40 Fun Facts About The Family Stone

Which Sex and the City star plays Meredith Morton, the uptight girlfriend in The Family Stone?

Sarah Jessica Parker called Meredith a part unlike any she had played before. She talks with her hands in real life, so the director asked her to keep the character very still.

Which Oscar-winning actress was the first star approached for The Family Stone, signing on as Sybil?

Diane Keaton was the director's dream Sybil, and once she agreed the rest of his wish-list cast followed. Between takes she stayed in the mood by listening to music on old headphones.

In The Family Stone, whose ring does Everett ask Sybil for so that he can propose to Meredith?

His grandmother's ring is the heirloom Sybil at first refuses to hand over, sure that Meredith is the wrong match. By the time she relents, his heart has already wandered elsewhere.

The Family Stone cast took about three weeks of classes in which skill for scenes with Thad?

Sign language came into the script because the director wanted the already anxious Meredith to face a family sharing words she could not follow, so he wrote Thad as deaf.

During which game in The Family Stone does Amy accuse Meredith of pointing at Patrick for a clue?

Charades gives the film its first truly cringe-making scene. With shooting time running short the director planned to cut it, until his editor talked him out of the idea.

Which Mean Girls star plays sardonic Amy Stone, who takes against Meredith, in The Family Stone?

Rachel McAdams had met the director about Amy years before the cameras rolled. By then she was famous, and he assumed she was out of reach until she called to check the part was still hers.

The Stone family home in The Family Stone sits in a snowy small town in which American region?

New England is the setting, though the cast flew east only for the outdoor scenes. Some of the cozy interior scenes were filmed on the other side of the country, in and around Los Angeles.

Which Old School star plays Ben, the one Stone sibling who warms to Meredith, in The Family Stone?

Luke Wilson said he would probably have signed on without reading the script, just for the chance to work with the actress playing his mother. He ad-libbed his way through much of the big dinner scene.

On Christmas morning in The Family Stone, which gift from Meredith leaves the whole family moved?

A framed photograph of a pregnant Sybil is the present. Meredith believes the baby on the way is Everett, but the picture actually shows Sybil expecting Amy.

The Family Stone scene with Ben and his father on the bleachers was filmed during which real weather?

A blizzard blew in that day, snowing far harder than it looks on screen. The cameras kept freezing, and the actor playing the father said he had never been so cold.

Which My Best Friend's Wedding actor plays Everett, who brings Meredith home, in The Family Stone?

Dermot Mulroney was starting to go grey when he met the director, who sheepishly asked whether he would mind having his hair darkened. The actor never let him forget it.

Which Romeo + Juliet star plays Julie Morton, who arrives to back up Meredith, in The Family Stone?

Claire Danes recalled the eight-page dinner scene taking so long to shoot that she got to know the one piece of broccoli she had to eat in take after take.

Which star of the sitcom Coach plays Kelly Stone, father of five, in The Family Stone?

Craig T. Nelson and his on-screen wife won an AARP Movies for Grownups award for Best Grownup Love Story, playing the long-married couple who hold the Stones together.

In The Family Stone, which illness has returned for Sybil, a secret kept from most of the family?

Breast cancer turns the comedy into something sadder: the Stones are quietly sharing a last holiday with Sybil, who is gone by the closing scene set one year on.

At Christmas Eve dinner in The Family Stone, what plan do Thad and Patrick share with the family?

Adopting a child is the news that sets off the film's most painful argument, when Meredith's clumsy questions offend the whole table. By the closing scene the couple have a baby boy.

After a run of embarrassments at the Stone house in The Family Stone, where does Meredith go to stay?

The local inn becomes Meredith's refuge, and from there she begs Julie to come and lend moral support. The call only complicates things, because Everett soon falls for the new arrival.

Which breakfast dish ends up all over Meredith on Christmas morning in The Family Stone?

Strata is a layered bake of bread, eggs and cheese. The mess on set was real food, and three of the actresses really did slip and fall in it.

The Family Stone was pitched just as which comedy about hostile in-laws opened, delaying it for years?

Meet the Parents arrived in 2000 with the same idea of an unwelcome partner, which the director called a gut punch. His own film did not reach cinemas until 2005.

Playing Meredith in The Family Stone earned its star a Best Actress nomination at which ceremony?

The Golden Globes shortlisted her in the musical or comedy category, where she lost to Reese Witherspoon's turn as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line.

The Family Stone's composer and the actor playing Kelly Stone had both just worked on which animated hit?

The Incredibles had the Stones' on-screen dad voicing the superhero father Mr. Incredible to a score by the same composer, one year before both turned up in the family comedy.

