Little Miss Sunshine Trivia | 40 facts about the movie

Little Miss Sunshine is a spectacular movie, that gained positive reviews when it was released, and what really taught us is to always be authentic.

Let’s find out more about the movie!

1. Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 American tragicomedy road film.
2. Its the directorial debut of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.
3. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris are husband and wife.
4. The screenplay was written by first-time writer Michael Arndt.
5. The film stars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin.
6. It was produced by Big Beach Films.
7. It was produced on a budget of US$8 million.
8. Filming began on June 6, 2005.
9. It took place over 30 days in Arizona and Southern California.
10. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2006.
11. Its distribution rights were bought by Fox Searchlight Pictures for one of the biggest deals made in the history of the festival.
12. The film had a limited release in the United States on July 26, 2006.
13. It was later expanded to a wider release starting on August 18.
14. Little Miss Sunshine was an overwhelming box office success, earning $101 million.
15. It was praised mainly for the performances, screenplay and humor.
16. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
17. It won two: Best Original Screenplay for Michael Arndt and Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin.
18. It also won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature and received numerous other accolades.
19. The film also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
20. When choosing the cast for the film, directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris were assisted by casting directors Kim Davis and Justine Baddeley who had worked with them on previous music videos.
21. The directors had initially settled on Greg Kinnear to portray Richard Hoover.
22. However, for the character of Sheryl Hoover, they considered several actresses before deciding on Australian actress Toni Collette.
23. Davis and Baddeley traveled to “every English-speaking country” to search for the actress to portray Olive Hoover, and they finally chose actress Abigail Breslin through an audition when she was six.
24. Paul Dano was cast as Dwayne two years before production began.
25. In preparation for portraying his character, spent a few days taking his own vow of silence.
26. Alan Arkin, who portrayed Edwin Hoover, was initially considered too young for the role.
27. The role of Frank, the suicidal Proust scholar, was originally written for Bill Murray, and there was also studio pressure for Robin Williams.
28. The directing duo chose Steve Carell for the role a few months before filming began.
29. Although known to Comedy Central viewers for many years as a correspondent on the highly rated satirical news program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, at the time Carell was cast for Little Miss Sunshine, he was relatively unknown in Hollywood.
30. Producers of the film were worried that he was not a big enough star and did not have much acting experience.
31. The script was written by Michael Arndt and was originally about an East Coast road trip from Maryland to Florida.
32. It was shifted to a journey from New Mexico to California because of budget issues.
33. Arndt started the script on May 23, 2000 and completed the first rough draft by May 26.
34. He had initially planned on shooting the film himself by raising several thousand dollars and using a camcorder.
35. Instead, he gave the screenplay to producers Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger who teamed up with Deep River Productions to find a potential director.
36. Addressing the inclusion of the Fargo character Stan Grossman in the film after its release, Arndt stated that he had “just [simply] assumed that people [the filmmakers] [had known] it was a tribute to Fargo, but that [in actuality] people didn’t realize until we started shooting”, in addition expressing gratitude towards the Coen brothers for allowing him to retain the character
37. All of the girls acting as participants in the “Little Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant, except Abigail Breslin, were veterans of real beauty pageants. They wore the same costumes, including hair and makeup, and performed the same talent routines as they had in their real-life pageants.
38. The production crew made sure Abigail Breslin really was listening to music in her headphones to keep her from hearing Alan Arkin’s profanity-laced scenes.
39. The “heroin” Grandpa snorts in the bathroom in the beginning of the movie is actually crushed up Vitamin B tablets.
40. Though they are supposed to be mother and son, the difference of age between Toni Collette and Paul Dano is just 12 years.