Cast Away Trivia
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42 free Cast Away trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Cast Away trivia quiz covers Robert Zemeckis's 2000 film scene by scene: the Christmas dinner in Memphis, the pocket watch, the crash, the packages on the beach, the bloody handprint that became Wilson, the ice-skate dentistry, the porta-potty sail, the storm that took Wilson, and the crossroads in Texas. There are questions on Chuck Noland, Kelly Frears, Dr. Lovett, the pilot Chuck buries and the winged package he never opens. It also covers how it was made: Tom Hanks's original idea about FedEx 747s, the 50 pounds he gained and the year-long break to lose them, the leg infection that nearly killed him, Monuriki island in Fiji, the film Zemeckis shot during the pause, the score that only starts when Chuck leaves the island, and the sale of the Wilson prop for $162,500. About a third are easy for anyone who has seen the film, a third are medium, and the rest are for people who know what Wilson was in the screenwriter's own castaway week. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and the production sources it cites, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it. If you think one is wrong, use the report button and we will look again.
30 of 42 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Cast Away, which holiday dinner is Chuck Noland called away from to catch his doomed flight?
Christmas
Christmas: Chuck leaves the family table for a work emergency, hands Kelly a small box to open on New Year's Eve and calls 'I'll be right back', a promise that takes him years to keep.
Q 02When Chuck's friends hold a funeral for him in Cast Away, Stan puts CDs by which singer in the coffin?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley: Chuck is a devoted fan, and with no body to bury, his friends filled the coffin with a cell phone, a beeper, some photos and the CDs.
Q 03At the 2001 Critics' Choice Awards, Cast Away's Wilson was named Best what?
Inanimate Object
Inanimate Object: the critics gave the ball its own prize, and it earns its place in the script too, since it gives a man alone on an island a reason to talk out loud.
Q 04Where does Chuck live with his girlfriend Kelly?
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee: the city is FedEx's real home base, and the company lent the crew its own facilities there for the scenes of Chuck's return.
Q 05Who plays Kelly Frears in Cast Away?
Helen Hunt
Helen Hunt: she had two hits in cinemas at once in December 2000, and Cast Away opened by knocking the other, What Women Want, off the top of the US box office.
Q 06What does Kelly give Chuck before he leaves on the fateful flight?
Her grandfather's pocket watch
Her grandfather's pocket watch: he had used it on the Southern Pacific railroad, and the photo of Kelly inside is Chuck's one reminder of home on the island, which he keeps for himself afterwards.
Q 07Where was Chuck being sent to resolve a FedEx problem when the plane went down?
Malaysia
Malaysia: Chuck is called there from the family dinner table, but his cargo jet strays so far off course in a Pacific storm that search ships spend weeks looking and never find his island.
Q 08Early in Cast Away, Chuck Noland lectures FedEx workers about the clock in which foreign city?
Moscow
Moscow: Chuck tells the Russian staff that 'we live or we die by the clock', a creed the story then turns on him by stranding him where clocks and schedules count for little.
Q 09In Cast Away, whose body washes ashore on the island and is buried by Chuck?
One of the pilots
One of the pilots: Albert Miller is the only other person from the flight Chuck ever sees again, and back home the company mourned all five people on board.
Q 10In Cast Away, which washed-up package does Chuck deliberately leave unopened?
The one painted with angel wings
The one painted with angel wings: Chuck carries it off the island and finally delivers it by hand, leaving a note that says the package saved his life.
Q 11In Cast Away, how does Wilson the volleyball get his face?
A bloody handprint
A bloody handprint: Chuck cuts his hand failing to light a fire, hurls the ball away in a rage, then draws a face in the print, and with his new companion watching, his next attempt at fire works.
Q 12What tool does Chuck use to knock out his rotten tooth?
An ice skate blade and a rock
An ice skate blade and a rock: the tooth was already aching before he boarded the flight, and with no dentist within reach he does the job himself, using skates from a washed-up parcel.
Q 13How long is Chuck Noland stranded on his island in Cast Away?
Four years
Q 21Why did Cast Away shut down for a year?
