Trivia for
Babel (2006) More at IMDbPro »

• Rinko Kikuchi went through a year-long audition process before finally gaining the role of Chieko.
  
  
• Boubker Ait El Caid was cast as Yussef, the young Moroccan boy who mishandles the rifle, after director Alejandro González Iñárritu saw him playing soccer in the local town plaza.
  
  
• Brad Pitt gave up one of the starring roles in The Departed (2006) (a film he co-produced) in order to participate in this film, as he's a longtime fan of Alejandro González Iñárritu's films.
  
  
• Since each story was filmed at different times and on different continents, some of the cast members never met their counterparts until the film's premiere.
  
  
• Actress Adriana Barraza gained 35 pounds for her role as Amelia.
  
  
• Actress Adriana Barraza, in real life, has had a long history of heart problems including two minor heart attacks. Despite this, she still insisted on carrying co-star Elle Fanning around in the desert for the two days of filming of Amelia walking in the desert with Mike and Debbie.
  
  
• 17 days before shooting was to commence in Morocco, none of the characters had been cast. The production crew made an announcement in the nearest town via television and radio and in the mosques that actors were needed. Within the next 24 hours, over 200 people showed up hoping to participate. Almost all of them are in the final cut of the film, both as principal characters and as extras.
  
  
• The scene where Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) and her father are in the car together was shot without filming permission from the city due to slow Japanese bureaucratic procedures. The crew created "man-made" busy traffic, and began shooting the scene. Later the police started chasing them while still shooting the scene.
  
  
• Only Richard and Susan's segment was shot on 16 mm film; the rest of the movie was shot on 35 mm. In the scene where the helicopter finally arrives at the village, there is a slight pause as the 35 mm format kicks in.
  
  
• The color red is prominently seen in all four segments of the film. For example, Yussef, the Moroccan boy who accidentally shoots Susan, wears a red jacket that says "Morocco" on the back, while Amelia wears an elaborate red dress, causing her to stand out; Chieko frequently uses a red pen to write notes to people who can't understand sign language, and the seats on Richard and Susan's bus are red.
  
  
• Director of photography Rodrigo Prieto encountered a problem while filming a track shot where Richard and the villagers carry the wounded Susan to the top of a steep hill: he tried running backwards to get the shot, but each time he tripped, often falling. However, director Alejandro González Iñárritu ruled out using a Steadicam and insisted on hand-held camera work. Finally, key grip Joseph Dianda came up with a solution: Prieto filmed the shot while seated in a hotel chair carried by four grips. The resulting footage became known to crew members as "The Joey Chair Shot".
  
  
• The shallow depth of field in Chieko's sequences is a nod to the photography of Mona Kuhn. Most of Kuhn's photos have shallow focus, a concept used by the filmmakers to emphasize Chieko's deafness and isolation.
  
  
• Almost all of the film, even the driving scenes, was shot using a hand-held camera.
  
  
• Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett were originally slated to appear as a couple in 2002 in Darren Aronofsky's film The Fountain (2006). However, after creative differences with Aronofsky, Pitt dropped out to appear in Troy (2004) and the film was shut down. Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz were later cast instead.
  
  

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