Trivia for
"Six Feet Under" (2001) More at IMDbPro »

• Caskets for the show are made by ABC Caskets in Los Angeles.
  
  
• Peter Krause (Nate Fisher) originally auditioned for the part of David, as he was impressed by the political/human rights message that the role had and he wanted to stand up for the character. However, the creator, Alan Ball had found the role of Nate Fisher impossible to cast, and was impressed by Krause and his tangible chemistry with Rachel Griffiths (Brenda Chenowith).
  
  
• Juliette Lewis auditioned for the role of Brenda.
  
  
• Within a week of the first episode being aired, HBO renewed the show for a second season.
  
  
• In the credits of the pilot episode, you see a pallbearer who has a skeleton ring on his finger. The ring was digitally-erased from the credit opening thereafter.
  
  
• Frances Conroy is not quite 12 years older than Peter Krause, whose mother she plays on the show.
  
  
• The pilot episode features several spoof commercials for funeral homes and products. This was intended to be a recurring feature throughout the series but was dropped after the first episode.
  
  
• Unusually, the title sequence was created after the theme music had been composed (generally, it's the other way round).
  
  
• Alan Ball was inspired to write this series after losing his sister.
  
  
• The lone tree in the opening sequence does not actually stand on the hill shown. It was dug up from someone's back yard, and placed there for the purposes of capturing the shot.
  
  
• Set in Los Angeles because, according to series creator Alan Ball, LA is the "world capital of the denial of death".
  
  
• Fisher & Sons funeral home is actually the Filippino Historical Society in LA in real life.
  
  
• Michael C. Hall's first screen role. He had confined himself to the New York stage prior to "Six Feet Under". The first scene he shot was in the pilot episode when David goes to the morgue to collect his father's body.
  
  
• Rachel Griffiths had read the script and had indicated to the production that she was very interested in playing Brenda. The producers' only real concern was whether she could pull off a convincing American accent. When Griffiths flew over from Australia to meet them, she arrived complete with perfect accent, and got the part.
  
  
• Dina Waters, who plays David's wannabe girlfriend Tracy in the first season, tested for the part of Brenda.
  
  
• Alan Ball had 13 days to shoot the pilot episode, something which caused him a degree of anxiety, seeing as he had never directed before.
  
  
• Kathy Bates, who directed two episodes in Season 1, would appear in an acting capacity from Season 3 on as Ruth's friend Bettina.
  
  
• Nikolai's flower shop actually is a real flower shop at 14325 Ventura Blvd and was once a gas station. It was in fact the gas station that James Dean filled up at the day he left out of town on his way to the crash that would kill him (there is a color photo of him at the station about to get back behind the wheel in fact).
  
  
• Alan Ball's cousin suffered from an arteriovenous malformation, which was the inspiration for the same ailment that afflicts Nate at the end of the first season.
  
  
• Freddy Rodríguez's real son Giancarlo Rodriguez plays Rico's on-screen son Julio.
  
  
• Alan Ball specifically wrote the role of Federico Diaz for actor 'Freddy Rodriguez'.
  
  
• Nate's (and his father's) middle name is Samuel.
  
  
• David's middle name is James (he introduces himself to potential dates in the first season as a lawyer, which he secretly wanted to be, named Jim).
  
  
• Claire's middle name is Simone. Ruth's and Lisa's middle names are never mentioned, but their maiden names are O'Connor and Kemmel, respectively.
  
  
• Keith's middle name is Dwayne. Brenda has no middle name.
  
  
• Rico's first name is Hector; Federico is his middle name.
  
  
• The difference in ages among the Fisher siblings differs somewhat from that of the actors who portrayed them: Nate was born in 1965, like actor Peter Krause; but David was born in 1968, while Michael C. Hall was born in 1971; Claire was born in 1983, while Lauren Ambrose was born in 1978. So, while there's a 15-year hiatus between the births of the brothers and the sister as characters (and it's relevant to the story), the actors' actual birth dates are roughly equidistant.
  
  
• Ranked #27 on Empire magazine's 50 Greatest TV Shows Of All Time (2008).
  
  
• Mena Suvari appears in seven episodes of season four as Claire's friend from art school, Edie. She previously starred in another Alan Ball creation, American Beauty (1999).
  
  
• Both actresses who played Nate's mothers-in-law starred in Ridley Scott's cult science fiction movies. Veronica Cartwright (Peg Kimmel) played helmsman Lambert in Alien (1979) and Joanna Cassidy (Margaret Chenowith) played replicant Zhora in Blade Runner (1982).
  
  
• Anna Faris auditioned for the role of Claire Fisher, but according to Faris she was laughed off by the casting director.
  
  

Related Links