40 Fun Facts About Three Kings (1999 Film)

Which actor stars as Major Archie Gates, the career officer who leads the gold heist in Three Kings?

George Clooney won the part only after lobbying hard: he wrote the director a self-mocking letter signed as a mere TV actor and turned up at his New York apartment.

The gold hunted in Three Kings had been plundered by Iraqi troops from which country?

Kuwait gets its bullion back in the film's epilogue, though officials there claim a small amount is still missing.

Which US president invited the makers of Three Kings to a White House screening of the war film?

Bill Clinton had the film shown at the White House two weeks after it opened, and its director recalled him calling it useful for understanding the intervention in Iraq.

Studio executives pushed to cut a scene from Three Kings in which what animal explodes?

A cow that explodes on screen was one of the violent moments the studio wanted gone, but the film's star helped persuade executives to keep it.

Three Kings is remembered for a startling close-up that follows a bullet travelling where?

Inside a human body, the shot shows a bullet piercing organs as Archie Gates describes sepsis; the director built it from an emergency-room doctor friend's account of what a bullet really does.

The star of Three Kings was still shooting which hit TV series three days a week during filming?

ER kept the film's star in Los Angeles three days a week, so he worked on the war movie the other four and was exhausted through the shoot.

In Three Kings, the soldiers dress up luxury cars as whose motorcade to scare off a bunker's guards?

Saddam Hussein's entourage is faked so convincingly that the bunker's defenders flee, letting the Americans free the captured Troy Barlow.

Which rapper turned actor plays Chief Elgin, the soldier from Detroit, in the war film Three Kings?

Ice Cube made his acting debut in Boyz n the Hood, eight years before he played the devout staff sergeant.

The part of Archie Gates in Three Kings was first planned for which older star before a rewrite?

Clint Eastwood was the first idea for the weary officer, but the director rewrote the character as a younger man and the search for a lead began again.

The star and the director of Three Kings came to blows on set in a row over the treatment of whom?

An extra was thrown to the ground by the director during the finale shoot, as the star saw it, and their shouting match turned into a physical fight.

Which actor plays Troy Barlow, the new father and reservist taken prisoner in Three Kings?

Mark Wahlberg, once the rapper Marky Mark, had broken through as an actor two years earlier in Boogie Nights.

Which filmmaker made Three Kings years before Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle?

David O. Russell had made only two small comedies, Spanking the Monkey and Flirting with Disaster, before a studio trusted him with a war film.

In Three Kings, the soldiers try to escort Iraqi rebels to safety across which country's border?

Iran is the rebels' only way out, and the Americans are arrested at the crossing before a deal finally lets the families through.

What do American soldiers find hidden on a captured Iraqi officer early in Three Kings?

A treasure map marking bunkers full of stolen gold turns up during a search of the prisoner, and it is Archie Gates who works out what it shows.

Held in a bunker in Three Kings, what does Troy Barlow use to reach his wife back home?

A cell phone from a room full of plundered handsets lets him call home, and he tells his wife to report his location to his Army Reserve unit.

Which famous American critic gave Three Kings a full four stars and ranked it third-best of 1999?

Roger Ebert praised the way the film crashes action into comedy, and he put only two movies ahead of it on his list for the year.

The director of Three Kings toned down the gunfire to avoid the sound of which action star's films?

Bruce Willis was the name the director used for the booming style he wanted to avoid, and for the same reason each explosion was filmed by a single camera.

Two leads of Three Kings reunited a year later as doomed fishermen in which disaster film?

The Perfect Storm put the two actors aboard the Andrea Gail, a real swordfishing boat lost with all hands in 1991, the same year the war film is set.

The desert around Casa Grande in which US state stood in for Iraq during the Three Kings shoot?

Arizona hosted the shoot, which the studio trimmed to 68 days after the director had asked for 80.

Fleeing a tear-gas attack in Three Kings, the four soldiers drive straight into what hazard?

A minefield scatters the group, and in the confusion Troy Barlow is captured while rebels pull the other three to safety underground.

