50 Fun Facts About The Green Mile

The Green Mile won the 1996 Bram Stoker Award. Its author is best known for which earlier book?

Stephen King's 1974 debut. The Green Mile was also nominated for the British Fantasy Award and the Locus Award.

How was The Green Mile novel originally published?

The first volume, The Two Dead Girls, came in March 1996 and the last, Coffey on the Mile, in August. King liked that readers could not skip to the end.

Which Victorian author's practice inspired King to publish the story in installments?

Agent Ralph Vicinanza pitched writing the book 'the same way it would be read'. King later grumbled the six parts cost about nineteen dollars.

What gives the death row block its 'Green Mile' nickname?

It is the corridor the condemned walk down to the electric chair.

What is the name of the prison where the story takes place?

Briar Ridge is the mental hospital Percy is bound for; Trapingus County is where the murders happened.

In which year is the novel's main story set, later changed for the film?

Darabont moved it to 1935 so the characters could watch Fred Astaire in Top Hat, which is not in the book.

How tall is John Coffey described as being in the novel?

Michael Clarke Duncan was actually 6 ft 5 in and 315 pounds, and camera tricks did the rest.

What was John Coffey convicted of?

He was found cradling their bodies and sobbing that he tried to 'take it back'. The other crimes belong to Del and Arlen Bitterbuck.

What kind of animal is Mr. Jingles?

Del teaches him tricks. After Coffey heals him he lives another 64 years.

What does Brutus 'Brutal' Howell call the mouse before Del names him Mr. Jingles?

'The President' is actually another inmate, Arthur Flanders. Brutal's nickname is ironic; he is the gentlest guard on the block.

Why can the other guards not get rid of the sadistic Percy Wetmore?

They finally let him run an execution on the condition he take a job at Briar Ridge afterwards, which goes horribly wrong.

How is Percy able to sabotage Del's execution?

The brine-soaked sponge is what conducts the current for a quick death. Without it, Del catches fire in the chair.

What is wrong with Warden Hal Moores' wife Melinda?

Coffey draws it out through his hands and later discharges the sickness into Percy.

What ailment of Paul's does Coffey cure first?

In the film Coffey absorbs it and expels it as a swarm of flies.

Who really committed the crimes Coffey was convicted of?

He silenced the sisters by threatening to kill one if the other made a noise. Coffey had been trying to bring the girls back.

What nickname does Wild Bill Wharton prefer, and have tattooed on his forearm?

He fakes a drugged stupor on arrival, then tries to strangle Dean Stanton the moment he reaches E Block.

Which snack does Wild Bill spit, chewed up, into Brutal's face?

He also urinates on the guards. Solitary confinement never teaches him anything.

Why does John Coffey ask not to wear the black hood at his execution?

He also tells the guards about a dream in which he and the two girls are safe and happy.

How old is Paul Edgecombe at the end of the novel?

The film makes him 108. Everyone Coffey healed gained an unnaturally long life, including the mouse.

How many years does Mr. Jingles live after being healed by Coffey?

Paul introduces him to his friend Elaine just before the mouse finally dies.

Which Native American inmate, convicted of killing a man over boots, is the first execution in Paul's story?

He is nicknamed 'The Chief'. Toot-Toot is the trustee who plays the condemned man in execution rehearsals.

Besides the Bram Stoker, The Green Mile was shortlisted for the Locus and which UK prize?

It also made the BBC's Big Read poll of the UK's best-loved novels in 2003.

Who wrote and directed the 1999 film adaptation?

He was reluctant at first because the prison setting was so close to his Shawshank Redemption, then read the book and changed his mind.

How long did the director take to adapt the novel into a screenplay?

He had also written and directed The Shawshank Redemption from a King novella five years earlier.

Who plays Paul Edgecomb in the film?

He and Darabont had met at an Academy Award luncheon in 1994, and King had already pictured him in the role.

Why did Tom Hanks not also play the elderly Paul Edgecomb, as originally planned?

Character actor Dabbs Greer took the part in his final film role, at 82.

