40 Fun Facts About The Insider

Which actor plays crusading 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman in The Insider?

Al Pacino plays the producer, and the real Lowell Bergman went on to co-write a series on worker safety that won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Which actor earned his first Oscar nomination as whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider?

Russell Crowe won Best Actor from the National Society of Film Critics for the part, and Premiere later ranked it among the 100 greatest performances ever filmed.

After a death threat, what does Jeffrey Wigand find in his mailbox in The Insider?

A bullet in the mailbox comes from the real case, in which an FBI agent visited the Wigand home over a death threat and a bullet placed there the night before.

Michael Gambon, tobacco boss Thomas Sandefur in The Insider, later played which Harry Potter character?

Albus Dumbledore became his role from 2004, when he replaced Richard Harris, who had died two years earlier.

Which Kentucky-based tobacco company fires Jeffrey Wigand before the events of The Insider?

Brown & Williamson, the maker of Kool menthols, disappeared as a name in 2004 when its US business merged with R. J. Reynolds.

In testimony central to The Insider, seven tobacco bosses told Congress under oath they believed what?

Nicotine is not addictive, each said in turn, and the real Wigand recalled being furious as he watched his former boss repeat it on television.

The Insider was nominated for Best Picture at the 2000 Oscars but lost to which film?

American Beauty won five Oscars that night, while The Insider went home empty-handed despite seven nominations.

Which state's lawsuit against Big Tobacco brings Jeffrey Wigand to court in The Insider?

Mississippi's real attorney general, Mike Moore, plays himself, and the deposition scene was filmed in the very courtroom where the testimony was given.

Which director, also known for Collateral and The Last of the Mohicans, made The Insider?

Michael Mann was nominated three times over at the Oscars for it: as director, as co-writer and as producer.

The Insider is based on Marie Brenner's 1996 article about Jeffrey Wigand in which magazine?

Vanity Fair ran the piece, titled The Man Who Knew Too Much, in its May 1996 issue, three months after the Wigand interview finally aired.

Which actor won several critics' awards as 60 Minutes star Mike Wallace in The Insider?

Christopher Plummer won supporting-actor prizes from critics' groups but no Oscar nomination, and the real Mike Wallace disliked how the film portrayed him.

In The Insider, which newspaper runs a front-page story and an editorial attacking CBS?

The New York Times is tipped off by Lowell Bergman himself, while the film's Wall Street Journal plays a different part, dismissing the smear dossier on Wigand as character assassination.

The Insider's Jeffrey Wigand actor won the Best Actor Oscar a year later for which film?

Gladiator brought him wider stardom and the Oscar, one year after The Insider had earned his first nomination.

The Insider's director and its Lowell Bergman actor had teamed up four years earlier on which crime film?

Heat also starred Diane Venora, who returns in The Insider as Liane Wigand.

How does Lowell Bergman's career at 60 Minutes end in the final scene of The Insider?

He resigns, telling Mike Wallace that the program's credibility and integrity have been permanently tarnished by the affair.

In The Insider, breaking what kind of contract would cost Jeffrey Wigand his severance pay and medical coverage?

A confidentiality agreement was tightened after he was fired, and it is why he first tells Bergman he can discuss nothing about his old job.

Before he was fired, Jeffrey Wigand of The Insider ran which department of his tobacco company?

Research and development was his department from 1989, when he was hired to work on a less harmful cigarette.

What does Jeffrey Wigand discover when he comes home after testifying in court in The Insider?

His wife has left, taking the children with her; the film names her Liane, though Wigand's real spouse in those years was called Lucretia.

Eric Roth, who co-wrote The Insider, had already won a screenwriting Oscar for which Tom Hanks film?

Forrest Gump won him the adapted screenplay Oscar, and he became known for typing his scripts in an obsolete MS-DOS program.

In The Insider, CBS bosses are accused of protecting the network's pending sale to which company?

Westinghouse was closing a deal for CBS, and the film has Bergman point out that the executives blocking the story stood to grow rich from the sale.

In The Insider, CBS lawyers fear that airing the Wigand interview invites a lawsuit on which ground?

