50 Fun Facts About Girl, Interrupted

Who won an Academy Award for playing the rebellious patient Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted?

Angelina Jolie also took the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for the part, sweeping the season. Time Out's reviewer wrote that the film wilts a little whenever she is off screen.

The title of Susanna Kaysen's memoir Girl, Interrupted comes from a painting by which Dutch master?

Johannes Vermeer painted Girl Interrupted at Her Music, and Kaysen draws a parallel between the girl's broken-off lesson and her own interrupted youth.

Which poet was a patient, years before Susanna Kaysen, at the real hospital in Girl, Interrupted?

Sylvia Plath drew on her stay for The Bell Jar, her only novel, which first appeared under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas.

In Girl, Interrupted, Susanna's boyfriend Toby has just been drafted to serve in which war?

Vietnam War call-ups shadow the story's late-1960s setting, and Toby turns up at the hospital with a plan to dodge his.

In Girl, Interrupted, Daisy Randone hides the carcasses of which food, brought to her by her father?

Chicken is all Daisy will eat, and only alone in her room. In Kaysen's memoir she says it will be time to go home once she has collected 14 carcasses.

Which future star of Mad Men and The Handmaid's Tale plays burn victim Polly in Girl, Interrupted?

Elisabeth Moss had been a child actress since the early 1990s. Peggy Olson and June Osborne came years after her turn as the childlike Polly.

In Girl, Interrupted, Susanna lands in Claymoore after taking a bottle of which pills with alcohol?

Aspirin washed down with alcohol is the overdose that starts the story, though Susanna denies to the psychiatrist that she meant to die.

Critics measured Girl, Interrupted against which 1970s Oscar winner, with one calling it a knockoff?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was the yardstick in the Los Angeles Times, where Kenneth Turan accused the script of manufacturing obvious, standard-issue drama.

Which actress plays Valerie, the stern but caring head nurse at Claymoore, in Girl, Interrupted?

Whoopi Goldberg came to the part with an Oscar for Ghost behind her, and as the voice of the hyena Shenzi in The Lion King.

Who directed Girl, Interrupted before going on to make Walk the Line, Logan and Ford v Ferrari?

James Mangold also co-wrote the script, and the film's star recruited him after seeing his debut feature, Heavy.

Which actress, also an executive producer of the film, plays Susanna Kaysen in Girl, Interrupted?

Winona Ryder had tried to buy the memoir's film rights herself, then spent five years steering the project through three rejected scripts.

In Girl, Interrupted, which diagnosis does Dr. Potts at first keep secret from Susanna herself?

Borderline personality disorder is the label in Susanna's file, and Kaysen's memoir picks apart its textbook definition as a generalization.

In Girl, Interrupted, Lisa Rowe has spent eight years in and out of Claymoore under which diagnosis?

Sociopath is a label Lisa seems to take some pride in. In the memoir she is plainly annoyed when a second patient arrives with the same one.

In Girl, Interrupted, where does the newly drafted Toby beg Susanna to run away with him?

Canada is his way out, but Susanna turns him down, telling him she has friends among the patients now.

Which Clueless actress plays the fragile patient Daisy Randone in Girl, Interrupted?

Brittany Murphy took the role after the actress first signed for it dropped out weeks before filming, and it earned her a Young Artist Award nomination.

What nickname do the Claymoore patients give the burn victim Polly Clark in Girl, Interrupted?

Torch is the ward's blunt name for the childlike Polly. In the memoir, where she set herself alight, the others respect her courage too much to ask why.

Which Petula Clark hit do Susanna and Lisa sing to comfort Polly in Girl, Interrupted?

Downtown is sung by the two actresses in character, after the pair sedate the night nurse to reach Polly in isolation.

In Girl, Interrupted, which hidden part of Claymoore do Lisa and the other patients roam at night?

The tunnels run underground beneath the hospital, and Lisa later chases Susanna through them in the film's climactic confrontation.

In Girl, Interrupted, what does Lisa steal from Susanna and read aloud to turn the others against her?

Her diary holds blunt notes on the other patients, and before leaving Susanna apologizes to Georgina and Polly for what she wrote about them.

In Girl, Interrupted, where does Lisa flee after she and Susanna find Daisy dead?

Florida is where Lisa runs after searching Daisy's room for cash, while a horrified Susanna calls an ambulance and goes back to the hospital.

Which actor is the father of the Girl, Interrupted star who won an Oscar as Lisa Rowe?

Jon Voight won Best Actor for Coming Home, so his daughter's win made them only the second father and daughter to both hold acting Oscars.

Which actor plays Toby, the boyfriend who visits Susanna at Claymoore, in Girl, Interrupted?

Jared Leto began on TV's My So-Called Life and is also the frontman of the rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars.

Which British acting great plays Dr. Wick, the hospital's head psychologist, in Girl, Interrupted?

Vanessa Redgrave, an Oscar winner for Julia, appears so briefly that a New York Daily News critic said the role bordered on a cameo.

In Girl, Interrupted, where is Susanna publicly confronted by the wife of a man she had an affair with?

An ice cream parlor is the scene, on a rare supervised outing, and Lisa leaps to Susanna's defense by loudly insulting the woman.

In Girl, Interrupted, the reclusive patient Daisy Randone is addicted to which drugstore remedy?

Laxatives are Daisy's habit. In the memoir Lisa gets into her room and reports back that she only needs them because of her strange diet.