Which star from Armageddon did Michael Clarke Duncan credit with getting him the John Coffey audition?

Duncan had been a bodyguard for Will Smith and The Notorious B.I.G. before acting. Shaquille O'Neal says he turned the role down.

Which basketball star has said he turned down the role of John Coffey?

Josh Brolin was considered for Wild Bill, a role that went to Sam Rockwell.

Which future Oscar winner played Wild Bill Wharton in the film, a King prison drama?

He won Best Supporting Actor nearly two decades later for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Who played the sadistic guard Percy Wetmore?

He was nominated for a Satellite Award for the role, and made a career of disturbed characters.

David Morse (Brutus 'Brutal' Howell) has appeared in how many adaptations of the same author?

The others are The Langoliers and Hearts in Atlantis. He says The Green Mile is one of his three favourite films of his own.

Barry Pepper, who played guard Dean Stanton, is best known as which sniper in Saving Private Ryan?

He also played Roger Maris in 61* and Lucky Ned Pepper in True Grit.

Which 1935 Fred Astaire film do Coffey and the guards watch as his last request?

Its song 'Cheek to Cheek' is on the soundtrack. Old Paul watching it again in 1999 is what triggers the whole story.

Who composed the film's score?

He had also scored The Shawshank Redemption for Darabont. The soundtrack has 37 tracks.

How many Academy Award nominations did the film receive?

Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Duncan, Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay. It won none.

Which film narrowly beat The Green Mile on its opening weekend in December 1999?

The gap was $200,000. Warner Bros. insisted it was number one anyway, and it did win the full week.

Roughly how much did The Green Mile gross worldwide against its $60M budget?

It was the second-biggest film of the year in Japan, taking $55 million there alone.

What certificate did the BBFC give The Green Mile, despite the distributor asking for a 15?

The BBFC cited 'strong horror' and refused to reconsider, saying giving in would cost it its independence.

Stephen King joked that Darabont's film was the first R-rated version of what?

He called it a bit 'soft' but admitted he is a sentimentalist at heart.

Which TV role is Dabbs Greer, the elderly Paul Edgecomb, best remembered for?

He was often cast as a minister and married both the Petries and the Bradys on TV. The Green Mile was his last film.

In the novel, what is the name of the nursing home where old Paul writes down his story?

King alternates the 1996 nursing-home frame with the Depression-era death-row chapters, a structure the film keeps.

What was the surname of the murdered twin girls, Kathe and Cora?

Their brother went out with their father to search for them after they were taken, and a reporter who covered the trial later turns up in Paul's story.

What was the subtitle of the first serialized installment, published in March 1996?

New volumes followed monthly until the sixth, Coffey on the Mile, arrived at the end of August; a hardcover did not appear until 2000.

After Coffey's execution, Paul and Brutus transfer to which branch of the system?

In the film it was the last execution either man performed; Paul says afterwards he could no longer bear the work.

The film shot on location in Shelbyville and an old state prison in which US state?

Additional filming took place in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, with interiors at Warner Hollywood Studios in California.

Besides Picture, Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay, what was the film's other Oscar nod?

It went home empty-handed; the supporting nomination for Michael Clarke Duncan was the first of his career.

What is the name of the friend to whom the elderly Paul tells Coffey's story?

In the novel she reads his written account instead, and dies without ever learning that Paul saw Coffey's ghost on the day his wife died.

Before acting, Michael Clarke Duncan worked as a bodyguard for stars including which actor?

At 6 ft 5 in and 315 lb he also dug ditches for a Chicago gas utility and worked the doors of the city's nightclubs.

Percy Wetmore's actor had earlier played the villain Eugene Victor Tooms on which series?

He later had a recurring role as Horace Goodspeed on Lost, and drew widespread criticism in 2011 for marrying a 16-year-old.

The film's writer-director was born in a 1959 refugee camp in France to parents from which country?

His family had fled after the 1956 uprising; he went on to adapt Shawshank and The Mist as well and to launch The Walking Dead on AMC.