Trivia for
Boogie Nights (1997)

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• The opening scene is three minutes long, taken in a single camera shot, beginning in the street where Jack Horner and Amber Waves drive up and follow them as they get out of the car and walk into a night club. Most of the characters in the movie are introduced in this shot.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Paul Thomas Anderson] [long shot] The opening shot, which is almost three minutes long, begins out in the street and continues into the club and goes around the room a couple of times without a single cut.
  
  
• 40 seconds of film were cut to reduce the original NC-17 rating to an R.
  
  

• Before the film was finished, Director Paul Thomas Anderson sent a rough copy to New Line Cinema for them to do the trailer for the film. The movie was pirated and distributed before it was released. The pirated work print includes many scenes not in the movie or DVD deleted scenes and were possibly deleted to avoid the NC-17 rating- as some are very explicit.
  
  
• The cast had to learn some of the popular dance steps of the period and were coached by choreographer Adam Shankman.
  
  
• Buck Swope refers to a "TK421 modification" he wants to make on his stereo. TK421 is the serial number of the stormtrooper that Luke Skywalker impersonated on the Death Star in Star Wars (1977).
  
  
• The name "Amber Waves" was used once before for a fictional porn star: in an episode of the TV series "Night Court" (1984).
  
  
• Johnny Doe was based on porn actor Dick Rambone, who was hailed as the new John Holmes. Johnny Doe was based on porn star Jeff Stryker, and there was also a porn actor named Jon Dough. "Johnny Doe" was a combination of Stryker's look and Dough's name.
  
  
• The character Dirk played in his first movie was "John", a reference to real-life porn legend John Holmes, upon whom Dirk's character was based. Dirk mentioned that he had just came back from the Marines, and Holmes actually served some time in the army.
  
  
• Dirk Diggler mentions John Holmes and one of his characters, Johnny Wadd, in the scene when he proposes the idea of a serial porn detective story (with the characters of Brock Landers and Chest Rockwell) to Jack. Dirk says, "I don't want to do stuff like Holmes is doing with his Johnny Wadd character, hitting women and stuff. That just ain't right." This leads the viewer to believe that Dirk and Holmes are rivals in the industry, not that Dirk is a direct representation of Holmes.
  
  
• In the beginning of the movie when Jack Horner first notices Eddie, there are "stars" in the background.
  
  
• The character "Buck Swope" gets his last name from the Robert Downey Sr. film Putney Swope (1969), a favorite of director Paul Thomas Anderson.
  
  
• The entire film is based on the short film The Dirk Diggler Story (1988), also by Paul Thomas Anderson. It was a This Is Spinal Tap (1984)-like mockumentary, which would go on to be redone for the short "Dirk Diggler Story" in this film. In the original short film, Robert Ridgely, who plays The Colonel here, played Jack Horner. The man with whom Don Cheadle is talking in the stereo store is Michael Stein, who played Dirk Diggler. The original script was 300 pages, cut down to 180 pages.
  
  
• The song "The Touch," performed by Dirk Diggler, is originally from the film The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
  
  
• Little Bill's promiscuous wife is played by real-life porn star Nina Hartley.
  
  
• At the end of the movie Dirk is standing in front of a mirror. Suddenly he unzips his pants and exposes his rather large organ. It is a prosthetic device made from rubber.
  
  
• Amber Waves' custodial problems were inspired by porn star Veronica Hart, who plays the judge during the scene in which Amber and her husband are arguing in court about their son.
  
  
• Leonardo DiCaprio was originally offered the role of Dirk Diggler. He liked the screenplay but turned it down because he had already signed on to do Titanic (1997). However, it was DiCaprio who suggested Mark Wahlberg for the role.
  
  
• Warren Beatty and Sydney Pollack were originally offered the role of Jack Horner. Pollack attended the film's premiere and expressed regret for turning the role down.
  
  
• Vincent Gallo turned down the role of Dirk.
  
  
• According to an interview with Anderson, he and Burt Reynolds did not get along well during filming. Anderson still planned to hire Reynolds for Magnolia (1999) but Reynolds became angry with Anderson during the film's promotional tour and turned the role down.
  
  
• Gwyneth Paltrow was originally offered the role of Rollergirl but turned it down.
  
  
• Rumors of a Boogie Nights 2 being made are false. Paul Thomas Anderson has stated that he does not do sequels.
  
  
• Mark Wahlberg did keep a souvenir from the film, the infamous fake penis used in the final shot of the film. It was made from an easily biodegradable rubber and foam combination which, according to Wahlberg, has since already begun to deteriorate.
  
  
• A picture of Elliott Gould can be seen throughout the film in the background (notably in the first shot of the X-rated film).
  
  
• Paul Thomas Anderson used Exhausted: John C. Holmes, the Real Story (1981) (V), a documentary about John Holmes, as a reference for some of the scenes in this film. Many interview scenes, including one where a strung-out Dirk tells the interviewer about how Jack allows him to block and edit his own sex scenes, are exactly identical to the interviews in "Exhausted", especially one where the strung-out John Holmes, for no clear reason, lies about how Bob Chinn allows him to block his own sex scenes.
  
  
• The scene where Jessie (Melora Walters) enters a bar and first meets Dirk (Mark Wahlberg) is identical to a scene in "China Cat". The setting of the porn scene with Jessie and Dirk afterwords is identical to a scene in "Blond Fire".
  
  
• According to Boogie Nights' DVD commentary, Paul Thomas Anderson intended for further scenes involving Rahad Jackson, wherein after the bloody attempted robbery of his home, the police arrive, and Rahad gathers his weapons, ready to go out in a blaze of gunfire against the police.
  
