Trivia for
American History X (1998) More at IMDbPro »

• Edward Norton was said to have re-edited the film to lengthen his screen time. Director Tony Kaye then attempted to get his name removed but violated a Directors' Guild of America rule that states that directors that use pseudonyms (such as "Alan Smithee") must not talk about why they had their name removed - which Tony Kaye had done in ads in Variety. Kaye sued the DGA and New Line Cinema for $200 million stating that the DGA rule violated his first amendment rights.
  
  
• Seth wears a shirt during the basketball game featuring the number 88. This is a naziskin code for HH, or "Heil Hitler," H being the 8th letter of the alphabet. It also refers to a set of 88 precepts written by the neo-nazi leader David Lane. The 88 precepts are rules and concepts that all White Supremacists lived by.
  
  
• The punk band Anti-Heroes sued New Line Cinema over a character's tattoo featuring the band. The band did not want to be associated with Nazis, even fictional ones, in any way. The band went on to record a song called "NLC" that debases the film studio.
  
  
• Edward Norton gained 30 pounds of muscle for his role.
  
  
• According to the book Cinematic Century, Tony Kaye's lawsuit against the studio over the use of his name in the credits was for $275 million.
  
  
• This film uses the word "fuck" 205 times.
  
  
• The diner that Danny and Derek get breakfast before Danny goes to school in the morning is the same diner that is used in The Big Lebowski (1998), during the infamous "toe" scene.
  
  
• The quotation that concludes Danny's paper is from the closing words of Abraham Lincoln's first Inaugural Address in 1861.
  
  
• Director Tony Kaye wanted his credit to read "Humpty Dumpty" according to Entertainment Weekly.
  
  
• The café that Edward Norton and his brother eat at is on Wilshire and Fairfax in Los Angeles. The café is actually Johnny's, which is only open for filming.
  
  
• The character of Cameron Alexander is based on Tom Metzger, leader of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), an extremist white supremacy group based in southern California.
  
  
• In the midst of the dispute about the time he was taking to edit the film, Director Tony Kaye attended a meeting with Michael De Luca (then New Line's senior product president). Kaye arranged for a Rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Buddhist monk to be present at the meeting to support his argument and "make the meeting a more spiritual one".
  
  
• Marlon Brando turned down Stacy Keach's role.
  
  

Related Links