Trivia for
Witness (1985) More at IMDbPro »

• The original screenplay focused on Rachel, but director Peter Weir asked screenwriters William Kelley and Earl W. Wallace to rewrite it to focus on the comparison of pacifism and violence as seen through the eyes of John Book.
  
  
• Rachel tells Book "You know carpentry." He replies "A bit..." Harrison Ford was a carpenter before he became famous as an actor.
  
  
• In the scene where Book sits down to early morning breakfast with the Lapps, he quips, "Honey, that's a great cup of coffee," shocking Rachel by seeming to refer to her as "honey". He then explains that this was a joke, from some commercial. Among the personal quotes for Harrison Ford appears the basis for this line when the actor was commenting on the early days of his career: "I started by chasing a Folger's commercial. But I just somehow couldn't manage to say, 'Honey, that's a great cup of coffee'".
  
  
• In the shooting script, Danny Glover's character is named "McElroy".
  
  
• David Cronenberg was originally asked to direct.
  
  
• Before building the barn an Amish man says to Harrison Ford, "I hear you are a carpenter." Ford answers, "It's been a while." Ford was a carpenter before he went acting.
  
  
• Shot on the Paul Krantz farm in Strasburg Pennsylvania.
  
  
• This film was released in early 1985. It was the number two film at the box office behind the enormous hit Beverly Hills Cop (1984). Even though this film made money, a Paramount executive said that if they had known "Cop" was going to be such a big hit, they would not have released this film so soon after it.
  
  
• An advertiser wanted to capture the look of this film for a TV commercial for his product. When he interviewed directors of photography, he told them he wanted the look of this film. One of the people interviewed was John Seale, the director of photography for this film. Seale did not get the job.
  
  
• Viggo Mortensen's feature film debut.
  
  
• An actual barn was built as a result of the shooting of the barn-raising scene, but it was torn-down shortly afterwards.
  
  
• The climax at the final scene was inspired in part by High Noon (1952), in which an outnumbered man takes out his foes one by one, using his wits and ingenuity.
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone turned down the role of John Book.
  
  
• Jack Nicholson was considered for the role of John Book.
  
  
• Dedicated to Tom Scott.
  
  
• Theatrical trailer features a scene not used in the film. In it Book tells Schaeffer that there was a witness while sitting in a police car.
  
  
• The "evening serenade" scene in the barn, in which Book and Rachel dance, was actually filmed during the day in the heat of the summer. The barn was blacked out and sealed, and that's why both Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis perspire so much in that scene. The kerosene lantern they had added even more heat.
  
  
• The song for the "serenade" scene, "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke, was selected by Harrison Ford himself. Director Peter Weir said that since Ford had to sing and dance to it, he should be able to choose which song he wanted to use for that scene.
  
  
• As realistic as the actors playing background roles as Amish people are, no actual Amish were in the film because they do not (as is correctly stated in the film itself) like to have their pictures taken. They were intensely interested in the filming, though, and many Amish people were often out of camera range politely watching the filming.
  
  
• In preparation for her role, Kelly McGillis lived with an actual Amish widow and her seven children for a period of time before filming began to get the speech cadence down and to observe the daily life of an Amish widowed mother.
  
  
• The story for Witness was originally a plot outline for the TV series "Gunsmoke" (1955). The writers William Kelley and Earl W. Wallace had both been writers on Gunsmoke and their original story had Marshall Dillon traveling to an Amish farm looking for a witness to a murder.
  
  
• Both Harrison Ford and director Peter Weir developed such a good friendship that Ford immediately signed on to star in Weir's next project The Mosquito Coast (1986).
  
  
• Witness (1985) was his first role that broke Harrison Ford away from the science fiction and fantasy genres that made him famous. It does, however, still have a connection to his breakthrough role of Han Solo.
  
  

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