took his Porsche and even the video he had just rented, and he says he wondered who they were once a year for a decade before writing the script.

What unlikely weather falls on Los Angeles in the closing scenes of Crash?

Snow. It drifts down as yet another fender-bender sets two drivers trading racial insults, ending the film exactly where it began.

Who plays Jean Cabot, the district attorney's wife, in Crash?

Sandra Bullock. Like the rest of the ensemble she worked for union-scale pay, which is how a film with so many famous faces was made for about $6.5 million.

In Crash, what does locksmith Daniel give his frightened young daughter to protect her from bullets?

An invisible cloak. He says a fairy gave it to him when he was five and that nothing can get through it, a bedtime story she believes completely.

Who plays Detective Graham Waters in Crash and also co-produced the film?

Don Cheadle. He was the first big name to sign on, and Haggis asked him to produce as well because, he said, other good actors would follow him.

Which actor plays Sergeant John Ryan, the Crash cop who molests Christine Thayer at a traffic stop?

Matt Dillon. John Cusack had wanted the part but dropped out as the shoot kept slipping, and Dillon's turn became the film's only acting nomination at the Oscars.

Who plays Christine Thayer, the television director's wife, in Crash?

Thandiwe Newton. Billed then as Thandie Newton, she won the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for the role but was left out of the Oscar nominations altogether.

Which rapper plays Anthony, who lectures his partner in crime about racial stereotypes all through Crash?

Ludacris. His character insists that buses have huge windows to humiliate the people who have to ride them, and later has to ride one himself.

What figurine does Peter stick on the dashboard of the stolen car in Crash?

St. Christopher. Peter will not ride without the patron saint of travellers, while Anthony grumbles about having that 'voodoo' thing in the car.

In Crash's opening lines, Detective Waters says people in Los Angeles crash into each other just to do what?

Feel something. He says everyone in the city lives behind metal and glass and misses being touched, a speech he delivers moments after his own car has been rear-ended.

In Crash, what does Jean Cabot suspect locksmith Daniel Ruiz of being?

A gang member. Jean takes his tattoos as proof and wants the locks changed all over again, but the film follows him home to the five-year-old daughter he dotes on.

Who plays Daniel, the locksmith, in Crash?

Michael Peña. After years of small television parts, he went from this role to a lead in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center.

In Crash, what does Lieutenant Dixon demand in return for approving Officer Hansen's transfer?

Silence about Ryan's conduct. Dixon says a racism complaint would wreck his own career, so the paperwork has to blame Hansen's 'uncontrollable flatulence' instead.

How does Sergeant Ryan meet Christine Thayer a second time in Crash?

He pulls her from a burning car. Recognising the officer who assaulted her, she fights him off at first, and he has to crawl back in as the flames reach the wreck.

In Crash, what does Flanagan offer Detective Waters to go along with a cover-up?

A job with the district attorney. Waters holds evidence that the dead officer was dirty, yet he swallows it, takes the deal and lets the white cop carry the blame.

Why does Officer Hansen shoot his hitchhiker in Crash?

He thinks the man is reaching for a gun. The hitchhiker had laughed at the statuette on Hansen's dashboard and was only pulling out an identical one of his own.

The body found by the roadside at the start of Crash turns out to be whose?

Waters's brother Peter. Their mother had begged Graham to find him, and when he fails she blames him for the death and turns her back on him.

What does Anthony find in the back of the white van he steals in Crash?

Chained Cambodian immigrants. A chop-shop owner offers to buy them from him, but Anthony drives them to Chinatown and sets them free instead.

In Crash, Sergeant Ryan's furious calls to an HMO administrator are about medical care for whom?

His father. Ryan nurses him at home through his illness, a tenderness the film sets against the abuse of power he commits on patrol.

Which actor, later Tony Stark's fellow captive Yinsen in Iron Man, plays shopkeeper Farhad in Crash?

Shaun Toub. His Farhad is taken for an Arab by a gun dealer and by the vandals who wreck his shop, though the family is Persian.

In Crash, why is Daniel's young daughter unhurt after leaping in front of Farhad's gun as he fires?

The bullets were blanks. His daughter Dorri had quietly chosen that box at the gun shop, so a baffled Farhad decides the little girl is his guardian angel.

Which sitcom actor plays Fred, who tells TV director Cameron a Black character isn't talking 'Black' enough in Crash?

Tony Danza. Haggis said the storyline was something he had witnessed on a studio lot, and in the film Cameron ends up reshooting the scene.

In Crash, locksmith Daniel warns shopkeeper Farhad that the real problem is not his lock but his what?

Door. Farhad calls him a cheat and the locksmith walks off unpaid; when the shop is ransacked, the insurer will not cover it, precisely because the door was never fixed.

Crash had its world premiere in 2004 at which film festival in its director's home country?

Toronto. A distributor bought it within a day of the screening, then held it back until the following May rather than rush it into awards season.

How did Paul Haggis help cover Crash's shrunken budget out of his own pocket?