Which music video director took his first major film role as Private Conrad Vig in Three Kings?

Spike Jonze had the part written for him, and he rehearsed the Southern accent long-distance while directing his own first feature, Being John Malkovich.

Which Saturday Night Live alumna plays hard-nosed TV reporter Adriana Cruz in Three Kings?

Nora Dunn plays the cable correspondent whose reporting ends up clearing the surviving soldiers of the charges against them.

Unlike the reservists he recruits in Three Kings, Archie Gates serves in which elite Army branch?

Special Forces is where the major has spent his career, and he is close to retirement and disillusioned when the gold tempts him.

According to the epilogue of Three Kings, what job does Archie Gates take after leaving the Army?

Hollywood military adviser is his new line of work, consulting on action films, and Chief Elgin quits his own job to join him.

In the epilogue of Three Kings, Troy Barlow goes home to his family to run what kind of business?

A carpet store is the quiet ending Troy Barlow gets, after an honorable discharge and a wound that punctured his lung.

What civilian job does Staff Sergeant Chief Elgin hold back home in Detroit in Three Kings?

Baggage handler at an airport is the life he goes back to, until the epilogue has him quit to work alongside Archie Gates.

How does the Iraqi interrogator Captain Saïd torture the captured Troy Barlow in Three Kings?

Electric shocks are his method, yet when the bunker falls the Americans spare the interrogator's life.

How does Archie Gates persuade US officers to let the rebels cross the border in Three Kings?

He surrenders the loot, revealing where the gold is buried, though the commanding officer still insists the three face a court-martial.

Many of the Iraqi roles in Three Kings went to non-actors living in America who were what?

Refugees who had fled Iraq filled many parts, and the director said two of the cast had personally defaced 300 murals of the country's dictator.

Which major studio bought the original script and distributed Three Kings in the United States?

Warner Bros. had not backed an auteur film in years and worried about the politics, so it pressed for a smaller budget and cut the shooting schedule.

Which writer, later an Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave, received the story credit on Three Kings?

John Ridley wrote the first script in seven days as a test of how fast he could sell one, then said he was shut out of the film that grew from it.

The heist script that became Three Kings was sold in under three weeks under which original title?

Spoils of War caught the director's eye as a one-line pitch on a studio list of purchased scripts, and he says he never read the script itself.

Which actor agreed to play Archie Gates in Three Kings before leaving for a Martin Scorsese film?

Nicolas Cage was the director's pick, and only when he dropped out to make Bringing Out the Dead did the part go to the persistent TV star who wanted it.

Which composer, a regular collaborator of the Coen brothers, wrote the score for Three Kings?

Carter Burwell has scored almost every Coen brothers film, and his own notes point out a cue in this one that cuts between his music and other composers' work.

Which Ashley Judd thriller kept Three Kings off the top of the US box office on its opening weekend?

Double Jeopardy was in its second weekend when it held off the war film, which exit polls showed was drawing an older crowd than expected.

Which 1970 comedy shares the premise of Three Kings, with soldiers stealing gold in World War II?

Kelly's Heroes sends disillusioned American soldiers behind enemy lines in 1944 on an unsanctioned mission to steal 14,000 bars from a bank.

The director of Three Kings reunited with the actor who played Troy Barlow for which boxing drama?

The Fighter brought the director the first Oscar nomination of his career, with the same actor starring as real-life boxer Micky Ward.

Cliff Curtis, who plays the Iraqi rebel Amir Abdullah in Three Kings, comes from which country?

New Zealand is home for the actor, who was born in Rotorua to a family of Maori descent and broke through in Once Were Warriors.

The bunkers holding the stolen gold in Three Kings lie near which Iraqi holy city?

Karbala was among the southern cities that rose against the regime in 1991, the revolt the gold hunters stumble into.

The rebels the American soldiers end up protecting in Three Kings belong to which branch of Islam?

Shia Iraqis in the south rose against the regime after the ceasefire, and the film's rebels are among those being hunted down for it.