40 Fun Facts About Pay it Forward

Which city did the makers of Pay It Forward choose as the setting after first placing the story in Tucson?

Las Vegas was picked so the film could show working life away from the Strip, where Trevor's mother holds down two jobs.

Which young star of The Sixth Sense plays Trevor McKinney, the boy behind the plan in Pay It Forward?

Haley Joel Osment was announced for the part in November 1999, months after his Oscar-nominated breakthrough, and later won a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for it.

Under Trevor McKinney's rule in Pay It Forward, how many new people must each person helped do a favor for?

Three is the heart of Trevor's plan: because every favor is repaid to three other people instead of the giver, kindness spreads geometrically rather than one person at a time.

Which Founding Father explained pay it forward in a 1784 letter, asking that his loan be passed on, never repaid?

Benjamin Franklin called it a trick for doing a great deal of good with a little money: the borrower was to lend the same sum to the next honest person in trouble.

At which coffee chain's Florida drive-through did 378 customers in a row pay it forward by buying the next order?

Starbucks baristas in St. Petersburg kept a tally for eleven hours, until customer 379 declined to join in and paid only for her own $2.25 drink.

Which rock frontman plays Ricky, the abusive and long-absent dad of Trevor McKinney, in Pay It Forward?

Jon Bon Jovi had been acting since the 1990s and took this supporting part as the ex-husband Arlene must finally learn to turn away.

What happened to the author of Pay It Forward that led two strangers to help her and inspired the novel?

Her car caught fire in a rough neighborhood, and the two men who came to her aid were gone before she could thank them, so the kindness could only be passed on.

Which actor, fresh from an Oscar for American Beauty, plays the scarred teacher Eugene Simonet in Pay It Forward?

Kevin Spacey plays him as a recluse who clings to routine, a man whose burn scars were inflicted by his own father.

Which Mad About You star plays Arlene McKinney, the mother working two jobs, in Pay It Forward?

Helen Hunt had four films out in 2000, with Pay It Forward arriving the same month as Dr. T & the Women and two months ahead of Cast Away.

Which school subject does Eugene Simonet teach when he sets the world-changing assignment in Pay It Forward?

Social studies is the class where, on the first day of the school year, he chalks up a challenge to think of an idea that could change the world and then act on it.

Where does Trevor McKinney let the homeless Jerry sleep as his first favor in Pay It Forward?

The garage is where Arlene discovers the stranger her son has taken in, and Jerry repays the kindness by repairing her car.

Which actor, who went on to play Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, plays the homeless Jerry in Pay It Forward?

Jim Caviezel, billed as James, plays an addict whose relapse convinces Trevor the plan has failed, until Jerry later talks a stranger out of ending her life.

How is Trevor McKinney fatally wounded while defending his bullied friend Adam near the end of Pay It Forward?

He is stabbed when one bully pulls a knife and another shoves Trevor onto it, and the boy later dies in hospital.

What do thousands of strangers hold outside the McKinney home in the final scene of Pay It Forward?

A vigil forms after the news reports Trevor's death, as people touched by the movement, including pupils from his school, arrive at the house to honor him.

Which make of brand-new car does a stranger hand to reporter Chris Chandler at the start of Pay It Forward?

Jaguar is the make a lawyer gives away after a fleeing criminal wrecks the reporter's own car, a gift so strange that Chris sets out to learn the reason.

What does Trevor McKinney trick his mother and his teacher into sharing as a favor in Pay It Forward?

A dinner date is his second favor, set up on the theory that two lonely adults would be happier together, though the evening seems to fail at first.

Which second job does Arlene McKinney work besides being a casino change attendant in Pay It Forward?

Cocktail waitress is one of two jobs she juggles while trying to stay sober, which leaves her latchkey son plenty of hours alone to hatch his plan.

From which city does reporter Chris Chandler trace the chain of favors back to Trevor McKinney in Pay It Forward?

Los Angeles is where the trail begins, and the film opens there with one of the later favors before working backward to a classroom project.

What is wrong with the girl a gang member forces hospital staff to treat in Pay It Forward?

An asthma attack had left her ignored in the emergency room until he demanded oxygen for her, and her grateful father went on to give away his new car.

Where is the woman about to jump from when Jerry saves her life to repay Trevor in Pay It Forward?

A bridge is where Jerry, back on drugs and sure he has let the boy down, finally passes the favor on by persuading a stranger to step back.

