Trivia for
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

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• The role of Tommy Williams was intended for Brad Pitt.
  
  
• The exteriors were filmed at the defunct Mansfield State Reformatory in Ohio. The prison was in such poor condition that renovations had to be made prior to filming. However, most the interiors were shot on a sound stage, because they determined it would be cheaper to build duplicates of the interiors rather than renovating the interiors of Mansfield.
  
  
• The American Humane Association monitored the filming of scenes involving Brooks' crow. During the scene where he fed it a maggot, the AHA objected on the grounds that it was cruel to the maggot, and required that they use a maggot that had died from natural causes. One was found, and the scene was filmed.
  
  

• In Stephen King's original story, Red was written as a white Irishman. In the movie, they left the line, "Maybe it's 'cause I'm Irish", in as a joke, even after they had cast Morgan Freeman as Red.
  
  
• Gil Bellows plays Thomas ("Tommy") Williams. In "Ally McBeal" (1997), he played William ("Billy") Thomas.
  
  
• The Rita Hayworth movie the prisoners are watching is Gilda (1946).
  
  
• Warden Norton whistles the hymn "Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott", the English title of which is "A Mighty Fortress is Our God".
  
  
• The mugshots of a young-looking Morgan Freeman that are attached to his parole papers are actually pictures of Morgan's younger son, Alfonso Freeman. Alfonso also had a cameo in the movie as a con shouting "Fresh fish! Fresh fish today! We're reeling 'em in!"
  
  
• On the wall in Andy Dufresne's cell is a picture of Albert Einstein. Tim Robbins, who portrayed Andy Dufresne also played in the fictional movie about Einstein, I.Q. (1994).
  
  
• Andy Dufresne's Prison ID Number is 37927.
  
  
• Heywood and Floyd are the names of two Shawshank inmates. Heywood Floyd was the main character in 2010 (1984).
  
  
• Although a very modest hit in theaters, it became one of the highest grossing video rentals of all time.
  
  
• Stephen King sold the rights to the movie very cheaply out of his friendship with Frank Darabont. They had originally become friends when Darabont adapted a short story of King's called "The Woman in the Room" (King has a policy stating that any aspiring filmmaker can adapt his short stories for a buck) and King was thoroughly impressed. They maintained a pen pal relationship and didn't actually meet until Darabont optioned Shawshank.
  
  
• Towards the beginning when Morgan Freeman leaves after they stamp REJECTED on his papers, his buddies ask him what happened, and Freeman says "Same shit different day". This phrase is also said in the movie Dreamcatcher (2003), which is also a Stephen King movie starring Freeman.
  
  
• The prisoners are drinking Stroh's beer on the roof.
  
  
• After the film gained popularity, Ted Turner sold the television rights to TNT, his own network, for much lower than normal for such a big film. Because it is so inexpensive to show, the film is broadcast on TNT extremely often.
  
  
• Voted #1 Must See Movie of all time by listeners of Capital FM in London.
  
  
• Voted #1 movie of all time by the Empire magazine.
  
  
• The man sitting behind Gil Bellows (Tommy Williams) on the bus is Dennis Baker, a former warden of the Mansfield State Penitentiary, where the primary filming took place.
  
  
• An agent who apparently hadn't done much research requested an audition for his supermodel client for the role of Rita Hayworth.
  
  
• At the end of the movie, there is a dedication to 'Allen Greene (II)' . He was Frank Darabont's agent and also a close personal friend. He died just before the completion of the movie due to AIDS complications.
  
  
• Stephen King has said that his original novella, which the film very faithfully adapts, was a culmination of all the memories he had from watching prison movies when he was a child.
  
  
• The town of Mansfield held all day open auditions for extras. So much interest was shown that they accepted no more people after 3pm.
  
  
• The close up of Andy's hands loading the revolver in the opening scenes are actually the hands of Frank Darabont. Later in the film while Andy carves his name into his cell wall (seen twice in the film), Darabont's hands are used as well in the insert shot. These close ups were inserts that were filmed during post production, notably because Darabont felt that only he could do exactly what he wanted in the close ups.
  
  
• Director Frank Darabont watched Goodfellas (1990) every Sunday while shooting Shawshank and drew inspiration from it on using voice-over narration and showing the passage of time.
  
