The Young Pope Trivia: 25 fun facts about the drama series!

The Young Pope is an English-language Italian television drama series. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about it!

1.It is created and directed by Paolo Sorrentino for Sky Atlantic, HBO, and Canal+.

2. The series stars Jude Law and Diane Keaton.

3. The Young Pope, the first TV series by Paolo Sorrentino, was produced by Fausto Brizzi, Lorenzo Mieli e Mario Gianani, together with the French company Haut et Court TV and the Spanish company Mediapro.

4. The project was financed by Sky, Canal+ and HBO, which contributed 40 million euros, with part of the money coming from the European Regional Development Fund. Production of the first 10 episodes of the first season took three years between 2014 and 2016.

5. The script was written by Sorrentino, Stefano Rulli, Tony Grisoni and Umberto Contarello.

6. The cast, announced between July and August 2015, includes Jude Law as the young pope; Diane Keaton as Sister Mary; James Cromwell, Silvio Orlando, Scott Shepherd, Javier Cámara and Toni Bertorelli. It also includes Cécile de France, Ludivine Sagnier, Guy Boyd, Andre Gregory, Sebastian Roché, Marcello Romolo, Ignazio Oliva, Vladimir Bibic, Daniel Vivian e Nadie Kammalaweera.

7  The main character is almost always seen only from the waist up, to give the impression that he might be soaring.

8. Sorrentino said he inherited this technique from Spike Lee.

9. Filming of the first season, which took seven months, started in August 2015 and took place mainly in the Cinecittà studios, where the interior of the Vatican was recreated.

10. Exterior shots and garden scenes were taken at a number of villas, primarily Villa Lante (Bagnaia), Villa Medici, and Orto Botanico dell’Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, while some interior shots were also taken inside Palazzo Venezia.

11. Parts of the last episode were shot in piazza San Marco in Venice.

12. The series premiered on 21 October 2016 on Sky Atlantic in Italy, 27 October 2016 on Sky Atlantic in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, 28 October 2016 on HBO in various European countries, and will premiere on 15 January 2017 on HBO in the United States.

13. The Young Pope received widespread critical acclaim in the UK, Ireland, and Italy.

13. It has also drawn some criticism from the Italian newspaper Famiglia Cristiana, for the overtly caricatural interpretation by Jude Law.

15. Famiglia Cristiana also outlined how polarizing the series was among Catholics, with many fans of Sorrentino’s storytelling and many who were not impressed.

16. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a rating of 83%, based on 6 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10,[24] a 8.5 on IMDb,[25] a 9.6 on TV.com.

17. Jude Law’s performance has been praised by critics

18.In Italy, it drew the highest rating ever for the pay TV SKY. With 953,000 viewers, it beat the initial release of Gomorrah and the Italian release of Game of Thrones.

19.The papal clothes worn by Jude Law in his role as Pope Pius XIII were created by a store which also makes clothing for the real Vatican.

20. Javier Cámara contacted series creator Paolo Sorrentino personally and asked him for a role, because he is a fan on Sorrentino’s work and had heard that the miniseries had a Spanish speaking role.

21. Throughout the series, Cardinal Voiello is depicted as a supporter of the Napoli soccer team and a huge fan of star player Gonzalo Higuaín. This detail proved humorous to Italian viewers, as Higuain left Napoli for Juventus a few weeks before the series premiered at the 2016 Venice Film Festival.

22. Throughout the series there are groups of three animals (turtles, owls…), recalling the characters that are playing that scene.

23. The sculpture of Pope Pope John Paul II, which is shown being hit by a meteorite during the opening credits, is a replica of “The Ninth Hour” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. The original sculpture was sold at auction at Christie’s for $886,000 in 2001.

24. The first season had a production budget of $45 million, making it the most expensive Italian television production in history.

25. Jude Law as a Young Pope was been a “meme” and it was one of the most popular memes for 2016.