Which Pacific Northwest city hosted the extra filming for Jerry's rescue scene in Pay It Forward?

Portland stood in for that one sequence only; the rest was shot on location in Nevada and on studio stages in California between February and April 2000.

Which Deep Impact director made Pay It Forward and gave her real-life husband a small part in it?

Mimi Leder was one of the first women to graduate from the AFI Conservatory, and her husband Gary Werntz appears in the film as Mr. Thorsen.

Which composer of the American Beauty and Shawshank Redemption scores wrote the music for Pay It Forward?

Thomas Newman gave the cues titles as odd as Cosmic Aristotle and Velocity Organ, and the score album reached shops eleven days after the film opened.

Which Mrs. Doubtfire screenwriter adapted Pay It Forward and thought of opening the story with the reporter?

Leslie Dixon was so stuck she considered handing back her fee; her backward-tracing fix pleased the novelist so much that the unpublished book was restructured to match.

Which Jane Siberry song, recorded with k.d. lang, plays over the final scene of Pay It Forward?

Calling All Angels was first heard in the 1991 Wim Wenders film Until the End of the World, nine years before it closed Trevor's story.

Which star of the 1970s series Police Woman plays Grace, the homeless mother of Arlene, in Pay It Forward?

Angie Dickinson's Grace neglected her daughter for years, and Arlene pays a favor forward by forgiving her, a link in the chain that finally reaches the reporter.

Which former Saturday Night Live cast member plays the reporter Chris Chandler in Pay It Forward?

Jay Mohr, known then as the conniving rival agent in Jerry Maguire, plays the journalist whose search gives the film its structure.

Which Ben Stiller comedy held the top box-office spot the weekend Pay It Forward opened in fourth place?

Meet the Parents was in its third week at number one, and both Remember the Titans and Bedazzled also outsold the new drama on its opening weekend.

Which California novelist wrote the 1999 book Pay It Forward and helped found a foundation named after it?

Catherine Ryan Hyde collected well over a hundred rejections before her first short story sold, and her breakthrough novel went on to be translated into twenty languages.

In the novel Pay It Forward, the teacher's scars are wounds from which conflict, a detail the film changed?

The Vietnam War cost the book's teacher half his face, while the film swapped the battlefield for a violent childhood home.

Which president invites Trevor McKinney to the capital to be honored in the novel Pay It Forward?

Bill Clinton was in office when the book came out; the film drops the White House trip, and the novelist herself later shared a stage with him.

What is the name of the teacher in the novel Pay It Forward, renamed Eugene Simonet for the film?

Reuben St. Clair is a Black veteran in the book, so casting a white actor in the film removed the story's interracial romance.

In which California town, near the author's own home, is the novel Pay It Forward set?

Atascadero lies inland on the Central Coast, and it gave the book a small-town feel that the film traded for casinos and desert highways.

In the novel Pay It Forward, which job earns Trevor McKinney the money he gives the homeless Jerry?

A paper route pays for Jerry's fresh start in the book, and it also leads Trevor to an elderly customer whose garden he tends for free as another favor.

Which science fiction author helped popularize the phrase pay it forward in his 1951 novel Between Planets?

Robert Heinlein has a banker hand his hungry young hero money for a meal and wave away repayment, telling him to pass the kindness to someone else in need.

Which essayist anticipated pay it forward in his 1841 essay Compensation, urging that benefits be handed on?

Ralph Waldo Emerson reasoned that we can seldom repay the people who help us, so the debt has to be settled with somebody else, deed for deed.

Which Marvel hero gives Bruce Banner his last five dollars in a 1980 pay it forward comic in the Chicago Tribune?

Spider-Man, as Peter Parker, hands over the money because a stranger once did the same for him, and the Hulk later gives it to that very stranger after a mugging.

In which country did Blake Beattie found International Pay It Forward Day, held each April 28?

Australia is where the day began in 2007, and it won the public backing of the novelist whose book gave the movement its name.

Which author may have coined the phrase pay it forward in her 1916 book In the Garden of Delight?

Lily Hardy Hammond wrote that love cannot be returned to the elders who gave it, only handed on, just as her great-aunt had done before her.

Which Ohio State football coach, a winner of five national titles, urged his listeners to pay it forward?

Woody Hayes liked to say that you can seldom return a kindness to the giver but can always pass it ahead, a thought he adapted from a nineteenth-century essay.