Trivia for
The Company (2003) More at IMDbPro »

• Robert Altman turned down numerous offers to the movie, but Neve Campbell continued to insist and Altman eventually gave in.
  
  
• Whilst developing the screenplay with Barbara Turner, producer-star Neve Campbell kept referring to it as "Altmanesque". She didn't for a minute think that Robert Altman would be interested, especially as he was just coming off the back of the successful Gosford Park (2001). She was very surprised then to learn that Altman was a personal friend of Turner's for many years.
  
  
• Robert Altman's first foray into High Definition Video.
  
  
• Robert Altman shot 10 ballets in full specially for the film.
  
  
• Ballets Shown : - Light Rain: Choreography by Gerald Arpino - Tensile Involvement: Choreography by Alwin Nikolais - Suite Saint-Saëns: Choreography by Gerald Arpino - My Funny Valentine: Choreography by Lar Lubovitch - Creative Force: Choreography by Laura Dean - Trinity: Choreography by Gerald Arpino - Strange Prisoners: Choreography by Davis C. Robertson - La Vivandi È Re Pas De Six: Choreography by 'Arthur Saint-Léon';transcribed by Ann Hutchinson Guest - White Widow: Choreography by Moses Pendleton and Cynthia Quinn - Momix The Blue Snake: Choreography by Robert Desrosiers
  
  
• Neve Campbell, a trained ballet dancer, went through four months of ballet training (8 hours a day) to get in shape for this movie.
  
  
• Robert Altman was initially not interested in doing a film set in the world of ballet, but his curiosity was piqued and he subsequently relented.
  
  
• Neve Campbell lost thousands of dollars of her own money to ensure that her fellow cast members received their wages.
  
  
• As screenwriter Barbara Turner knew next to nothing about the world of dance, she hung out with the Joffrey Ballet Company for several weeks, during their rehearsals and while they were out socializing.
  
  
• Malcolm McDowell and James Franco both leapt at the chance to work on a film with Altman.
  
  
• James Franco, who plays a sous chef in the film, studied for his part by working at the upscale Chicago bistro, Marche.
  
  
• This film features Neve Campbell's first semi-nude scene.
  
  
• The spikes on Neve Campbell's bizarre blue costume for one of the dances she performs were made out of Styrofoam.
  
  
• The Malcolm McDowell character, Alberto Antonelli, is heavily based on the Joffrey Ballet's longtime artistic director, Gerald ("Jerry") Arpino. Like Arpino, Antonelli is an Italian American former dancer who has gone on to run a prominent Chicago dance company (the chastising speech that Antonelli gives to an Italian-American audience while receiving an award was taken nearly verbatim from an awards speech of Arpino's). Many of Antonelli's turns of phrase in the script were taken from Arpino's speech patterns, as was his habit of watching rehearsals while sitting backwards in a white, open-backed chair that was reserved only for him.
  
  
• When Antonelli lists the names of dancers who had died of AIDS, the names are all of real-life men. The first dancer he mentions, Eddie Stierle, was a lead Joffrey dancer and promising choreographer who died in 1991 at the age of 23; Stierle's mother attended the premiere of The Company (2003). The "Bob" who Antonelli lists was Robert ("Bob") Joffrey, the founder of the dance troupe depicted in this movie and the longtime professional and romantic partner of Gerald Arpino, who was the basis for the Antonelli character.
  
  
• Suzanne Lopez's real-life wedding reception was the first footage shot for the movie.
  
  
• Neve Campbell's character Ry was based on the life story of Joffrey dancer Trinity Hamilton (who appears as a corps member in the movie). The Goth club that Ry works in is the actual club where Hamilton worked to earn extra money and have some time away from the company. When Ry and Josh watch a video of one of Ry's recitals when she was a little girl, it is actually one of Hamilton's home videos showing Hamilton dancing as a girl.
  
  

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