50 Fun Facts About Master and Commander

Master and Commander was the first non-documentary film ever shot on location in which Pacific archipelago?

The Galápagos appear for real when Dr Maturin goes collecting specimens. Most other scenes were shot in a giant studio tank in Mexico.

The giant Mexican water tank that floated Master and Commander's replica frigate was built for which earlier sea epic?

Titanic needed a tank big enough for a 775-foot replica liner, so Fox built Baja Studios on the Mexican coast. The full-scale HMS Surprise later rocked there on gimbals.

Which 2003 hit kept Master and Commander at number two on its opening weekend at the North American box office?

Elf, in its second week, earned $26.3 million to the naval epic's $25.1 million. The Will Ferrell Christmas comedy had itself opened at number two a week earlier.

Which camouflaged creature from Dr Maturin's collection inspires Captain Aubrey to disguise HMS Surprise?

Stick insect camouflage gives Aubrey the idea of hiding his warship in plain sight. Maturin's specimen is a phasmid, one of the insects that pass for twigs to fool predators.

Chris Larkin, the marine captain who accidentally shoots Dr Maturin in Master and Commander, is which actress's son?

Maggie Smith's elder son took the stage name Larkin, after the poet Philip Larkin, so that he would not trade on his famous parents.

Master and Commander lost the Best Picture Oscar to which film that won every award it was nominated for?

The Return of the King went eleven for eleven, matching Ben-Hur's record haul. Master and Commander's ten nominations were the second most of the night.

Russell Crowe bought which instrument himself for Master and Commander, one that sold in 2018 for US$104,000?

Violin duets fill Aubrey's evenings, and the budget would not cover the instrument Crowe wanted: one made in 1890 by the Italian maker Leandro Bisiach.

In Patrick O'Brian's novel The Far Side of the World, the enemy frigate belongs to which country instead of France?

The United States frigate Norfolk is the quarry in the book, which is set during the War of 1812. The studio said moving the story to 1805 spared viewers a long history lesson.

The crew of HMS Surprise blame their misfortunes on Midshipman Hollom, branding him with which biblical name?

Jonah is the crew's word for a man who carries a curse, and Hollom seems to be on hand wherever things go wrong. He ends by throwing himself overboard.

Which actor, the hobbit Pippin in The Lord of the Rings, plays Captain Aubrey's coxswain in Master and Commander?

Billy Boyd, a Scottish actor and musician, plays the coxswain Bonden, who reports that the rudder has been shot away in the opening attack.

Which Australian director of Dead Poets Society and The Truman Show made Master and Commander?

Peter Weir won the BAFTA for Best Direction for the film, his first feature since 1998. He made only one more, The Way Back, before retiring.

Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany had already shared the screen in which Best Picture winner before Master and Commander?

A Beautiful Mind won four Academy Awards two years earlier and brought Crowe a Best Actor nomination as the mathematician Nash.

Russell Crowe, Captain Aubrey in Master and Commander, had won his Best Actor Oscar for which earlier film?

Gladiator won Crowe the award for its title role. It was the middle one of his three Best Actor nominations in three straight years.

Captain Aubrey lures the Acheron into range by disguising HMS Surprise as which kind of vessel?

Whaler crews were the Acheron's prey in the Pacific, so the privateer closes in on what looks like one more easy prize and is dismasted at close range.

Master and Commander opens with the French privateer Acheron ambushing HMS Surprise off the coast of which country?

Brazil was as far as Aubrey's orders told him to follow the privateer, as he later admits. He pursues her into the Pacific anyway.

Shot in the stomach, Dr Maturin removes the bullet himself in Master and Commander with the help of which object?

A mirror held by the steward Killick lets Maturin operate on himself rather than trust his assistant. The scene is borrowed from an earlier O'Brian novel, HMS Surprise.

After young Lord Blakeney loses an arm in Master and Commander, Captain Aubrey gives him a book about which admiral?

Horatio Nelson had lost a limb in battle too, which is why Aubrey picks the book for the boy, whose right arm Maturin has just had to amputate.

The replica frigate that played HMS Surprise later appeared as HMS Providence in which Pirates of the Caribbean film?

On Stranger Tides cast the frigate as a Royal Navy ship again in 2010. It was the fourth film of a franchise that began the same year as Master and Commander.

Paul Bettany, Dr Maturin in Master and Commander, later joined the Marvel films as which Avenger?

Vision first appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015, after Bettany had spent seven years as the voice of Tony Stark's computer, J.A.R.V.I.S.

Master and Commander inspired Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels, which add which creatures to the Napoleonic Wars?

Dragons fight in the air in Novik's alternate history. She began by writing fan fiction about Aubrey and Maturin after watching the film.

Master and Commander's storm used real waves filmed from a replica of Cook's Endeavour rounding which headland?

Cape Horn is where HMS Surprise loses a mast, and a man with it, in the film's storm. The real footage was digitally combined with scenes shot in a studio tank.

Captain Aubrey escapes the Acheron by night in Master and Commander by cutting which decoy adrift?

A raft with lanterns draws the French guns in the dark while HMS Surprise slips away. The trick comes from the first novel in O'Brian's series, the one that gave the film its title.

At the end of Master and Commander, the Acheron's captain avoids capture by posing as which member of his crew?

The surgeon de Vigny hands over the dead captain's sword, and only later does Maturin learn that the real de Vigny died of fever months before. Aubrey turns about to give chase.

Carpenter's mate Nagle receives which punishment in Master and Commander after shouldering past Midshipman Hollom?

Flogging Nagle is forced on Aubrey because the insult to an officer was made in front of the whole crew. It only hardens the men's feeling against Hollom.

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin novels are most often compared with the work of which earlier novelist?

