50 Fun Facts About The Aviator

Who plays Howard Hughes in The Aviator?

He won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama, his first, and earned an Oscar nomination.

Who directed the film?

It was his second film with DiCaprio after Gangs of New York; he later admitted he 'grossly misjudged the budget'.

Cate Blanchett plays which screen legend?

Her performance brought her a first Academy Award and made history in the process.

In which year was The Aviator released?

It opened in 40 cinemas a week before Christmas and went wide on Christmas Day.

Which disorder drives Hughes's decline in the film?

DiCaprio had a mild version of it as a child, and it returned while he was making the film.

What is the nickname of Hughes's giant wooden flying boat?

It was actually built mostly of birch, and it flew exactly once, for a short hop in 1947.

Which Academy Award did Cate Blanchett win for the film?

She lent the statuette to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

Kate Beckinsale plays which actress?

The Telegraph called her miscast; in the film it is Gardner who grooms Hughes for his Senate hearing.

Which aviation film is Hughes directing when the story begins in 1927?

Unsatisfied even after a hit premiere, he orders it recut.

Which airline does Hughes buy a majority stake in?

He later mortgages its assets to keep building the Hercules, against his business manager's advice.

Which airline does Hughes's rival Trippe run in the film?

The Community Airline Bill would have handed it a monopoly on international routes.

In the film, Hepburn leaves Hughes for which actor?

Hughes still bribes a reporter to keep her affair with the married Tracy out of the papers.

Which phrase does Hughes compulsively repeat in the final scene?

He has just been discussing a new jetliner for TWA when the panic attack hits.

Which earlier film had Scorsese made with DiCaprio before The Aviator?

The Departed, Shutter Island and The Wolf of Wall Street followed.

On which holiday did the film get its wide US release?

It opened fourth that weekend and climbed to third the next.

Alec Baldwin plays which airline chairman?

The Pan Am boss who schemes with a senator to force Hughes to sell his airline.

Gwen Stefani appears as which 1930s star?

Rolling Stone singled out her cameo for criticism; Harlow was the star of Hughes's Hell's Angels.

Jude Law plays which swashbuckling actor?

A brief turn in a nightclub scene that sets up Hughes's germ phobia.

Alan Alda plays which senator who investigates Hughes?

The role earned Alda his only Academy Award nomination.

John C. Reilly plays which member of Hughes's circle?

The business manager who tells Hughes he must choose between the airline and the flying boat.

Who wrote the screenplay?

His script was originally developed at Disney in 1999 with Michael Mann set to direct.

Where does Hughes crash the XF-11 in the film?

The real 1946 crash followed a propeller failure he failed to react to correctly; the houses were rebuilt at 1:4 scale for the film.

The opening scene is set in which city in 1913?

His mother bathes him and teaches him to spell 'quarantine' during a cholera scare.

Which film's release prompts Hughes to remake his war epic with sound?

He converts the silent picture to a talkie, at enormous expense.

How many Academy Award nominations did The Aviator receive?

The most of any film that year; Million Dollar Baby took Best Picture.

In which city was the film mainly shot?

The model aircraft, however, were flown at Long Beach and other California sites.

In which harbour did Hughes fly the H-4 Hercules in 1947?

Historians note it never escaped ground effect; the film recreated the moment in the same port.

In the film, where does Hughes crash-land the H-1 Racer after its speed record?

A full-scale replica built for the film crashed before shooting, so a model had to stand in.

In 1938 the film shows Hughes circling the globe in how many days?

It set a new world record and made him a national hero before the airline wars began.

How long does Hughes hide in his 'germ-free zone' before the Senate hearing?

The real Hughes hid his compulsions because there was then no psychiatric name for them.

How many Oscars did the film win?

Cinematography, editing, costumes, art direction and Blanchett; Scorsese lost Best Director to Clint Eastwood.

Roughly what did The Aviator gross worldwide?

Against a $110 million budget, a moderate success rather than a blockbuster.

The real H-4 Hercules was moved in 1993 to a museum in which US state?

The Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville took it in and also holds the film's motion-control miniatures.

Who edited the film and shares the DVD commentary with Scorsese?

She won the Oscar for Best Film Editing, her second of three with Scorsese.

Blanchett's win made her the first to win an Academy Award for portraying what?

Hepburn won four Best Actress Oscars herself, still the record.

In the first 52 minutes, the film's palette is limited to which two colours?

Green objects appear blue, mimicking the two-colour film processes of the 1920s; later scenes imitate three-strip Technicolor.

Which director was first hired in 1999 to direct DiCaprio as Hughes?

The project stalled after The Insider underperformed; Mann stayed on as a producer.

Which triple-tailed Lockheed airliner, developed for TWA, appears in the film?

A restored Super Constellation in TWA livery was flown in from Kansas City for filming.

Where is the original H-1 Racer displayed?

It set a 352 mph speed record in 1935 and a transcontinental record two years later.

Criticism of the CGI in which 2001 film pushed Scorsese to use scale models?

The radio-controlled models turned out to be cheaper and faster than digital effects.

Warren Beatty's long-gestating Hughes film was finally released in 2016 as what?

He had been working on it since the early 1970s, at one point offering it to Steven Spielberg.

Which actress turned down a role after learning Harvey Weinstein was involved?

Miramax, Weinstein's company, co-distributed the film in the US with Warner Bros.

Which colour process, owned by Hughes, did the early scenes emulate?

The digital recreation of the two extinct colour processes was done by Legend Films.

Which company built the flyable scale models of the H-4 Hercules and XF-11?

The drone specialists had three months to build three models, including a 450 lb H-1 Racer.

Who plays Faith Domergue, the teenage starlet Hughes takes up with?

In the film she is 15 when Hughes meets her, shortly after Hepburn leaves.

Who plays Professor Fitz, Hughes's meteorologist?

Hughes hires him to find clouds for the aerial shots in Hell's Angels.

Christopher Nolan's shelved Hughes film would reportedly have starred whom?

Nolan's script followed the darker final years and was shelved again when Beatty's film went ahead.

The filmmakers worked with OCD specialist Jeffrey Schwartz from which university?

DiCaprio also met OCD sufferers, which inspired the scene of him scrubbing his hand until it bleeds.

How many BAFTA nominations did The Aviator receive?

It won four, including Best Film, the top prize it missed at the Oscars.

What speed record did the H-1 Racer set in 1935?

Two years later it crossed the US in seven hours and 28 minutes.