Movie Trivia for A Knight’s Tale
Memorable Movie Quotes
Chaucer: I will eviscerate you in fiction. Every pimple, every character flaw. I was naked for a day; you will be naked for eternity.
John Thatcher: Change your stars and live a better life than I have.
Chaucer: Now I got their attention, you go and win their hearts.
Trivia
When Chaucer first introduces “Sir Ulrich” in his speech, the crowd doesn’t react at first because the Czech extras didn’t understand it. Mark Addy’s loud prompt tipped them off to start cheering. The awkward moment was left in because it made the scene funnier.
Director Brian Helgeland once said in an interview that he used modern music in the movie to show modern audiences what people then felt about their music. When true Renaissance music is used in modern movies, it fails to convey the emotional response that people back then had to such music.
Plenty of effort was expended creating lances that would splinter convincingly without taking out the stunt riders as well. The body of each lance was scored so it would break easily, and the tips were made of balsa wood. Each was also hollowed out, and the hole filled with balsa chips and uncooked linguine to make convincing splinters.
Paul Bettany’s nude scene was shot on his very first day in front of a crowd of extras.
There was a period of about a year in Geoffrey Chaucer’s life when historians have no records of what happened to him. This film is supposed to be set in that year.
Some of the extras were homeless people from Prague.
For the scene when William follows Jocelyn into the cathedral, the sounds of his horse’s hooves were produced using coconuts on Charles Maynes’ garage floor.
Heath Ledger knocked out one of director Brian Helgeland’s front teeth with a broomstick when the two were demonstrating a jousting move. It was several months before Helgeland’s mouth had healed enough to repair the damage. He says it was the only jousting injury during filming.
Goofs
When William first sees Jocelyn and follows her into the church (on horseback) there is scaffolding around the door and men working on it. Two minutes later when he is ejected by the clergy, the scaffolding has gone.
The younger version of William has different colored eyes than the adult version. Brian Helgeland didn’t feel it would be fair to make young actor Leagh Conwell wear contact lenses.
In several of the jousting scenes, William’s horse goes from being a red roan to a bay and back again.
In the final match against Adhemar, William’s arm is so badly injured that he lacks the strength to even grip his lance. However, after his victory only a few minutes later, he uses that arm to vault himself over a fence and shows no sign of injury.
In the Credits
After the credits finish, Roland, Wat, Kate, and Geoff have a flatulence contest/drinking game. Wat loses, but Kate is the obvious winner.
As the first credits appear, the camera swings to show a constellation behind William and Jocelyn. The constellation is Orion, the Hunter, Jocelyn’s nickname for William.
Box Office Info In USA
Budget $65,000,000
Gross $$56,569,702
Filming Locations
Barrandov Studios, Prague, Czech Republic (Studio)