50 Fun Facts About The Grand Budapest Hotel

Which fictional country, home to a famed mountainside resort, is the setting of The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Zubrowka was given its own mock websites during the film's marketing, presenting the invented nation's culture as if it were real.

Which English actor stars as Monsieur Gustave H., the concierge framed for murder in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Ralph Fiennes drew on his own brief stint as a young porter at Brown's Hotel in London to shape the character.

Agatha, the apprentice baker in The Grand Budapest Hotel, has a facial birthmark shaped like which country?

Mexico was the shape Wes Anderson and his costume designer pictured for the mark, alongside a blade of wheat tucked into her hair.

What job does the young refugee Zero take under Monsieur Gustave in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Lobby boy is only the start: Zero rises to concierge himself and ends the story as the hotel's owner.

Which priceless Renaissance portrait does Madame D. leave to Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Boy with Apple was painted specially for the film, and Wes Anderson kept the prop afterwards and says he means to hold on to it for good.

Which actress wore silicone prosthetics to play the elderly dowager Madame D. in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Tilda Swinton was aged by makeup artist Mark Coulier, and the film went on to win the Oscar for makeup and hairstyling.

What does Zero smuggle into prison for Gustave inside Agatha's pastries in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Digging tools hidden in the pastries let Gustave and his cellmates tunnel their way out together before scattering.

Which bakery employs Agatha and makes the famous courtesan au chocolat in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Mendl's was promoted with how-to videos showing fans baking its desserts, some of which ran as TV spots on cooking networks.

Which film beat The Grand Budapest Hotel to Best Picture at the Oscars after both earned nine nominations?

Birdman took Best Picture, yet the two films finished level on four Oscars each, the most of the night.

In which country was Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel filmed, despite the Hungarian capital in its title?

Germany hosted the ten-week shoot in early 2013, and its federal film fund rewarded the production with a tax rebate.

Which actor plays J. G. Jopling, the leather-coated hitman working for Dmitri in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Willem Dafoe wore custom silver knuckle pieces for the part, made by jeweler Waris Ahluwalia, a close friend of Wes Anderson.

What color are the staff uniforms worn by Gustave and Zero in The Grand Budapest Hotel's 1930s heyday?

Purple facecloth from AW Hainsworth replaced the subdued shades that real hospitality uniforms usually wear.

Where is Monsieur Gustave shot dead by soldiers while defending Zero at the end of The Grand Budapest Hotel?

On a train, soldiers try to arrest Zero, and Gustave's attempt to fend them off costs him his life and leaves Zero his fortune.

Which secret fraternity of concierges helps Gustave find a missing witness in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Society of the Crossed Keys contacts locate Serge, the one witness who can clear Gustave, and arrange a meeting with him.

Which Austrian novelist's writings inspired The Grand Budapest Hotel, as its end credits acknowledge?

Stefan Zweig supplied the mood more than the plot: Anderson has said he stole from the novels Beware of Pity and The Post Office Girl.

What kind of vacant building lent its atrium as the main hall of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel?

A department store, long empty, so appealed to Wes Anderson that he considered buying it to save it from demolition.

Which French composer won his first Oscar for the score of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Alexandre Desplat was nominated twice that night, and beat his own score for The Imitation Game to take the prize.

Which actress plays Agatha, the baker who marries Zero, using her native accent in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Saoirse Ronan kept her Irish accent at Wes Anderson's suggestion, after they tried several others and felt it gave Agatha a warm, feisty spirit.

What is found fixed to the back of the prized portrait, clearing Gustave's name in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

A second will, valid only if she was murdered, names Gustave as heir to Madame D.'s entire fortune.

Which actor plays Dmitri, the scheming son of Madame D., in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Adrien Brody's Dmitri greets news of the bequest by demanding Gustave's arrest, and later opens fire inside the hotel itself.

Which actor plays Deputy Vilmos Kovacs, the lawyer handling Madame D.'s estate in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Jeff Goldblum's Kovacs announces the bequest of the portrait to Gustave, and is later murdered by the hitman Jopling.

Which Wes Anderson regular plays M. Ivan, a fellow concierge and friend of Gustave, in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Bill Murray signed on as soon as he was sent the script, extending a run in Wes Anderson's films that began with Rushmore.

Which actor plays Inspector Albert Henckels, the policeman pursuing Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Edward Norton wears a gray astrakhan fur overcoat as Henckels, developed for the film by the fashion house Fendi.

Which newcomer won the part of the teenage Zero after a single taped audition for The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Tony Revolori came through a casting search that ran across six countries, and his older brother Mario was the other finalist.

