Cate Blanchett as: Daisy
Directed by: David Fincher
Selected Cast: Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton & Jason Flemyng
Written by: Eric Roth & F. Scott Fitzgerald
Release Year: 2008
Genre: Drama / Fantasy / Mystery / Romance
MPAA Rating: PG-13

On the day that Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, elderly Daisy Williams is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital. At her side is her adult daughter, Caroline. Daisy asks Caroline to read to her aloud the diary of Daisy’s lifelong friend, Benjamin Button. Benjamin’s diary recounts his entire extraordinary life, the primary unusual aspect of which was his aging backwards, being diagnosed with several aging diseases at birth and thus given little chance of survival, but who does survive and gets younger with time. Abandoned by his biological father, Thomas Button, after Benjamin’s biological mother died in childbirth, Benjamin was raised by Queenie, a black woman and caregiver at a seniors home. Daisy’s grandmother was a resident at that home, which is where she first met Benjamin. Although separated through the years, Daisy and Benjamin remain in contact throughout their lives…

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• Coming soon!

• Coming soon!

• Daisy: “You’re so young.”
Benjamin Button: “Only on the outside.”

• Benjamin Button: “I was thinking how nothing lasts, and what a shame that is.”
Daisy: “Some things last.”

• Daisy: “Would you still love me if I were old and saggy?”
Benjamin Button: “Would you still love ME if I were young and had acne? When I’m afraid of what’s under the bed? Or if I end up wetting the bed?”

• Daisy: “Sleep with me.”
Benjamin Button: “Absolutely.”

• Daisy: “I wanna remember us just as we are now.”

• Daisy: “And in the spring, 2003, he looked at me. And I knew, that he knew, who I was. And then he closed his eyes, as if to go to sleep.”

• Daisy: “I promise you, I’ll never lose myself to self-pity again.”

• Daisy: “We all end up in diapers.”

• Daisy: “Loving you is worth everything to me… I have to go pee.”

• Filmed in USA, Cambodia, Canada and India (view all.)

• Won 3 Oscars. Another 31 wins & 72 nominations (view all.)

• Also known as ‘The Curious Case’ and ‘Benjamin Button’.

• Cate starred in the movie Babel (2006) with Brad Pitt as well.

• Cate also starred in the movie Babel (2006) with Elle Fanning.

• Many actors has been rumoured or attached to star as Benjamin during the years the film has been in talks. For example Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Jack Nicholson.

• Also several directors were attached to this film, such as Steven Spielberg, Spike Jonze, Ron Howard and Frank Marshall.

• Rachel Weisz was considered for the role of Daisy, but turned down because of scheduling conflicts with the different filming dates of the film and then Cate got the part.

• Early development of the film began in 1994.

• The original setting for the film was to be Baltimore, the city of the short story the movie is based on. David Fincher and Eric Roth changed the location to New Orleans when the studio requested they film there to take advantage of the state’s filming discount.

• The musical in which Daisy performs and that Benjamin watches is Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s ‘Carousel‘ The performance is the dream ballet choreographed by Agnes de Mille. Daisy was talking to Benjamin about Agnes de Mille in their previous meeting.

• The character of Daisy was named Hildegarde Moncrief in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s original short story. The name change is likely a nod to the female lead in Fitzgerald’s best-known work, The Great Gatsby (1974).

• When Daisy grew up and met Benjamin for the second time, she talked about “Kismet”, an English word of Turkish origin that means “predestined fate” and “fortune/destiny, as foretold by Providence”.

• Daisy reveals her age in 1967 as 43. She was born in 1924.

• During one scene, Benjamin can be seen reading Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Ivanhoe’ which is also the name of the Melbourne suburb where Cate grew up.

• Julia Ormond filmed her scenes last, two weeks before end of shooting. During that period, Cate had to undergo 4 hours of daily makeup to play a near-dead Daisy. She could only lie on the hospital bed for a short period of time due to excessive heat generated by studio lights and the blankets.

• As Benjamin watches Daisy in the ballet, he says via narration he’d never seen New York before that. Earlier in the film as he describes his tugboat route, the Statue of Liberty can clearly be seen in the background. However, this indicates he only saw New York in passing.

• Elle Fanning (Daisy age 7) and Cate Blanchett (adult Daisy) have blue eyes, but Madisen Beaty (Daisy age 10) doesn’t.

• The reflection of camera and crew in a red car as the camera follows Daisy as she walks out and down the street of the old peoples home.

• When Daisy and Benjamin reunite and take off for the Florida Keys, the pictures include beach scenes with mountains in the background. There are no mountains in the Florida Keys.

• During the scenes in the hospital room, the reading on the IV pump connected to Daisy is always 968 mL.

• In 1945, Benjamin goes to dinner with Daisy, and the man who lights her cigarette uses a slim Zippo, which weren’t in production until around the early-mid 50s. Also is Daisy smoking a filter cigarette. Filter cigarettes were not available until several years later.

• When Daisy dances by the lake after dinner with Benjamin her coat that she drops to the ground is moved between various shots of her dancing.

• The characters of Benjamin and Daisy both have blue eyes (a recessive trait), yet they have a daughter with brown eyes (a dominant trait). Biology tells you that two people with a recessive trait can have a child with a dominant trait when multiple alleles are involved.