FEUD: BETTE AND JOAN

FEUD: BETTE AND JOAN

TRIVIA: Ryan Murphy interviewed Bette Davis months before her death in 1989. The agreed-upon 20-minute interview lasted four hours, and inspired his characterization of Davis. When he asked her about Joan Crawford, she would talk about how much she hated her, before saying "She was a professional. And I admired that."

The series was in development - with Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon on board - for seven years before finally being given the green light.

Three Oscar winners (Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon, Catherine Zeta-Jones) portray three other Oscar winners (Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Olivia de Havilland, respectively).

Catherine Zeta-Jones was Ryan Murphy's only choice for the role of Olivia de Havilland, which he offered to her personally.

Catherine Zeta-Jones claimed that while she did not contact 100 year old Olivia de Havilland to advise on her portrayal, she did consult her (also 100 year old) father-in-law Kirk Douglas for advice. She claimed that Douglas described de Havilland as "Aaah Olivia," Bette Davis: "Aww, she was a broad. She told it as it was," and Joan Crawford: "She was out of her fucking mind!"

During the beginning credits of each episode, both Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon's name switches for who's is shown first each week - as if they are fighting for top billing, much like their respective characters in Feud (2017).

Both leading actors are considerably older than the real life individuals they are playing. Bette Davis was 54 during filming of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) - Susan Sarandon is 70. Joan Crawford was 56, Jessica Lange is 67.

Bette Davis works with Faye Dunaway on "The Disappearance of Aimee (1976)" and explains that Ms. Dunaway is even more difficult to work with than Joan Crawford who Ms. Davis admitted to being professional and prompt. Five years after making that film, Faye Dunaway portrayed Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest (1981)" and received numerous negative reviews for her over the top and downright inaccurate portrayal of Joan. To this day, Ms. Dunaway refuses to discuss "Mommie Dearest (1981)" or her experience making it.

B-movie director William Castle is played by cult film director John Waters. The casting is a wish-fulfillment for Waters, who was heavily influenced by Castle. The production deliberately did nothing to make Waters resemble Castle so that any viewer who recognized him would get the joke. Waters also recorded a commentary track for the Joan Crawford bio-pic Mommie Dearest (1981).

The Tudor style house occupied by Bette Davis was featured in the movie Donnie Darko.

Susan Sarandon claimed that there were four to five other projects she was aware of since the 1980s in which she was suggested to play Bette Davis.

FILM 1535: THE HUNGER

TRIVIA: David Bowie said that, in order to make his voice suitably hoarse for when he aged so drastically in the movie, he stood on the George Washington Bridge every night and screamed all the punk rock songs he knew.

In The Celluloid Closet (1995), the 1995 documentary about the history of homosexuality in film, actress Susan Sarandon said that the screenplay for The Hunger (1983) originally called for her to be demonstrably drunk in the lead-up to her sex scene with Catherine Deneuve, but Sarandon asked for it to be changed so that her character had only a single sip of wine and then spilled the rest of the glass. She said she wanted to make it clear that her character was choosing to have sex with Miriam instead of doing it because of the alcohol, and also because "you wouldn't have to get drunk to bed Catherine Deneuve, I don't care what your sexual history to that point had been".

David Bowie actually learned to play the cello for his music scenes.

Tony Scott discovered the rock group Bauhaus in a London nightclub and decided to put them in the movie.

In an interview with The Daily Beast in late July, 2014, Susan Sarandon revealed that she had an affair with David Bowie while the two were working on this film.

One day during filming, costume designer Milena Canonero, who is famously dedicated to her craft, disappeared and was nowhere to be found. It was discovered eventually that she had flown to Rome to purchase fabric for a handkerchief David Bowie is supposed to wear. Unable to find fabric she liked in London, Canonero had flown to Rome at her own expense to find the fabric she needed instead.

The age of female vampire Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve) was six thousand years. The amount of time she had been lovers with John Blaylock (David Bowie) was three hundred years.

Though set in New York, nearly all of the picture was shot in London.

The 19th Century mansion seen in the movie was a house located in the affluent London suburb of Mayfair.

The film spurred a short-lived TV series of the same name The Hunger (1997) which ran for around three years. The series, first broadcast fourteen years after this movie, utilized the same title and vampire lore, but had no plot or character connections with this film.

Director Tony Scott's first theatrical feature.

CAMEO: Willem Dafoe: As a youth at a phone booth.

Film 904: Step Mom

Trivia: Each of the leads (Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Ed Harris) was nominated for an Oscar for playing real people - Sarandon as Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking, Roberts as Erin Brockovich-Ellis in Erin Brockovich, and Harris as Jackson Pollock in Pollock. Roberts and Sarandon both won; Harris lost.

In the film, the characters played by Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon are often at odds with each other. In reality, the two are close friends, and chose this project specifically to work on together.