Which veteran actor plays the elderly Zero, who recounts the story over dinner in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

F. Murray Abraham needed only about a week on set to film every scene of the older Zero telling his tale.

How did the filmmakers create the exterior of the building on its wooded ledge in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

A miniature model about three meters high stood in for the building, and its steep funicular railway needed a separate one of its own.

Which stringed folk instrument forms the musical core of the Oscar-winning score for The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Balalaika players filled a 50-strong ensemble of French and Russian musicians, who needed two translators to record together.

Which Italian fashion house made the leather coat worn by the hitman Jopling in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Prada also built a capsule collection of custom luggage for the film and showed it off in one of its flagship shops.

At which European film festival did The Grand Budapest Hotel have its world premiere and win the Grand Jury Prize?

Berlin handed the film its Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize in February 2014, a month before it reached American theaters.

How does the hitman J. G. Jopling meet his end while menacing Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Pushed off a cliff by Zero, Jopling falls just as Gustave dangles at his mercy, moments after the hitman killed Serge.

The actor who plays the teenage Zero in The Grand Budapest Hotel later played which Spider-Man character?

Flash Thompson, Peter Parker's classmate and tormentor, became his role in three Marvel films, starting with Spider-Man: Homecoming.

What breaks the fall of Agatha and Zero when they drop from a balcony in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

A pastry van parked below catches the pair after their flight from the armed Dmitri leaves them dangling outside the building.

Which actor plays the young Author who hears the aging Zero's life story in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Jude Law's Author meets Zero in 1968 while staying at the faded hotel during a bout of writer's block.

Which star was reported as the early choice for Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel, a claim Wes Anderson denied?

Johnny Depp never played the concierge, though later reports claimed talks had only stopped because of scheduling conflicts.

Which prison holds Gustave until he breaks out with a gang of fellow inmates in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Checkpoint Nineteen was designed to decay in a cool bluish-gray tint, the opposite of the hotel's warm pastels.

What has the building become when Gustave, Zero and Agatha return near the end of The Grand Budapest Hotel?

A military headquarters now fills the hotel, its halls hung with fascist emblems that mirror scenes from a 1935 Nazi propaganda film.

Which Wes Anderson film came out two years before The Grand Budapest Hotel and premiered at Cannes?

Moonrise Kingdom debuted at Cannes in 2012, and most location scouting for the hotel story began right after that premiere.

What drink did graphic designer Annie Atkins dip paper in to age the props for The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Tea did the staining and a blow dryer finished the job, making fresh paper look as if it had spent years in the open air.

Which veteran actress was first cast as Madame D. in The Grand Budapest Hotel before a stage role pulled her away?

Angela Lansbury had already committed to a theater production of Driving Miss Daisy, so the part went to the filmmakers' next choice.

Which border town on the river Neisse was the main filming location for The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Görlitz is a regular on screen: scenes for Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds were shot in its oldest market squares.

Which costume designer won her fourth Oscar for dressing the cast of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Milena Canonero's three earlier wins came for Barry Lyndon, Chariots of Fire and Marie Antoinette.

Which fictional illness kills Agatha and her infant son, as the aged Zero reveals in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Prussian grippe is why Zero keeps the fading hotel at all: he holds on to it in memory of his late wife.

What is the name of Madame D.'s family estate, where her heirs gather in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Schloss Lutz was pieced together from two real houses: Hainewalde Manor for the exterior and Schloss Waldenburg for the rooms.

Which old Hollywood screen format frames the 1930s scenes of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Academy ratio marks the 1930s story, while the 1968 scenes switch to anamorphic widescreen and the modern ones use a third shape.

Which French choux dessert inspired the courtesan au chocolat, the signature sweet of The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Religieuse means nun in French, and the film's pastel-glazed version was devised for the shoot by a local baker.

The Grandhotel Pupp, cited as an inspiration for The Grand Budapest Hotel, stands in which Czech spa town?

Karlovy Vary's grand hotel has screen form of its own: it played the Hotel Splendide in the James Bond film Casino Royale.

The risqué painting Rich Pellegrino made for The Grand Budapest Hotel imitates which Austrian Expressionist?

Egon Schiele's style was the template for the prop, while Klimt's patterns shaped Madame D.'s velvet coat instead.

Which British illustrator shares the story credit with Wes Anderson on The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Hugo Guinness began the story with Anderson in 2006 as an 18-page script about a mutual friend, and shared its screenplay Oscar nomination.

Which English painter spent months on the prized Renaissance-style portrait seen in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Michael Taylor painted his sitter, a London dancer, in a Dorset boarding school that stood empty for the summer holidays.

Which member of Madame D.'s household gives the statement that implicates Gustave in The Grand Budapest Hotel?

Her butler Serge was pressured by Dmitri into framing Gustave, then went into hiding before the arrest.