Trivia for
The Green Mile (1999)

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• The name for the character John Coffey was lifted from a college professor, Rev. John Coffee. Stephen King had met him once and really liked his name and used it in "The Green Mile". Reverend Coffee taught history classes at Emerson College in Boston Massachusetts. He retired in May 2005.
  
  
• Originally set in 1932, the timeframe was bumped to 1935 so the movie Top Hat (1935) could be featured.
  
  
• Harry Dean Stanton appears in the film. There is a character named Harry, and another named Dean Stanton. This is merely a happy coincidence since the characters' names existed in the book long before Harry Dean Stanton was cast in the movie.
  
  

• In actuality, Michael Clarke Duncan is of a similar height as his co-star David Morse and is a couple inches shorter than James Cromwell. Among other things, creative camera angles were used to create the illusion that Duncan as John Coffey towered over the prison staff, even Brutal Howell and Warden Moores.
  
  
• Michael Jeter (who plays Eduard Delacroix) was also in Mousehunt (1997), another film which co-starred a gifted mouse.
  
  
• At the beginning of the movie, when the old Paul Edgecomb is walking to get some breakfast after waking from that bad dream, he is walking on a tiled floor that is very green, as if it's his Green Mile.
  
  
• The prison guards wear uniforms to give the movie a better feel, even though uniforms weren't in use at the time in which the movie is set.
  
  
• The music played over the loudspeakers in the retirement home as Old Paul Edgecomb first walks out of his room is the same as the music the nurses played at medication time in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). The music used is Mantovani's Charmaine.
  
  
• Originally, Tom Hanks was going to play the Old Paul Edgecomb but the makeup tests didn't make him look credible enough to be an elderly man. Dabbs Greer was cast instead as the older Paul Edgecomb.
  
  
• By the time Paul introduced Elaine to Mr. Jingles, the mouse would have to be at least 64 years old - over nine times the age of the oldest ever known real mouse.
  
  
• While many of Stephen King's novels are set in the author's native Maine, The Green Mile takes place in Louisiana. However, the surname of the main character--Edgecomb--is the name of a town on Maine's mid-coast.
  
  
• The plot unfolds in the form of Paul telling Elaine the story of the Green Mile. In the book, Paul writes his story down in the form of a novel. At the end of the film, as Paul leaves the cemetery after Elaine's burial, a tombstone can be seen behind him that reads "Greene", and two others, one in the foreground and one to the right of the screen, that read "Story".
  
  
• Doug Hutchison (Percy) was given, according to the director, the squeakiest shoes he'd ever heard. He thought this was the greatest bit of fate, and a "perfectly wonderful, annoying character trait" that he kept it in the movie, and you can hear sometimes how loud his shoes are.
  
  
• Voted #5 Must See Movie of all time by listeners of Capital FM in London.
  
  
• When Stephen King visited the set he asked to be strapped into Old Sparky to see how it felt. He didn't like it and asked to be released.
  
  
• When the producers were having trouble finding the right actor to fill the role of John Coffey, Bruce Willis suggested Michael Clarke Duncan with whom he had co-starred in Armageddon (1998/I).
  
  
• John Travolta was offered the role of Paul Edgecomb but turned it down.
  
  
• Voted number 2 in Channel 4 (UK) "Top 100 Tearjerkers" countdown, losing first place to "E.T The Extra Terrestrial".
  
  
• Dabbs Greer's last film.
  
  
• When Paul and Brutal take John Coffey outside at night John looks at the stars and says "Look Boss, it’s Cassie, the lady in the rocking chair." This is a reference to the constellation Cassiopeia. In Greek mythology Queen Cassiopeia is often depicted as sitting in a chair or rocking chair.
  
  
• More than 30 works of Stephen King have been adapted for movies, but this is the only one to have broken the $100 million mark at the North American box office (as of November 2007).
  
  
• Early in the film Paul yells at Percy to "Get the fuck off my block", but it was later re-dubbed to "Get the hell off my block".
  
  
• It's ironic that when Percy first encounters Mr. Jingles he calls him 'scurvy' which is a condition caused by lack of vitamin C. Mice have an active gene that synthesizes vitamin C.
  
  

• SPOILER: Michael Clark Duncan was uncomfortable with having to grab Tom Hanks' crotch for the scene where he takes his infection away. Hanks left the set, came back to do the scene, Duncan grabbed at Hanks' crotch and was shocked because Hanks had put an empty water bottle in his pants. After that, Duncan felt more comfortable with the scene.
  
  

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