50 Fun Facts About Moonlight Movie

Who wrote and directed Moonlight?

It was his first feature in eight years, after Medicine for Melancholy.

The film is based on an unpublished play with what title?

Tarell Alvin McCraney wrote it in 2003 to cope with his mother's death from AIDS.

Who plays child Chiron, known as Little?

He and Jaden Piner were found through an open casting call in Miami.

In which Miami neighbourhood is the film set?

Both Jenkins and McCraney grew up in its Liberty Square housing project.

Who plays Juan, the drug dealer who becomes a father figure?

It made him the first Muslim to win an acting Oscar.

What is Juan's ethnic background?

He tells the boy that a stranger once nicknamed him Blue.

Who plays Paula, Chiron's mother?

She initially refused to play a crack addict, then shot all her scenes in three days.

Who plays Teresa, Juan's girlfriend, in her first film role?

She said she had family with similar struggles over drugs and sexual identity.

What does Chiron ask Juan the meaning of at the end of the first chapter?

Juan then admits he sells drugs and that Chiron's mother uses them.

What has happened to Juan by the second chapter?

Teresa now lives alone and gives Chiron money that Paula takes.

What nickname does Kevin give teenage Chiron on the beach?

It becomes the title of the third chapter.

What does the bully Terrel manipulate Kevin into doing?

Chiron refuses to name his attackers.

How does Chiron get his revenge on Terrel?

He's arrested and driven away in a police cruiser while Kevin watches.

Where is adult Chiron living and dealing drugs in the third chapter?

He drives back to Miami to see Kevin.

What does Kevin do for a living as an adult?

He makes Chiron a meal and asks about his life.

Which song does Kevin play on the jukebox?

He says it's the song that made him think of Chiron.

What does Chiron admit to Kevin at the end?

The film ends with Little standing on a beach in the moonlight.

Who plays adult Chiron?

He originally auditioned for Kevin.

Who plays adult Kevin?

He'd acted in McCraney's plays and read the source play a decade earlier.

Who plays teenage Kevin in his feature debut?

He later won an Emmy for When They See Us.

Why did Jenkins keep the three actors playing Chiron apart during filming?

Each filmed in a separate two-week period.

How long was the film's shoot?

One lead did all her scenes in three days and another in five.

What was the film's production budget?

It grossed $65.3 million worldwide.

Which company financed and distributed the film, its first production?

Brad Pitt's Plan B came aboard after Jenkins showed the script at a film festival.

Which earlier role made Jenkins hesitant to cast the actor who plays Juan?

Ali's range and understanding of Juan won him over.

Where did Jenkins write the first draft of the screenplay?

He wrote it in a month-long visit after meeting McCraney through the Borscht arts collective.

How did the play's three parts differ structurally from the film?

In the play, it isn't clear the three characters are the same person until halfway through.

The three chapters were graded to imitate what?

Fuji for chapter one, Agfa for two, a modified Kodak for three.

Which hip-hop remix technique did composer Nicholas Britell apply to his orchestral score?

The Chopstars released a chopped and screwed version of the soundtrack itself.

Which festival gave the film its world premiere?

It then played Toronto, New York and London.

Which editor became the first Black woman nominated for the editing Oscar?

She cut the third chapter, including the diner scene.

How many Oscars did Moonlight win?

Best Picture, Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay, from eight nominations.

Which film was mistakenly announced as Best Picture before Moonlight?

Its producer Jordan Horowitz announced the error and held up the card as proof.

Which two presenters were handed the wrong envelope?

They were marking the 50th anniversary of Bonnie and Clyde.

Which award's envelope had the presenters actually been given?

It named Emma Stone, hence Beatty's confused pause.

Which accounting firm was responsible for the envelopes?

It keeps two sets of envelopes on opposite sides of the stage.

Who hosted the 2017 Oscars?

It was his first time hosting.

How many nominations did La La Land receive that year, tying a record?

All About Eve and Titanic share the record.

Which film later gave Ali a second Supporting Actor Oscar in the same category?

That made him the first Black actor to win two Oscars in the same category.

What Metacritic score does the film hold, the highest of any 2016 release?

Rotten Tomatoes has it at 98% from over 400 reviews.

Who plays Chiron as a teenager in the film's middle chapter?

Each of the three Chirons filmed in a separate two-week block. Piner played the young Kevin, cast alongside Alex Hibbert at an open call in Miami.

Which Golden Globe did Moonlight win from its six nominations?

Its six nominations were the second most of any film that year. Ali, Harris, Jenkins and composer Nicholas Britell all went home empty-handed.

Mahershala Ali's win for Moonlight made him the first what to take an acting Oscar?

The same ceremony saw Joi McMillon become the first Black woman nominated for film editing, for cutting the third act with Nat Sanders.

What was Barry Jenkins's only previous feature, released in 2008?

Every screenplay he wrote in the eight years between went unproduced, until producer Adele Romanski pushed him to make a second film in 2013.

Tarell Alvin McCraney wrote the source play in 2003 to cope with what?

The piece sat on a shelf for about a decade before Jenkins, who grew up in the same Liberty Square housing project, found it through Miami's Borscht collective.

Producers Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner came aboard from which production company?

Jenkins showed them the script at Telluride in 2013, three years before the finished film premiered at the same festival.

Roughly how much did Moonlight gross worldwide?

It opened in just four theatres, averaging over $100,000 per screen, and A24 pushed it out to 1,564 screens after the Oscars.

At release, only which film had won Best Picture with a smaller domestic gross than Moonlight?

It was also billed as the first LGBTQ-themed mass-marketed feature with an all-Black cast, and the first LGBTQ film to take Best Picture.

Naomie Harris shot all her scenes as Paula, without rehearsals, in how many days?

She had vowed never to play a crack addict until she read the script. André Holland wrapped his part in five days.

Cinematographer James Laxton shot the film in CinemaScope on which digital camera?

The camera was chosen for how it rendered skin tones; colourist Alex Bickel then pushed contrast and saturation to avoid a 'documentary look'.