What does Susanna take from Daisy's apartment before returning to Claymoore in Girl, Interrupted?

Her kitten leaves with Susanna, who has just called an ambulance and realized she never wants to become like Lisa.

In Girl, Interrupted, which drug do the runaways Lisa and Susanna trade Daisy for a bed for the night?

Valium buys the pair one night in the apartment that Daisy's father has rented for her after her discharge.

In Girl, Interrupted, what is done to Lisa as punishment after the night nurse is found sedated?

Electroconvulsive therapy is followed by solitary confinement, which Lisa breaks out of that same night to run away.

In the film Girl, Interrupted, what is Susanna's roommate Georgina Tuskin said to be?

A pathological liar is the film's Georgina, who spins a false story about Polly's burns. In the memoir her diagnosis is schizophrenia instead.

Girl, Interrupted, set in New England, shot its Claymoore scenes at a real state hospital in which US state?

Pennsylvania supplied Harrisburg State Hospital, an asylum founded after lobbying by the reformer Dorothea Dix, which stood in for the Massachusetts hospital of the memoir.

Which real Massachusetts institution, renamed Claymoore on screen, is the setting of Girl, Interrupted?

McLean Hospital, founded in 1811, has also treated Ray Charles and the poet Robert Lowell. Kaysen stayed for 18 months instead of the couple of weeks first proposed.

The hospital in Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted is a psychiatric teaching arm of which university?

Harvard Medical School counts it as its largest psychiatric facility, and the campus houses the world's largest bank of brain tissue for research.

Girl, Interrupted author Susanna Kaysen's father, Carl, was a security adviser to which US president?

John F. Kennedy made the economist his deputy national security adviser in 1961. Carl Kaysen later took over the Institute for Advanced Study from J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Which singer wrote Knocking 'Round the Zoo about his teenage stay at the hospital in Girl, Interrupted?

James Taylor checked himself out of the hospital and went on to form a band, the Flying Machine, which played the songs he had written there.

In the memoir Girl, Interrupted, Susanna bites into her own hand, terrified that she has lost what?

Her bones are what she needs to see, and she insists on an X-ray to be sure. Kaysen tells the episode in short, choppy sentences that mimic her panic.

In the memoir Girl, Interrupted, the ward learns that the newly released Daisy has died on which day?

Her birthday is the day Daisy takes her own life, and the other patients hold a long moment of silence in her memory.

Whose help did Susanna Kaysen need to obtain her own hospital file before writing Girl, Interrupted?

A lawyer got her the file after memories of the ward began returning while she was at work on her novel Far Afield.

Which actress from The Faculty plays Georgina, Susanna's roommate, in Girl, Interrupted?

Clea DuVall had broken through a year earlier as a goth high school student, and went on to write and direct the romcom Happiest Season.

Which rock singer met the director of Girl, Interrupted to discuss playing Lisa Rowe?

Courtney Love talked the part over while a crowd of young actresses, Reese Witherspoon and Katie Holmes among them, auditioned for roles in the film.

In the memoir Girl, Interrupted, where was Georgina when darkness first seemed to close in around her?

A movie theater is where her first symptoms struck. She and Susanna are nonetheless regarded as the two healthiest patients on the ward.

Which actress quit the role of Daisy in Girl, Interrupted weeks before filming to play Joan of Arc?

Leelee Sobieski earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the television miniseries, which aired on CBS in 1999, months before Girl, Interrupted reached cinemas.

Which star of 1990s indie films turned down the role of Lisa Rowe in Girl, Interrupted?

Parker Posey passed on the part that went on to win an Academy Award for the actress who did take it.

Whose album Queens of the Summer Hotel began as songs for a Girl, Interrupted stage musical?

Aimee Mann released the songs as an album when the pandemic postponed the show. Its title comes from an Anne Sexton poem set in a psychiatric hospital.

Which New York museum holds Girl Interrupted at Her Music, the painting that named Kaysen's memoir?

The Frick Collection holds the canvas, which the industrialist Henry Clay Frick bought in 1901, and the picture runs through Kaysen's book as a theme.

The Girl, Interrupted actress who played Lisa earned a Teen Choice nomination in which odd category?

Hissy Fit was a real Teen Choice category in 2000, and Lisa's rages earned a nomination there alongside a second one for the acting itself.

In the memoir Girl, Interrupted, a trip with Valerie to see whom leaves Susanna frantic about lost time?

A dentist puts her under general anesthesia, and when nobody will say how long she was out she panics until medication calms her.

In the memoir Girl, Interrupted, the patient Wade claims his father works for which agency?

The CIA story is treated as a delusion, yet the friends Wade names, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, hint that he was telling the truth.

In the memoir Girl, Interrupted, Torrey dreads being taken home by her parents to which country?

Mexico means a return to amphetamines for Torrey, so the other patients pool their money for an escape that she is too frightened to attempt.

Years after leaving the hospital in the memoir Girl, Interrupted, Susanna runs into Lisa with whom?

Her young son, a toddler, is with Lisa as she heads for the subway, now a single mother who strikes Susanna as quirky but sane.

Which studio fought off several rivals to buy the film rights to the memoir Girl, Interrupted?

Columbia Pictures bought the rights in June 1993, and later pushed back the shoot so that the lead actress could first make the horror film Lost Souls.