Tortious interference means persuading someone to break a contract, and the obscure phrase turned up in hundreds of news stories after CBS shelved the segment.

The Insider opens with a 60 Minutes interview with a sheikh tied to which militant group?

Hezbollah is the group the film links to Sheikh Fadlallah, a Lebanese cleric the press often called its spiritual mentor, a label other accounts dispute.

After tobacco, the real Jeffrey Wigand of The Insider taught high school science and which language?

Japanese was on his timetable at a Kentucky magnet school, and in 1996 he was one of 51 teachers honored nationwide with a Sallie Mae First Class Teacher award.

Jeffrey Wigand's family home in The Insider is in which Kentucky city?

Louisville was where the crew began shooting, using the real suburban neighborhoods where Wigand had lived and the school where he went on to work.

On 60 Minutes, The Insider's Jeffrey Wigand said his old employer treated its tobacco with which chemical?

Ammonia, he said, was added to the tobacco blend to boost the effect of nicotine, so each cigarette gave the smoker a stronger kick.

After a death threat in The Insider, hostile FBI agents take which of Jeffrey Wigand's belongings?

His computer is confiscated by agents who treat him more like a suspect than a victim, and a furious Wigand responds by demanding his interview.

Which director named The Insider among the 20 best films released since he began directing in 1992?

Quentin Tarantino put it on his top 20, and Newsweek's critic wrote that its maker could probably turn a film about needlepoint into something riveting.

Disney hoped The Insider would match the success of which earlier film about investigative reporters?

All the President's Men was the model, and Roger Ebert wrote that The Insider had the greater impact on him of the two.

Which country stood in for Lebanon when the opening interview scenes of The Insider were filmed?

Israel doubled for Lebanon at the very end of a shoot that had also taken in Kentucky, the Bahamas and the Gulf Coast.

The Insider shows Lowell Bergman in snowy Montana, where he is tracking a story about which fugitive?

The Unabomber story was shot at Big Bear Lake in July, with 15 tons of artificial snow spread to pass for a Montana winter.

In The Insider, Philip Baker Hall plays which real 60 Minutes figure, the show's creator?

Don Hewitt launched the program in 1968, and its handling of the Wigand story has been called a dark, sorry period in an otherwise virtuous run.

Which actress plays Helen Caperelli, the CBS lawyer who warns against the interview in The Insider?

Gina Gershon's lawyer echoes CBS's real general counsel, Ellen Kaden, who made close to $5 million when the network was sold.

The real Jeffrey Wigand asked the makers of The Insider to change whose names in the film?

His daughters' names were changed at his request, and he also asked that the film not make smoking look glamorous.

The Insider's real Lowell Bergman later founded an investigative reporting program at which university?

UC Berkeley's journalism school was his base for 28 years, and he also became a producer and correspondent for the PBS series Frontline.

The Insider was made under which Disney label, created for films with more adult themes?

Touchstone Pictures was set up in 1984 so Disney could release more mature films without putting the family name on them.

Which real lawyer read for the part of himself in The Insider but lost it to a professional actor?

Richard Scruggs auditioned opposite the film's star and was told a professional would play him, so he settled for a spot as a courtroom extra.

Jack Palladino, who appears as himself in The Insider, worked in which profession?

Private investigator Palladino and his staff of seven were hired to disprove the charges in the dossier compiled against the real Wigand.

Lisa Gerrard, who co-wrote the haunting score of The Insider, is a founding member of which band?

Dead Can Dance formed in Melbourne in 1981, and the score Gerrard wrote with Pieter Bourke earned a Golden Globe nomination.

The real Jeffrey Wigand of The Insider had his final clash with his boss over which tobacco flavoring?

Coumarin is chemically close to a compound found in rat poison, and Wigand wanted it removed after a report tied it to tumors in rats and mice.

Which Kentucky hotel that inspired a setting in The Great Gatsby was a key location for The Insider?

The Seelbach, opened in 1905, was a haunt of the young F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was once thrown out after a night of bourbon and cigars.