Trivia for
Gattaca (1997)

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• The name "Gattaca" is composed entirely of the letters used to label the nucleotide bases of DNA. The four nitrogen bases of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) are adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine.
  
  
• Public address announcements in the Gattaca Corporation headquarters building are in Esperanto, an artificial language invented in the 19th century.
  
  
• The winding stairs in Jerome's apartment have a helical structure, like DNA.
  
  

• Uma Thurman's character is named Irene Cassini. Cassini is the surname of the 17th century Italian astronomer, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who discovered the prominent gap in Saturn's main rings, as well as the icy moons, Iapetus, Dione, Rhea, and Tethys. The space mission in Gattaca is destined for Saturn. In 1997, NASA launched the Cassini space probe bound for Saturn. It carried the Huygens space probe, which was dropped into Titan in early 2005, and discovered ground under the clouds.
  
  
• Jude Law's character asks to be called by his middle name, Eugene. "Eugene" comes from the Greek for "well born," which Jerome is. "Eugenics" (the science of improving the hereditary qualities of a race or breed) is the central theme of the film.
  
  
• The Marin County Civic Center, filming location of the Gattaca Corporation, was also used in George Lucas's THX 1138 (1971).
  
  
• When Gattaca was first released, as part of a marketing campaign there were adverts for people to call up and have their children genetically engineered. Thousands of people called, wanting to have their offspring genetically engineered
  
  
• The piece played by the six-fingered pianist is based on Impromptu in G Flat Major, Op. 90, No. 3. by Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828). However, the creators did a beautiful job embellishing the piece with additional notes/harmonies so that it "can only be played with twelve[fingers]," as the Uma Thurman character notes.
  
  
• Vincent's car is a 1963 Studebaker Avanti.
  
  
• The cars driven by the "Hoovers" are Rover P6's (sometimes called the Rover 2000) built in Britain from 1963 until 1976. They were extremely popular with the police force in Britain where the 3.5 litre V8-engined model was used as a high speed interceptor. Three of the four P6 Rovers in the movie were North American market 3500S versions of the 3.5 litre V8 with triple hood scoops. The fourth was a North American 2000TC with triple hood scoops added by Columbia Pictures. All four of the cars had triple hood scoops.
  
  
• The exterior shots of Ethan Hawke and Jude Law's apartment is actually the CLA (Classrooms, Laboratories, and Administration) Building of Cal Poly Pomona by architect Antoine Predock.
  
  
• The Gattaca building (SOME) interiors and exteriors) is, in reality, the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, CA. It was designed by American star architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957. The largest Wright design ever constructed, it was largely built after his death in 1959. The central dome (prominent in the roof-cleaning scene) contains the county library.
  
  
• The FBI agents are called "Hoovers," a reference to legendary top-G-man J. Edgar Hoover, but also a clever reference to a vacuum cleaner brand. There are numerous shots of vacuums being used to gather DNA evidence.
  
  
• The film was shot under the title "The Eighth Day". This was a reference to the Biblical creation story, which states that the earth was created in six days and on the seventh day, God rested. The original title implies the tampering of man with what God has already made, and "The Eighth Day" is still the name of the center in the movie where the children are engineered, as noted on the DVD deleted scenes. By the time the much-delayed release of the film came around, a Belgian film, Huitième jour, Le (1996), had already been released in the US under the title "The Eighth Day". Because of this, writer-director Andrew Niccol was forced to choose a new title for his film.
  
  
• Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke became a couple during the filming of this movie. They eventually married.
  
  
• The telephone Jude Law uses when answering Ethan Hawke's warning call is a B&O Beocom 5000 wireless.
  
  
• Many of the "futuristic" buildings in the film are actually quite old. Many of these represent a type of postmodern architecture called "brutalism", which was popular in the 1950s. The two massive arches seen behind Jerome and Irene during their talk are actually the spillway of the Sepulveda Dam in Los Angeles, which was built in the 1930s.
  
  
• The first draft of the screenplay had no title.
  
  

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