  
• The Shawshank prison, in the book and in the movie, was loosely based on Thomaston prison, an aging prison located in Thomaston, Maine. That real life prison closed in 2004 due to its small size and dilapidated structure.
  
  
• The role of Andy Dufresne was originally offered to Tom Hanks, who couldn't accept due to scheduling conflicts with Forrest Gump (1994). Hanks did, however, work on Frank Darabont's next film, The Green Mile (1999).
  
  
• Kevin Costner turned down the role of Andy Dufresne, a decision he strongly regretted later on.
  
  
• Frank Darabont wrote the script in eight weeks.
  
  
• In the scene where Andy arrives in the library as Brooks' assistant and Brooks' crow Jake is squawking, Tim Robbins had to time his line, "Hey, Jake. Where's Brooks?", so that the crow wouldn't squawk over his line, since the bird could not be trained to squawk on cue. Robbins was able to adapt to this and time his line perfectly from learning the bird's patterns in squawking, for which Director Frank Darabont praised him. Robbins's improvisation is noticeable, and we can see that when he walks into the room right up to the crow, he waits a short moment for it to squawk while looking at it, and then proceeds with his line after it does so.
  
  
• Tim Robbins thought of the idea of his character, Andy Dufresne, turning up the volume of the record player in the scene where he plays the Opera music over the PA.
  
  
• The opera song that Andy Dufresne plays over the loud speakers is Canzonetta sull'aria from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro.
  
  
• Director Frank Darabont decided not to have the deleted scenes on the DVD release of the film because he's embarrassed of them and doesn't want them to be able to be seen publicly
  
  
• While Mansfield locals were eager to be extras, many weren't available during the day due to their jobs or were only available for one day, which obviously wouldn't work in a prison film. So extras were found at a halfway house, some of them real-life ex-cons.
  
  
• Clancy Brown, who plays Captain Hadley in this film, played another character named Captain Hadley in The Guardian (2006/I).
  
  
• Since filming schedule was very tight in Mansfield Ohio anyone who held up production time were threatened to be fined. Both Tim Robbins and William Sadler showed up late once but where never fined. Filming in Mansfield finished ahead of schedule.
  
  
• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #72 Greatest Movie of All Time. It was the first inclusion of this film on the list.
  
  
• Rob Reiner loved Frank Darabont's script so much that he offered $2.5 million for the rights to the script so he could direct it. Darabont seriously considered Reiner's offer but ultimately decided that it was his "chance to do something really great" by directing the movie himself. Reiner wanted Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise to play Red and Andy respectively.
  
  
• When Andy first gets reassigned to the prison library, the first officer who comes to him for investment help approaches him by saying, "I'm Dekins." Roger Deakins was the cinematographer for the movie. While this is the case, Frank Darabont wrote the character Dekins into the original script before he hired his crew, as the same character was in the novella, and the different way of spelling confirms this.
  
  
• Clancy Brown said that he received several offers from real-life corrections officers to work with him to make his portrayal of Captain Hadley more realistic. Brown turned them all down because Hadley was an evil character and he didn't want to misrepresent real corrections officers.
  
  
• This movie is translated in Taiwan as "1995: Fantastic" (for this movie is released in Taiwan in 1995", which disappointed many viewers for they thought it would be an action movie.
  
  

• SPOILER: There are several similarities to the Alexandre Dumas père novel, "The Count of Monte Cristo" (which is also mentioned during the film). The Dumas novel involved a man falsely imprisoned for a crime, who later makes a daring escape. After escaping, he acquired hidden treasure which he learned about in jail, and executed a plan of revenge against those who imprisoned him.
  
  
• SPOILER: In the scene after Andy has escaped, the warden wants them to question Red. When they call to open Red's cell they shout, "Open 237!" This is the same number as the room in The Shining (1980) and the amount of change ($2.37) the four boys in Stand by Me (1986) collect between them. All three movies were based on Stephen King stories
  
  
• SPOILER: When Warden Samuel Norton opens the Bible where Andy Dufresne hid his rock pick, it opens to the Book of Exodus, which details the redemption of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt.
  
  
• SPOILER: The candy tin with money and a letter that Andy buries features a picture of the ocean liner The Queen Mary. It was issued in the 1950s as part of a series by a British company called Benson's.
  
  
• SPOILER: Zihuatanejo, the Mexican paradise where Andy and Red go after prison actually exists. It is a tourist city in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero.
  
  

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