1:26PM, Oct 23, 2008
They are the most fascinating of Hollywood's filmmakers, and they're back with another light comedy to follow up the darkness that was No Country For Old Men. Check out the fact syou didn't know you didn't know...
- The brothers often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias Roderick Jaynes.
- The facial expression of the husband of Marva (Irma P Hall) in the Ladykillers changes constantly during the course of the movie.
- Josh Brolin’s audition tape for No Country For Old Men was shot by Robert Rodriguez and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
- George Clooney agreed to star as Everett in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou without having read the script.
- Barton Fink was the first film to win all three major awards (Palme D'or, Best Director and Best Actor) at the Cannes Film Festival.
- Fifteen babies played the Arizona quintuplets in Raising Arizona (One of the babies was fired during production when he learned to walk).
- Joel and his wife – actress Frances McDormand – have adopted a son from Paraguay - Pedro McDormand Coen.
- Both Ethan and Joel have been nominated for nine Academy Awards, twice under their alias Roderick Jaynes, and have won two screenwriting awards - one for Fargo, and the other for No Country for Old Men.
- The senior thesis of Ethan Coen’s Princeton philosophy degree was a 41-page essay Two Views of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy.
- They are known in the film business as "the two-headed director", because actors can approach either brother with a question and get the same answer such is their shared vision.
- The neo-noir Man Who Wasn’t There was inspired by a 1940s barber’s poster the brothers saw while filming The Hudsucker Proxy.
- When they were children, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy a Vivitar Super 8 camera.
- Joel worked as an assistant editor on the cult Sam Raimi classic The Evil Dead.
- The brothers often use dogs that seem to have an understanding of what's happening.
- One of their first films as teenagers was entitled Henry Kissinger: Man On The Go.
- The voice of Holly Hunter, who had to turn down the role of Abby, is on Meurice’s telephone answering machine in the Coen’s debut Blood Simple.
- SpiderMan director Sam Raimi has as cameo in Miller’s Crossing as the hood with two pistols during the Sons of Erin Club gunfight.
- The pilot of a TV show based on Fargo was filmed starring Edie Falco as Marge Gunderson and directed by Kathy Bates.
- The brothers used a photo of a brothel patron taken in 1879 as a model for Anton Chigurh's hair style in No Country For Old Men.
- In Burn After Reading the expletive "f**k" is uttered 60 times, including six times in the first two minutes.
