40 Fun Facts About What's Eating Gilbert Grape

Which actor plays the title role in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Johnny Depp read the novel soon after it was published and went back to it once he heard a film was being planned.

Which actor earned his first Oscar nomination as Arnie in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Leonardo DiCaprio was 19 at the time and reckoned that roughly half of his performance was improvised.

Which landmark does Arnie keep climbing, to his brother's alarm, in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

The water tower was a real one in the small town of Manor, whose residents are thanked in the film's closing credits.

How do the Grape siblings spare Momma's body a public spectacle in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

They burn the house down after carrying the furniture outside, turning the family home into a funeral pyre for her.

The Swedish director of What's Eating Gilbert Grape made his name filming which pop group's videos?

ABBA had almost every one of their promotional films shot by him between 1974 and 1982, along with their 1977 concert feature.

Which Cape Fear Oscar nominee plays the stranded traveler Becky in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Juliette Lewis shot it in the same busy year as Kalifornia, in which she played the girlfriend of a serial killer.

Why are Becky and her grandmother stuck in Gilbert's town in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Their truck breaks down while towing a trailer in a yearly caravan, so the pair wait in town for a spare part to arrive.

Which TV police drama had made the lead actor of What's Eating Gilbert Grape a teen idol?

21 Jump Street starred him from 1987 to 1990, and he grew so tired of teen-idol fame that he went looking for stranger film roles.

Which future Batman star was up for the part of Arnie in What's Eating Gilbert Grape but lost out?

Christian Bale was a teenager best known for Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun when he missed out on the part.

Where does housebound Momma spend her days eating and watching TV in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

On the couch is where she sleeps too, and she only climbs the stairs to her old bed on the last night of her life.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape is set in small-town Iowa, but in which state was it filmed?

Texas hosted the whole shoot from November 1992, with Austin and the small towns around it standing in for the Midwest.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape earned its only Oscar nomination in which category?

Supporting Actor was the category, and the nomination arrived with a matching Golden Globe nod and a National Board of Review win.

Which Oscar winner plays Gilbert's married lover Betty Carver in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Mary Steenburgen had won her Academy Award for Melvin and Howard, and a later generation knows her as the stepmother in Elf.

Which future Oscar nominee for Chicago plays Gilbert's friend Tucker in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

John C. Reilly was four years into his film career, having made his debut in Brian De Palma's Casualties of War.

Which Back to the Future actor plays the undertaker Bobby McBurney in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Crispin Glover, the screen's George McFly, spent the 1990s in eccentric small parts that also took in Wild at Heart and The Doors.

Momma leaves the house for the first time in seven years in What's Eating Gilbert Grape to go where?

The police station is holding Arnie, and she shouts at the sheriff until he lets the boy go without any paperwork.

Where does Gilbert find Arnie shivering after a night out with Becky in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

In the bathtub is where he had been left to finish washing alone, and the long cold night leaves him refusing to bathe at all.

Which brand of trailers crosses town in a yearly caravan in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Airstream trailers open and close the story: the brothers watch the caravan roll in, and a year later they ride away with it.

What kind of struggling family business employs Gilbert in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

A grocery store called Lamson's is where he stacks shelves and runs deliveries while a big new supermarket draws its customers away.

Which milestone for Arnie are his sisters busy planning throughout What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

His 18th birthday is a small miracle to the family: Gilbert says Arnie was not supposed to live past the age of ten.

Which Swedish director of My Life as a Dog made What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Lasse Hallström was making only his second English-language film, after Once Around, and he later directed The Cider House Rules.

Which Iowa-born novelist adapted his own 1991 book into the film What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Peter Hedges launched a film career with the script, and went on to write and direct Pieces of April and Dan in Real Life.

Which first-time actress, spotted on a talk show, plays Momma in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Darlene Cates beat some sixty other women to the part, and the role was expanded once the director learned she could act.

The woman who plays Momma in What's Eating Gilbert Grape was discovered on which daytime talk show?

Sally, hosted by Sally Jessy Raphael, featured her in a 1992 episode about people too heavy to leave home, ending five years of seclusion.

Which star of The Fugitive beat Arnie's actor from What's Eating Gilbert Grape to the Oscar in 1994?

Tommy Lee Jones won for playing the U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard, in a field that also held Ralph Fiennes for Schindler's List.

Which new fast-food restaurant does Tucker dream of working at in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Burger Barn arrives as a prefabricated building hauled into town, and Arnie's excited screams interrupt a funeral as it passes.

Where is Betty's husband, Mr. Carver, found dead in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

In a kiddie pool in his own front yard, and while police call it a drowning, the local undertaker suspects a heart attack came first.

What does Betty's husband try to sell Gilbert at his office in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Insurance is his business, and Gilbert turns up braced for an accusation about the affair, only to be given a sales pitch.

Arnie will not enter which part of the home, where his father died, in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

The basement is where his father hanged himself years earlier, which Tucker forgets when he asks for Arnie's help down there.

Which 2000 Judi Dench film reunited the director and leading man of What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Chocolat earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and was one of several novel adaptations the director made after leaving Sweden.

Which sitcom's final season cast Arnie's actor from What's Eating Gilbert Grape as a homeless teen?

Growing Pains added him as Luke Brower, a boy taken in by the Seaver family, the season before the film went into production.

Which 1993 drama cast Arnie's actor from What's Eating Gilbert Grape as the young Tobias Wolff?

This Boy's Life was his first major film part, and its director recommended him for Arnie, though the Swede in charge first thought him too good-looking.

Which Iowa city gives Gilbert's elder sister a bakery to manage in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Des Moines offers a fresh start a year after their mother's death, and the youngest sister plans to change schools and go too.

Which fictional Iowa town is home to the Grape family in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Endora is so quiet that the yearly passing of a trailer caravan counts as an event worth waiting at the roadside for.

Which machine do police say they will need to remove Momma's body in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

A crane had already been needed to pluck Arnie down from his highest climb, and the thought of a gawking crowd settles Gilbert's mind.

Which cinematographer, famed for his work with Ingmar Bergman, shot What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Sven Nykvist had won Oscars for Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander, and he shot Sleepless in Seattle in the same year.

The widowed Betty Carver leaves for which Missouri city in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

St. Louis is where she moves after her husband's death, bidding Gilbert goodbye before she leaves.

Which US government agency made its first move into film by backing What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Export-Import Bank guarantees covered about three quarters of the foreign partner's stake, and the money was repaid a year early.

Why does Tucker brace the Grape house with new wooden beams in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

The floor sags under Momma after she stamps in anger at the dinner table, and Gilbert sees the boards buckle beneath her.

Which Hugh Grant film earned the screenwriter of What's Eating Gilbert Grape an Oscar nomination?

About a Boy brought him a shared writing nomination with its directors, the brothers Chris and Paul Weitz.