Which filmmaker, a former Ralph Lauren creative executive, both wrote and directed The Family Stone?

Thomas Bezucha had directed only one small feature, Big Eden, before this ensemble hit. He trained in fashion design at Parsons before turning to film.

Which composer, later an Oscar winner for Pixar's Up, wrote the score for The Family Stone?

Michael Giacchino was known for the television series Alias and Lost when he scored the Stones' Christmas. His first Academy Award for Best Original Score came a few years afterwards.

What is the profession of Kelly Stone, the gracious father of the family in The Family Stone?

College professor suits the bookish, liberal household he heads. Kelly is the parent who stays polite to Meredith until one remark at the dinner table makes him snap.

Brad Stevenson, Amy's high school boyfriend in The Family Stone, does which job?

Paramedic Brad is invited to Christmas breakfast by a tipsy Meredith during her night out with Ben. One year on, he and Amy are a couple again.

Julie Morton wins over the Stones in The Family Stone after taking a tumble while getting off what?

A bus brings Julie to town, and her fall while getting off it makes the family warm to her straight away. When the holiday ends, Everett sees her off at the bus station.

Which Judy Garland musical does Susannah watch on television in The Family Stone?

Meet Me in St. Louis is on screen as its star sings Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, a song from a story about a family dreading its last holiday in the old house.

Which Peter Jackson film topped the US box office the weekend The Family Stone opened third?

King Kong led that December weekend with a Narnia adventure second, yet the modest family comedy went on to earn more than $92 million worldwide.

The Family Stone's producer came straight from which Best Picture-nominated road-trip comedy?

Sideways had just earned its producer a Best Picture nomination. His first question on joining was who would be the perfect Sybil, and landing her let the rest of the cast fall into place.

The Family Stone's writer-director drew the story from his family's doubts about whose partner?

His sister's partner at the time struck the family as a poor match, so he wrote about bringing home someone who is not instantly likable. The idea took shape in 2000 while he was making his bed.

What does a distraught Meredith do after fleeing Christmas Eve dinner in The Family Stone?

She crashes a car, Everett's, while trying to drive away from the house. Ben then takes her out for drinks, where she finally relaxes and starts to enjoy herself.

Which actress, later Esme Cullen in Twilight, plays eldest daughter Susannah in The Family Stone?

Elizabeth Reaser was auditioning for a television show when she was asked to read cold on tape for the film. The call offering her Susannah came soon afterwards.

Which actor, later Mark Brendanawicz in Parks and Recreation, plays Brad in The Family Stone?

Paul Schneider had just appeared in Elizabethtown when he took the small part of Brad, the hometown ex who is back together with Amy by the closing scene.

Which stage actor, known for the musical Big River, plays Thad Stone in The Family Stone?

Ty Giordano was touring as Huckleberry Finn in that show when the film was being cast in Los Angeles. Thad became his best-known screen role.

Which real town stood in for the Stones' hometown in The Family Stone's street scenes?

Madison, New Jersey doubled for the Stones' hometown. The outside of the family house was filmed in a different state, and some of the interiors in California.

Which crooner sings Let It Snow on The Family Stone soundtrack?

Dean Martin's easygoing version of the winter standard shares the soundtrack with a Johnny Mercer take on Jingle Bells and a handful of 1970s radio hits.

Which 1970s rock band has two songs, Miracles and Count on Me, on The Family Stone soundtrack?

Jefferson Starship's mellow hits sit beside Elvin Bishop's Fooled Around and Fell in Love and Maxine Nightingale's Right Back Where We Started From on the film's 1970s-heavy playlist.

The Family Stone was nominated for Outstanding Film – Wide Release by which advocacy group?

GLAAD shortlisted the film, with Thad and Patrick at its heart, alongside Capote and Rent. The wide-release prize that year went to Brokeback Mountain.

The Family Stone's director next made which comedy with Selena Gomez as a tourist mistaken for an heiress?

Monte Carlo arrived in 2011, six years after the Stones' Christmas. His next film as director after that was the 2020 thriller Let Him Go.

How did The Family Stone's crew make the kitchen table sink slowly during the brothers' fight?

A hydraulic rig let the table collapse by degrees with both actors underneath it. As the director put it, the more chaotic a scene looks, the more it has to be planned.

Meredith Morton, the uptight outsider of The Family Stone, is a business executive based where?

Manhattan polish is part of the joke: her tailored clothes, severe bun and nervous throat-clearing all jar with the Stones' rumpled, bohemian household.