  
• The scene where Dirk violently slaps a woman for insulting him is identical to a scene in "Tell Them Johnny Wadd is Here".
  
  
• Melora Walters plays a character named Jessie St. Vincent. That character name is based on two real porn figures, actress Jessie St. James and producer Julia St. Vincent.
  
  
• The donut shop where Buck Swope encounters the robbery is Miss Donuts on Sherman Way between Lindley Ave. and Reseda Blvd. Further down the street is a church that used to be a boxing ring and rock club, among other things, also between Reseda Blvd. and Lindley Ave. The nightclub exterior scenes were filmed there. The Reseda Theatre, the nightclub, the church, the dirt parking lot, the donut shop and the storefront where the kid gets beaten up are all on Sherman Way between Reseda and Lindley.
  
  
• Burt Reynolds apparently did the first day's shooting as Jack Horner using an Irish accent. By the next day, he was back to sounding like himself.
  
  
• During Rollergirl's final scene in the film, she's wearing headphones while she cleans her room. If you listen very carefully, you can hear she's listening to "Voices Carry" by Til Tuesday. The lead singer of Til Tuesday was Aimee Mann, who is married to Michael Penn, who performed original music for the film, and appears briefly as a music producer for Dirk and Reed.
  
  
• Because of his negative experience with a studio changing his film's title (see Sydney (1996)), Paul Thomas Anderson made sure that the title "Boogie Nights" was actually mentioned in the film.
  
  
• According to William H. Macy, his agent discouraged him from reading the script, but Macy did so, loved it, and signed to do the film.
  
  
• The Colonel (Robert Ridgely) can be seen laughing in the back of the shot when Floyd Gondoli (Philip Baker Hall) is trying to pitch Jack on changing to video. He starts right when Floyd describes his sexual turn-ons. Paul Thomas Anderson blurs the shot.
  
  
• The movie was banned in South Korea.
  
  
• Paul Thomas Anderson simulated the dialog in the fake porn movies by adapting actual dialog from real porn movies. He said he did so people could not say the porn dialog "sounded fake".
  
  
• The original oil painting of Dirk Diggler featured in the party scene at Dirk's house was sold on eBay in 2001 for $500 and is now hanging on the wall of a Boogie Nights fan/collector Ben Hove of Minneapolis.
  
  
• The story's timeline begins in 1977 (among other things, Reed Rothchild mentions Star Wars (1977)) and, while an exact year is not specified in the final few scenes, it is clear that it ends in 1984. Among other things, Jack Horner makes a reference to Buck and Jessie's baby as "an Olympic swimmer" (the Summer Olympics in 1984 were held in Los Angeles) and Dirk Diggler's outfit in the final scene is identical to the kind of clothes that Don Johnson wore on "Miami Vice" (1984) (which began airing on NBC in 1984).
  
  
• Besides the numerous other parallels/references to John Holmes in this film, the sequence where Dirk, Reed and Todd are at Rahad Jackson's house - an attempted scam involving drugs, a rich and violent man, and a robbery plot that turns into a scene of bloodshed--is a reference to the Wonderland murders that centered around Holmes and gangster Eddie Nash in real life.
  
  
• Burt Reynolds did research by hanging around real porn sets. He said all the porn actors asked him the same question: how to get a Screen Actors Guild card.
  
  
• There was a deleted scene when Dirk Diggler crashes his Corvette into a telephone booth. The scene had to be deleted because of time, but the car still remains wrecked when Dirk visits Rahad Jackson's house, drives away, and drives back to Jack's house. When Dirk and Reed are conspiring to rob Rahad's house, Dirk also says, "That'll be enough to get the 'Vette fixed."
  
  
• Dirk Diggler's habit of preparing for his scenes in the bathroom is also based on John Holmes, who said he liked to rehearse in bathrooms because "it's usually the only room in the house that has a lock on the door".
  
  
• Although the movie's title is the same title as the 1977 disco hit by Heatwave, lead singer Johnny Wilder refused to allow the song in the movie because the song was about dancing, not pornography.
  
  
• While Paul Thomas Anderson always intended that Melora Walters should play Jessie St. Vincent, the studio wanted a bigger name for the part. He offered the role to Patricia Arquette, knowing she would decline, and the role ultimately went to Walters.
  
  
• At the end of the film, T.T. Rodriguez and his brothers' sign for the nightclub is misspelled as Rodriquez. This joke wasn't planned in advance. Paul Thomas Anderson misspelled Rodriguez in the screenplay and decided to make the scene funny.
  
  
• Samuel L. Jackson was offered the role of Buck Swope.
  
  
• Many porn stars and porn directors and producers of the actual time the film was based on discouraged the film, saying it was inaccurate for the popularity Dirk achieved, and explaining in the late '70s filming porn was illegal.
  
  
• After seeing a rough cut of the film, Burt Reynolds regretted making it and fired his agent for recommending the role to him. Reynolds ended up winning a Golden Globe and being nominated for an Academy Award for his performance.
  
  
• Electric Light Orchestra leader Jeff Lynne originally refused to let the song "Livin' Thing" be used in the film because he has "a problem with sex and violence in movies". Lynne asked to see a screening of the film and loved it so much that he allowed the song to be used.
  
  
• The word 'fuck' and its derivatives are used 165 times in this film.
  
  
• Burt Reynolds said in a Maxim magazine interview that when he researched his role by visiting porn sets and talking with real porn actors, and that experience made him want to wear rubber gloves and take a shower afterwards.
  
  

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