Trivia for
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) More at IMDbPro »

• The word "fuck" and its derivatives are uttered 138 times.
  
  
• The word "shit" and its derivatives are uttered 50 times.
  
  
• Alec Baldwin, was initially hired to play Blake (a role which wasn't in the original play), but with the agreement that if Al Pacino was unable to play Roma, Baldwin would play him. Early in preproduction it looked as if Pacino was going to be unavailable, so Baldwin began working on Roma, only for Pacino to join the project and Baldwin went back to Blake.
  
  
• Co-star Jack Lemmon said the cast was the greatest acting ensemble he had ever been part of. This is also both director James Foley's and Alec Baldwin's favorite film of their own.
  
  
• During the production, the actors referred to this film as "Death of a Fuckin' Salesman".
  
  
• During the course of the movie, George Aaronow (Alan Arkin) and Dave Moss (Ed Harris) talk about selling the Glengarry leads to a man named "Jerry Graff". Jerry Graff is an actor who has starred in only four movies, all of which have been written and directed by David Mamet (Things Change (1988), Homicide (1991), The Spanish Prisoner (1997) and State and Main (2000)).
  
  
• The title refers to Glengarry Highlands and Glen Ross Farms, two properties mentioned in the movie.
  
  
• During filming, members of the cast who weren't required to be on the set certain days would show up anyway to watch the other actors' performances.
  
  
• As of 2008, the cast includes four actors (Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey and Al Pacino) who have won Academy Awards and two others (Alec Baldwin and Ed Harris) who have been nominated for Academy Awards.
  
  
• In the scene when Roma sits down at his desk to begin lying to James Lingk with Levine's help, he quickly takes his gum out of his mouth and tries to mash it under his desk. Al Pacino does this so quickly that the gum jumps from under the desk, across Pacino's/Roma's lap. In an example of great professionalism, Pacino keeps going with only a minor hesitation.
  
  
• David Mamet's original play opened at the National Theatre of London in 1983 and then moved to Chicago before going on to Broadway, opening at the John Golden Theater in New York on 25 March, 1984 and running for 378 performances. The play won both the 1984 Tony Award for Best Play, and the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
  
  
• David Mamet based his original play on his own time working in a real estate office in the 1970s.
  
  
• Originally, director Irvin Kershner wanted to turn the play into a film in 1985, and he persuaded his friend, producer Jerry Tokofsky, to read it. Tokofsky loved it, and contacted his associate Stanley R. Zupnik with a view to making a movie of the play with Kershner directing and Tokofsky and Zupnik producing. Kershner ultimately left the project in 1989 after becoming disillusioned with the lack of progress, but Tokofsky and Zupnik remained on-board.
  
  
• When approached about the movie, David Mamet asked for $500,000 for the movie rights and another $500,000 to write the screenplay, which Zupnik agreed to pay, planning to cut a deal with a cable company to bankroll the movie. However, because of the uncompromising subject matter and abrasive language, no major company was interested in financing the project. Ultimately, financing came from multiple small cable and video companies, a German television station, an Australian movie theater chain, several banks, and New Line Cinema.
  
  
• Al Pacino had originally wanted to appear in the play on Broadway, but was doing another Mamet production, "American Buffalo", in London at the time.
  
  
• James Foley initially turned down the opportunity to direct the film, saying he didn't see how it could be anything but filmed theatre.
  
  
• None of the major roles in the film were auditioned - the actors playing the parts were all offered their roles, although Jack Lemmon has said he would have been glad to audition for such a good role.
  
  
• James Foley, Jack Lemmon and Alec Baldwin' got together in 1991 to do several informal read-throughs. The producers of the film contacted the Creative Artists Agency and asked for some help with actors to do readings. CAA showed little interest, but two of their clients; Ed Harris and Kevin Spacey attended the read-through, and ultimately joined the cast. Al Pacino joined the cast soon thereafter, and subsequently Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis, Joe Mantegna and Richard Gere all made inquiries into the film.
  
  
• Alan Arkin turned down the film twice because he didn't like the character he was being offered; he thought Aaronow was an inherently unlikable and stupid character. However, upon reconsideration, Arkin created a backstory for Aaronow - he hadn't been a sales man very long, he was a teacher by trade, but the school in which he worked had got shut down, and he needed a job to support his family. Arkin says that he played Aaronow as an innocent rather that the usual stage depiction of him as a weak willed bumbler.
  
  
• The film had three weeks of rehearsals and was shot over 39 days. Most scenes were shot in single takes and then cut up in editing to try to replicate the theatrical flow and cadence of the dialogue. The film was also shot almost entirely in sequence.
  
  
• During rehearsals, director James Foley would have the actors act out scenes that would happen off-camera; for example, he had Jack Lemmon and Ed Harris act a scene where Moss recruits Levene to rob the office, and Al Pacino and Jonathan Pryce act out the scene where Roma gets Lingk to invest in the land.
  
  
• During the production, producers Jerry Tokofsky and Stanley R. Zupnik had a falling out over money and credit for the film. Tokofsky sued to strip Zupnik of his producer's credit and share of the producer's fee, but Zupnik filed a countersuit, claiming that he personally had put up $2 million of the film's budget, and accused Tokofsky of embezzlement. The cases were ultimately settled out of court with both men credited as producers.
  
  
• The single largest cost on the movie was for the rain effects throughout the first half of the film.
  
  
• Alec Baldwin based the tone and delivery of his famous monologue on George C. Scott's "Wars are won..." speech from Patton (1970).
  
  
• The word 'leads' is said 111 times.
  
  
• Ever since its release, the film has been used to train real life salesmen how to sell and how not to sell.
  
  

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