He mortgaged his house. He stretched the money further by reusing locations, so that one house plays the homes of two different families.

What happened to Paul Haggis while he was directing one of Crash's final scenes?

He had a heart attack. Told to rest for months, he refused to let another director finish the film and was back on set within about two weeks.

After her fall down the stairs in Crash, whom does Jean Cabot call the best friend she has?

Her housekeeper, Maria. Jean has spent the film snapping at her over the dishwasher, but a friend on the phone is too busy to come and it is Maria who drives her to hospital.

Before it became a film, Paul Haggis first pitched Crash as what?

A TV series. The networks he pitched had no interest, so after being fired from his own CBS drama he dug out the outline and rewrote it as a movie.

Which studio bought Crash within a day of its 2004 festival premiere?

Lions Gate Films. Only a couple of other buyers showed interest after the screening, and the studio's own president admitted surprise that there was no bidding war.

Crash's Oscar-nominated song 'In the Deep' lost to a song from which other Terrence Howard film?

Hustle & Flow. Howard was up for Best Actor for it that same night, so he sat through the ceremony as both a rival nominee and a member of the Best Picture cast.

Which heavily favoured film did Crash beat for Best Picture?

Brokeback Mountain. Haggis himself said in 2015 that he would not have voted for Crash as the year's best film, and Academy members polled that year reversed the result.

Crash won three Oscars: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and which other award?

Best Film Editing. That win was a good omen: from 1981 on, every Best Picture winner had at least been nominated for its editing.

Who hosted the 2006 Academy Awards ceremony at which Crash won Best Picture?

Jon Stewart. The Daily Show satirist was the fourth different host in four years; organisers feared that few viewers had seen the nominated films, and the audience did shrink.

Crash won Best Picture at the Oscars after being left off the best-film shortlist at which earlier awards?

The Golden Globes. Its voters gave Crash just two nominations and no prize, and handed their top drama award to the film it would upset at the Oscars seven weeks later.

Which video-rental chain helped bankroll Crash, years after the 1991 incident outside one of its stores that inspired the film?

Blockbuster. Its film arm, DEJ Productions, was among the backers, so the chain whose shopfront gave Haggis the idea ended up helping to pay for the result.

Which writer named Crash the worst movie of the decade in 2009?

Ta-Nehisi Coates. Writing in The Atlantic, he echoed a blogger's verdict and called the film the apotheosis of 'a kind of unthinking, incurious, nihilistic multiculturalism'.

Which talk-show host championed Crash in 2005 after describing her own 'Crash moment' at a Paris boutique?

Oprah Winfrey. She had the cast on her show that October, and one of the film's writers says that was when 'suddenly we were in the culture'.

Paul Haggis has said he wrote Crash to 'bust' which group of people?

Liberals. He counted himself among them, arguing that people sure they have race 'all figured out' are the ones in denial about their own prejudice.

Which cable network turned Crash into a 2008 drama led by Dennis Hopper?

Starz. It was the channel's first original drama, and although the story stayed in Los Angeles it was shot largely in Albuquerque, with Hopper as a record producer.

Crash was the first Best Picture winner released in the US in which home-video format?

Blu-ray Disc. It arrived in only the second week of releases for the new format, which was then fighting HD DVD to become the high-definition standard.

On the 1991 night that inspired Crash, Paul Haggis was driving home from which Best Picture winner's premiere?

The Silence of the Lambs. Not yet done with films for the night, he and his wife stopped to rent a second one on the way home, and never got to watch it.

After running a man over in their stolen SUV in Crash, where do Anthony and his friend leave him?

Outside a hospital. They argue first about what to do with him, and his white van turns up again later in Anthony's hands.

Crash's distributor made Oscar-campaign history by mailing more than 100,000 DVDs to every member of which union?

The Screen Actors Guild. Because the film was already on sale in shops there was no piracy risk, and soon afterwards its cast won the guild's top award.

Which critic named Crash the best film of 2005 and kept defending it against its detractors?

Roger Ebert. When an LA Weekly critic called the film exploitative, Ebert wrote a whole column to rebut him, and after the Oscars he insisted the better film had won.

Who plays district attorney Rick Cabot in Crash?

Brendan Fraser. He was the last big name to sign, and Haggis said the money only came through once he had, even with other famous names already aboard.

During which holiday season does the story of Crash unfold?

Christmas. The shoot ran through December 2003, and nativity scenes sit in the background of a story about stolen cars, police abuse and a shooting.

Which presenter was caught mouthing 'whoa' after announcing Crash as Best Picture?

Jack Nicholson. He was not alone in his surprise: Haggis had already turned in his seat to applaud the favourites, and his co-writer says he had simply assumed the other film would win.

Who plays Ria, Detective Waters's partner and lover, in Crash?

Jennifer Esposito. Her character has to remind Waters, who never gets it straight, that her family comes from Puerto Rico and El Salvador.

Made for $6.5 million, Crash earned roughly how much worldwide?

$100 million. Its distributor skipped the usual slow art-house rollout and opened it in more than 1,800 cinemas at once.