Trivia for
Blood Diamond (2006)

photos

board

trailer

details

• Jennifer Connelly suffered a neck injury while filming a car chase scene with Leonardo DiCaprio.
  
  
• The attack helicopter seen near the end of the film is a Mi-24 SuperHind Mk IV. The helicopter started life as a Russian Mi-24 (NATO designation "Hind") but underwent an extensive upgrade program by Advanced Technology and Engineering, a South African arms company. Upgrades include improvements to avionics, weapons systems, and counter measures.
  
  
• The white transport helicopter Danny Archer, Solomon Vandy, and Maddy Bowen fly to the refugee camp in is a Russian Mi-8 (NATO designation "Hip-P").
  
  

• The airplane that Maddy Bowen boards at Colonel Coetzee's camp is a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 (NATO designation "Candid"). It was mostly likely the Il-76TF, which is the civilian transport variant.
  
  
• Solomon's son's name is Dia, which means "expensive" in Krio, the adapted language of Sierra Leone.
  
  
• Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe were Edward Zwick's first two choices for the role of Danny Archer.
  
  
• When Danny Archer arrives in South Africa, there are two women standing in front of the airport and he walks by them. These women are Leonardo DiCaprio's mother and grandmother.
  
  
• The pistol Danny Archer uses towards the end of the film is a Heckler & Koch USP.
  
  
• In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio has a tattoo of an African Buffalo with two crossed arrows on his shoulder, this is the unit emblem of 32 Battalion sometimes called the "Buffalo Battalion".
  
  
• The character of Colonel Coetzee has several lines of Afrikaans dialogue, which is also actor Arnold Vosloo's first language.
  
  
• DiCaprio's character claims that if he found the diamond he would leave the continent and never come back. He also played the character of Howard Hughes in The Aviator, in which he also claims that if his plane (the Spruce Goose) doesn't fly, he would leave the US and never come back.
  
  
• Djimon Hounsou plays Solomon Vandy, a Mende tribesman. In the movie Amistad he plays the role of Cinque, chief of the Mende tribe.
  
  
• De Beers Group, which is the largest player in the diamond trade, has expressed reservations that the film will reduce public demand for diamonds. De Beers maintains the trade in conflict diamonds has been reduced from 4% to 1% by the Kimberley Process and it has been suggested the company pushed for the film to contain a disclaimer saying the events are fictional and in the past. De Beers has denied this.
  
  

• SPOILER: According to Time Magazine (March 2, 2007), a computer generated tear was added to Jennifer Connelly’s face in the scene were she is conversing on a cell phone with Leonardo Dicaprio's character, at the end of the movie.
  
  

Related Links