Movie Trivia for 12 Years A Slave

12 Years a SlaveMemorable Movie Quotes

Solomon Northup: I don’t want to survive. I want to live.

Solomon Northup: I will not fall into despair! I will keep myself hardy until freedom is opportune!

Trivia

The tree where Solomon sees several men being lynched was actually used for lynching, and is surrounded by the graves of murdered slaves.

Director Steve McQueen had been toying with the idea of writing a script about slavery, featuring a black man who had been born free and was later forced into slavery, but McQueen was struggling with the script until his wife found Solomon Northup’s biography and gave it to him. Shocked that he had never heard of Northup before, he decided to adapt the book instead.

In order to better portray an alcoholic, Michael Fassbender had his makeup artist paint his mustache with alcohol so that the other actors would react naturally to the smell, as they would to a man who had been drinking heavily.

In the movie, Ford purchased Solomon Northup and Eliza for $1000 and $700 respectively. Calculating inflation between 1841 and 2014, the equivalent dollar amount would be $27,000 and $19,000, respectively.

Feature film debut for actress Lupita Nyong’o. She went on to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the film.

Goofs

In the opening shots, a violin is being played and tuned. The light passes completely through the strings revealing they are synthetic material (introduced in the 1970’s), not gut wrapped in copper or silver wire, nor were they steel strings.

Several times during the movie horses are seen wearing bridles with a ‘flash’ attachment on the nose-band. This type of attachment wasn’t invented until the 1960s.

Box Office Info In USA

Budget $20,000,000

Opening Weekend: $923,715

Gross $56,671,993

Filming Locations

Magnolia Plantation – Highway 311, Schriever, Louisiana, USA (Ford’s house)
St. Joseph Plantation, Louisiana, USA
Audubon Park, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (as Saratoga)
Bocage Plantation, Darrow, Louisiana, USA (Shaw farm)
Urbania, Lower Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (Epps’ House Interiors)
Columns Hotel – 3811 St Charles Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (hotel in Washington, DC)
Destrehan, Louisiana, USA (Epps plantation barn)
Magnolia Lane Plantation – 2141 River Rd, Bridge City, Louisiana, USA (Judge Turner’s house)