The Holiday (2006) Movie Trivia
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48 free The Holiday (2006) Movie trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Nancy Meyers wrote Iris for Kate Winslet, Miles for Jack Black and Amanda with Cameron Diaz in mind, then sent Jude Law a stack of Clark Gable films to prepare. The result, a Christmas house swap between a Surrey cottage and a Brentwood mansion, grossed over $200 million and has become a holiday-season fixture. This quiz covers the plot (Jasper's engagement, Graham's daughters, Arthur's list of leading ladies, the New Year's Eve ending), the casting (who auditioned for Graham and Miles, who turned up uncredited in the video store), the production (the cottage built in a field next to a church, the Santa Ana winds, the 90-year-old Eli Wallach being told to slow down) and the music, from Hans Zimmer's score to the CD Amanda sings along to. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so it works for a Christmas movie night, a rom-com round or settling whether Iris or Amanda got the better deal.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Holiday's writer-director, Nancy Meyers, also made which of these films?
It's Complicated
It's Complicated followed in 2009, but the title had turned up three years earlier as the name of a one-minute cue on The Holiday's soundtrack album.
Q 02In The Holiday, who plays Amanda Woods, the Los Angeles half of the house swap?
Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz was in Nancy Meyers's head while the script was still being written: "She seemed absolutely the right choice for a California girl."
Q 03In The Holiday, who plays Iris Simpkins, the English newspaper columnist?
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet had made period films but never a romantic comedy, and missed having a wig or an accent to hide behind; she and a co-star swapped nervous calls, sure they would be fired.
Q 04What does Amanda's company make in The Holiday?
Film trailers
Film trailers pay for her mansion and invade her head: a booming announcer keeps cutting in to narrate her love life, beginning "Amanda Woods is proud to present... her life."
Q 05For which newspaper does Iris write a column in The Holiday?
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph pays Iris to write up weddings, so her editor hands her a scoop in front of the whole staff: the engagement of the colleague she has loved for three years.
Q 06What is the name of Iris's cheating ex-boyfriend in The Holiday?
Jasper Bloom
Jasper Bloom accepts a first-edition book from Iris as a Christmas present, moments before his engagement to another colleague is announced to the whole office.
Q 07In which English county is Iris's cottage in The Holiday?
Surrey
Surrey: the cottage's listing promises "an enchanting oasis of tranquility", and the quiet is too much for Amanda, who is ready to fly home within six hours of arriving.
Q 08Who plays Graham, Iris's brother, in The Holiday?
Jude Law
Jude Law had never done this kind of comedy, and the director wasn't sure he would fit the genre until the two of them sat down and went through the script together.
Q 09What is Graham's job in The Holiday?
Book editor
Book editor by day, Graham turns out to be more than the carefree bachelor Amanda assumes: he is a widower raising two young daughters on his own.
Q 10Why does Graham first knock on the cottage door during Amanda's stay?
He is drunk and needs a bed
He is drunk and needs a bed: whenever he overdoes it at the local pub, he explains, his little sister puts him up so that he doesn't get behind the wheel.
Q 11What are the names of Graham's two daughters in The Holiday?
Sophie and Olivia
Sophie and Olivia are why Graham calls himself a package deal, "three for the price of one", when he finally tells Amanda that he loves her.
Q 12Why does Graham hide his daughters from the women he dates in The Holiday?
It helps him cope
It helps him cope, Graham says: he splits his life into compartments because being a single working father overwhelms him, and he won't bring a woman home unless it might last.
Q 13Who plays Miles, the Hollywood musician Iris befriends in The Holiday?
Jack Black
Q 21Which screenwriting term does Arthur teach Iris after she drives him home?
A meet cute
A meet cute is how two characters meet in a movie, Arthur explains as she walks him to his door, and he applies it to their own encounter before admitting theirs "isn't quite that cute".
Q 22Which old-fashioned word does Iris use for what she has finally found as she shows her ex the door?
Gumption
Gumption: Iris announces she has found "something slightly resembling" it, slams the door on the man who strung her along for three years, and screams with joy.
Q 23Which American star auditioned to play Graham in The Holiday, only to hear his British accent called the worst ever?
Robert Downey Jr.
Jack Black had the part written for him, yet his first reaction was to ask whether a romantic comedy had the right guy; hearing who would play Iris helped settle it.
Q 14What is the profession of Ethan, Amanda's unfaithful boyfriend in The Holiday?
Film composer
Film composer Ethan shares his trade with Miles, who first meets Iris when he turns up at the gate to collect his colleague's laptop.
Q 15Who plays Arthur Abbott, the elderly screenwriter next door, in The Holiday?
Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach was 90 when he played Arthur, who enters the story lost: Iris finds him unable to pick out his own house after 47 years on the street, and drives him home.
Q 16Arthur tells Iris she is behaving like the best friend when she should be what in her own life?
The leading lady
The leading lady: Arthur prescribes a list of old films built around formidable women, such as Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, and Iris calls his verdict "brutal, but brilliant".
Q 17Which organisation holds a gala in Arthur's honour in The Holiday?
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America has to wait while Arthur is coaxed into going: "Let's get this embarrassment over with," he grumbles, after Iris has trained him for the walk to the stage.
Q 18What is the name of Miles's actress girlfriend, whom he catches with another man?
Maggie
Maggie is caught arm in arm with another man while Miles is out with Iris; on the day of Arthur's gala she asks to be taken back, and he turns her down.
Q 19What does Amanda do in the car to the airport that sends her racing back to Graham?
She finally cries
She finally cries, for the first time since her parents split up when she was fifteen, and runs back to the cottage to find Graham in tears as well.
Q 20Where do the four leads of The Holiday end up celebrating New Year's Eve?
Graham's house
Graham's house hosts the party: Miles, who has never been to Europe, flies over to take Iris out, and both new couples see in the year there with the two girls.
Robert Downey Jr. thought he was a shoo-in, he told Howard Stern in 2023, until one of the film's English stars delivered that verdict; he says he left with the gummy bears from the minibar.
Q 24Arthur tells Iris that which Hollywood legend came from her home county, though he was really born in Bristol?
Cary Grant
Cary Grant "told me once", says Arthur, and Iris agrees that he was a local boy; the film never corrects the pair, though Grant grew up in Bristol.
Q 25Which future talk show host auditioned for the role of Miles in The Holiday?
Jimmy Fallon
Jimmy Fallon read scenes opposite another auditioning actor and found him so good that, he says, he never tried out for a film role again: "I quit the business."
Q 26Arthur says he added a single word to a famous line in which classic film?
Casablanca
Casablanca: his friends wrote "Here's looking at you", Arthur likes to say, and he was the one who added the "kid".
Q 27Which actor makes an unscripted cameo in the video rental store in The Holiday?
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman happened to be passing, stopped to see what all the cameras were for, and ended up in the scene because he knew Nancy Meyers, who had never planned a cameo there.
Q 28Which 1967 film's music is Miles singing in The Holiday's video store?
The Graduate
The Graduate: Miles sings Mrs. Robinson between the shelves, then bets Iris she never knew that the song was written for the film as part of its score.
Q 29Which two stars appear uncredited in Deception, the fake action film glimpsed in The Holiday?
Lindsay Lohan and James Franco
Lindsay Lohan and James Franco did it as favours: Nancy Meyers had directed Lohan in The Parent Trap and told her "she owes me everything", and Franco was a dinner-party acquaintance.
Q 30What does Iris spot in Arthur's home that tells her how big a name he once was?
An Oscar
An Oscar, gathering dust in his house, is Iris's first clue that the frail neighbour she has just driven home was one of Golden Age Hollywood's top screenwriters.