Jane Austen was one of O'Brian's greatest inspirations. One critic suggested his naval officers could talk with her characters and recognise them.

Which nickname did early success at sea earn Captain Aubrey in the novels behind Master and Commander?

Lucky Jack is brilliant at sea but far less competent on land, where rash remarks and poor financial decisions keep landing him in trouble.

Dr Maturin is hunting which rare bird when he spots the Acheron at anchor in Master and Commander?

The flightless cormorant is the only cormorant that has lost the power to fly. Maturin abandons his specimens to warn Aubrey and never gets his bird.

Master and Commander won two Oscars from ten nominations: Best Sound Editing and which other award?

Cinematography went to the Australian who had first worked with the film's director on Picnic at Hanging Rock almost thirty years earlier.

After Master and Commander, the replica HMS Surprise was bought by the maritime museum of which California city?

San Diego's museum re-registered her under her screen name in honour of the role, and sailed her alongside its 1863 barque Star of India.

Before Master and Commander renamed her HMS Surprise, the replica frigate bought for the film sailed under which name?

Rose was built in Nova Scotia in 1970 as a copy of a British warship of 1757. Fox bought her in 2001 and gave her a reshaped stern and a new figurehead for the part.

Which effects house based in Wellington, New Zealand, built a scale-model HMS Surprise for Master and Commander?

Weta Workshop's miniature was the third HMS Surprise of the shoot, alongside the seagoing replica and a full-scale copy mounted on gimbals in a studio tank.

Seeking faces that looked right for 1805, Master and Commander's director recruited many extras from which country?

Poland supplied many of the background sailors. All of the cast were then given a thorough grounding in the naval life of the period before filming.

Master and Commander's sound designer recorded wind in the rigging by mounting a rope-strung frame on which vehicle?

A pickup truck carried a frame strung with a thousand feet of line and was driven at 70 miles per hour into a strong wind. Barbecue grills helped shape the sound.

Which daring Royal Navy captain's real exploits did Patrick O'Brian borrow for Captain Aubrey's early adventures?

Thomas Cochrane once took a far heavier Spanish frigate with the little sloop Speedy, a feat O'Brian handed to Aubrey in the first novel of the series.

Critics noted that Master and Commander leaves out which secret occupation Dr Maturin holds in the novels?

Spy work for the Admiralty drives many of the books' plots, and the critic Christopher Hitchens complained that the film skips that side of Maturin altogether.

Patrick O'Brian, long presumed by reviewers to be Irish, was in fact born under the surname Russ in which country?

England is where he was christened, in a Buckinghamshire village, the eighth of nine children of a physician of German descent.

Which celebrated cellist plays Bach's first unaccompanied cello suite on the Master and Commander soundtrack?

Yo-Yo Ma's Bach sits on the album beside Mozart and Corelli, in between original cues written by three Australian composers.

Max Pirkis, the young Lord Blakeney of Master and Commander, later played the future emperor Octavian in which series?

Rome was his television debut, and he played Gaius Octavian for two years before moving to the business side of the film industry.

Which actor, later the butler Jarvis in Marvel's Agent Carter, plays Lieutenant Tom Pullings in Master and Commander?

James D'Arcy's Pullings ends the film promoted to captain, with the captured Acheron as his first command.

Which future Frank Gallagher of the British Shameless plays Captain Aubrey's steward Killick in Master and Commander?

David Threlfall played Frank Gallagher for eleven series from 2004, the year after his turn as Preserved Killick, the captain's steward.

Aubrey and Maturin end Master and Commander playing a piece about Madrid's night streets by which Italian composer?

Luigi Boccherini wrote the quintet around 1780 while serving at the Spanish court. It paints a Madrid evening in sound, from church bells to soldiers sounding the midnight curfew.

Iva Davies, who co-wrote Master and Commander's score, came to fame as the singer of which Australian rock band?

Icehouse's song Great Southern Land led to the job: the director saw Davies perform a reworked version at the Sydney Opera House on Millennium Eve.

The effects crew of Master and Commander scanned which preserved US Navy frigate as the model for the Acheron?

USS Constitution, launched in 1797, is the oldest naval vessel afloat. The film's team spent several days making stem-to-stern digital scans of her.

Dr Stephen Maturin is part Irish in Patrick O'Brian's novels; which heritage makes up the other part?

Catalan is one of six languages Maturin speaks fluently, and in a later novel he inherits a fortune from his Catalan godfather.

Patrick O'Brian wrote a biography of which painter, whom he had met in the French village of Collioure?

Pablo Picasso and O'Brian became acquainted in Collioure, where the novelist lived from 1949. O'Brian is buried there beside his wife.

Which Die Hard director was Touchstone's choice for Master and Commander before the project moved to Fox?

John McTiernan, who had made The Hunt for Red October, was lined up in the 1990s. Fox picked up the rights in 1998 and recruited a different director.

In the novel Master and Commander, Captain Aubrey's first command is which small sloop-of-war?

Sophie carries only fourteen guns, yet Aubrey uses her to defeat the Cacafuego, a much larger Spanish xebec-frigate of thirty-two.

Which British composer's string fantasia on a Tudor hymn tune recurs through Master and Commander's soundtrack?

Ralph Vaughan Williams based the piece on a theme by the Tudor composer Tallis and conducted its first performance in Gloucester Cathedral in 1910.

Which future star of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals plays the doomed topman Warley in Master and Commander?

Joseph Morgan's Warley is flung into the sea when the mizzen mast snaps in a storm, and the rigging has to be cut away to save the ship.

Which Australian musician co-wrote Master and Commander's score and coached Russell Crowe for Aubrey's musical scenes?

Richard Tognetti of the Australian Chamber Orchestra gave the lessons, though the playing heard in the finished film was dubbed.