Trivia for
Rushmore (1998) More at IMDbPro »

• During the casting process, the film makers went to different New England private schools, mostly in Massachusetts, looking for a student to play Max Fisher.
  
  
• One of the main filming locations was Wes Anderson's former high school, St. John's School, in Houston, Texas. He hired some of the students from the school to play extras and even some major speaking roles.
  
  
• The two schools used as sets in the movie, St. John's School (Rushmore) and Lamar High School (Grover Cleveland) occupy the same city block in Houston, Texas.
  
  
• The movie's line "Yeah, I was in the shit." was voted as the #56 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
  
  
• In the scene where Ms. Cross and Max feed the fish and talk about deaths of loved ones, Jason Schwartzman (Max) had to stand on boxes so he could be the same height as Olivia Williams (Ms. Cross).
  
  
• The pictures of Ms. Cross' dead husband in her bedroom are pictures of co-writer Owen Wilson.
  
  
• The Bentley used in the film was used in exchange for the owner's daughter to appear in the film.
  
  
• Max's play, "Heaven and Hell", contains several references to Apocalypse Now (1979).
  
  
• Rosemary takes a job at a girls' private school called "The Webster Smalley School for Girls". Webster Smalley is well known for teaching playwriting at the University of Texas at Austin, which Wes Anderson and 'Owen Wilson' both attended.
  
  
• In the scene of the signing of the petition to save Latin, actor Thayer McClanahan (playing one of Max's friends) can be seen to sign his own name on the petition.
  
  
• When Bill Murray first read the script, he thought it was so fantastic that he said he wanted to do it so badly he would do it for free.
  
  
• The scene where Max Fischer rats to Mrs. Blume about her husband's affair (when his voice gets drowned out by the sounds on the street) is an obvious reference to the scene in On the Waterfront (1954), where Marlon Brando's character finally confronts Eva Marie Saint's character.
  
  
• Before Max's play "Heaven and Hell" began, actress Alexis Bledel of "Gilmore Girls" (2000) can be seen sitting in the audience.
  
  
• In a shot of Max's petition to save Latin, the names of Jason Schwartzman's band mates from Phantom Planet (Alex Greenwald, Jacques Brautbar, 'Sam Farrar', and 'Darren Robinson'), as well as the name of the band's manager ('Dan Field') can be seen in the middle of the left column.
  
  
• The quote on Max's mother's headstone, "The paths of glory lead but to the grave" is from the Thomas Gray poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (line 36) This same quote was the second clue to the treasure in the Disney film Candleshoe (1977) starring Jodie Foster and Helen Hayes. Touchstone is a division of the Disney Co.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Wes Anderson] [peanuts] Max's dad is a barber, as was Charlie Brown's & "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz's. Max flies a kite, which Charlie Brown was often seen attempting. Max is seen wearing a winter cap and carrying a plant, similar to a scene with Charlie Brown in A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) (TV). In the beginning of the "December" sequence in the barber shop, a musical interlude from A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) (TV) can be heard playing in the background.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Wes Anderson] [underwater shot] Shot of one or more of the characters underwater.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Wes Anderson] [[mid-shot speed change] The last scene changes from normal speed to slow-motion.]
  
  
• In the scene where Max is picking up a crate of explosives, he shows the clerk his I.D. and tells him to "make it out to Ready Demolition, Tucson, Arizona". This is a reference to Val Kilmer's first scene in Heat (1995).
  
  
• Bill Murray's character wears the same suit throughout the entire film. He just changes his shirt and tie, which are always the same color as each other.
  
  
• Bill Murray genuinely found the McCawley brothers, the two actors playing his sons and who were very much like their screen characters, annoying and many of the scenes where he lashes out at them and insults them were improvised.
  
  
• A shot of Max Fischer sitting on a go-kart wearing a pair of goggles (and featured on the back cover of the UK DVD) is a recreation of a photograph taken in 1909 by French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue, a child prodigy who started taking photographs at the age of 6. The two people go carting in the background are director Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson.
  
  
• In the geometry class Max dreams about during the school chapel/assembly, he solves a problem on the board - this problem is to derive the area of an ellipse by integrating its equation. Not a high school problem, but definitely not the hardest geometry problem in the world.
  
  
• The first voice that appears in the film and tries to solve the problem to the equation in Max's dream scene is Wes Anderson's.
  
  
• Some of Jacques Henri Lartigue's photographs, including the picture that inspired the mock of Max in a go-cart, are featured on the wall behind Max's desk in the opening scene. The title of the photo is 'Zissou's bobsled with wheels, after the bend by the gate, Rouzat, August 1908.' Bill Murray's character in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) is 'Steve Zissou'.
  
  
• The book Max is reading at the beginning of the movie is "Diving for Sunken Treasure" by Jacques Yves Cousteau who was the main inspiration for Wes Anderson's later film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
  
  
• Wes Anderson had originally envisioned Noah Taylor for the role of Max Fischer. Though Jason Schwartzman won the role, Anderson eventually worked with Taylor on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004).
  
  
• The book that Miss Cross is reading to her students when Max first sees her is Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, which follows the growth of David Balfour from a naive young boy to a heroic, experienced man.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Wes Anderson] [Rolling Stones] Features "I Am Waiting".
  
  
• The speech about privilege that Bill Murray gives at the beginning of the film was inspired by an actual speech once given by Robert Wilson, father of Andrew Wilson, Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Wes Anderson] ["put"] In Max's stage production of Serpico (1973), someone says, "Joe, go put a dime in the meter for Officer Serpico."
  
  

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