Tom Hanks had to lose weight
Tom Hanks had to lose weight: he shed more than 50 pounds and grew out his hair and beard, while the director used the break to make a whole other film.
Q 22Which film did Robert Zemeckis make with Cast Away's crew during its year-long break in shooting?
What Lies Beneath
What Lies Beneath: making the Harrison Ford chiller kept the same crew together through the long pause, and it reached cinemas five months before Cast Away did.
Q 23What does Tom Hanks say nearly killed him while making Cast Away?
An infected cut on his leg
Four years: a title card jumps ahead to a gaunt, bearded Chuck spearing fish with ease, while back home his friends have long since held his funeral.
Q 14In Cast Away, what washes ashore and gives Chuck the sail he needs to escape?
Part of a portable toilet
Part of a portable toilet: the two plastic walls wash up just as Chuck has run out of hope, and he says afterwards that the tide 'gave me a sail'.
Q 15How does Chuck lose Wilson in Cast Away?
He drifts off the raft
He drifts off the raft: Chuck swims after the ball until he is too exhausted to go on, then throws away his oars and leaves himself to the sea.
Q 16In Cast Away, who is Jerry Lovett, the man who takes Chuck aside at his FedEx homecoming?
Kelly's husband
Kelly's husband: with Chuck declared dead she had married and had a daughter, and Jerry is left to tell him that she could not face coming to greet him.
Q 17In Cast Away, what has Kelly kept all this time and hands back when Chuck visits?
His car
His car: he had handed her the keys at the airport before boarding, and she never gave it up, so Chuck drives away from her house in it.
Q 18Cast Away's final scene finds Chuck at a crossroads in which state?
Texas
Texas: the sculptor whose parcel he has just returned stops to give him directions, and as she drives off he spots her logo on the truck and smiles down the road she took.
Q 19In Cast Away, which washed-up FedEx cargo does Chuck turn into rope for his escape raft?
Videotapes
Videotapes: Chuck unspools them to lash the logs together, part of the film's running reversal in which parcels that looked useless on a desert island end up keeping him alive.
Q 20Cast Away's island scenes were filmed on Monuriki, part of which Pacific country?
Fiji
Fiji: uninhabited Monuriki is one of the last homes of an endangered crested iguana, and it has been a tourist attraction ever since the film came out.
An infected cut on his leg: Hanks took it for a sore until a doctor put him straight into hospital, warning that the infection could poison his blood, and filming stopped while he healed.
Q 24In early drafts of Cast Away, how did Chuck get off the island?
He was rescued by chance
He was rescued by chance: Robert Zemeckis agreed to direct only once the script made Chuck choose between dying on the island and risking the sea himself.
Q 25Cast Away's screenwriter William Broyles Jr. had already co-written which earlier Tom Hanks film?
Apollo 13
Apollo 13: the castaway idea was Hanks's own, and he and Broyles began working it up while making the space drama, years before a director signed on.
Q 26How did screenwriter William Broyles Jr. research Cast Away?
He marooned himself on an island
He marooned himself on an island: by Mexico's Sea of Cortez he struggled to make fire and crack coconuts, and in his loneliness began talking to a ball that had washed up.
Q 27Cast Away's Wilson happens to share a name with which member of Tom Hanks's family?
His wife
His wife: she is the actress Rita Wilson, but the ball was not named for her, only for the maker's logo printed across it.
Q 28Apart from Tom Hanks's Best Actor nod, Cast Away's only Oscar nomination came in which category?
Best Sound
Best Sound: the nomination suits a film whose long island stretch plays with no music at all, leaving the surf, the wind and one man's voice to carry it.
Q 29Who composed Cast Away's minimal score and won a Grammy for its end-credits theme?
Alan Silvestri
Alan Silvestri: the film plays without a note of his music for its first two-thirds, a silence meant to deepen Chuck's isolation until he is off the island.
Q 30Which real-life company founder plays himself welcoming Chuck home in Cast Away?
Fred Smith
Fred Smith: the founder of FedEx delivers the welcome-home speech himself, telling the crowd that one of the 'sons' the company had mourned has been returned.