Trivia for
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) More at IMDbPro »

• Gwyneth Paltrow was originally set to play Jane Winslett-Richardson, but couldn't because of schedule conflicts. Nicole Kidman expressed interest and Wes Anderson hired her. Kidman was forced to bow out due to other commitments, and Julianne Moore requested the role. However, it eventually went to Cate Blanchett. Anderson admitted the character name was inspired by actress Kate Winslet. Blanchett played the part while actually pregnant.
  
  
• During filming, Bill Murray became a certified diver, logging over 40 hours.
  
  
• The space suit in the Adventurers' Club is from another Touchstone movie, Mission to Mars (2000).
  
  
• The film is dedicated to Jacques-Yves Cousteau; Cousteau's ship was The Calypso. Zissou's ship is called the Belafonte; Harry Belafonte became famous singing commercialized calypso songs.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Wes Anderson] [mid-shot speed change] The last scene (before the ending credits) changes from normal speed to slow-motion.
  
  
• The character of Wolodarsky was named after director Wes Anderson's close friend Wallace Wolodarsky, probably best-known as a writer on "The Simpsons" (1989).
  
  
• Bill Murray couldn't accept his BAFTA Award for his performance in Lost in Translation (2003) personally because he was in Italy filming this movie.
  
  
• Steve Zissou was written with Bill Murray in mind and according to Wes Anderson, it "could have been no one else."
  
  
• An eel, dubbed the Hermes Eel, is patterned after an Hermes scarf.
  
  
• One fish dubbed the Hydronicus inverticus was left at the cutting-room floor because it was deemed too ridiculous. It is a fish that can turn itself inside-out.
  
  
• A 50-year-old minesweeper vessel bought and towed from South Africa served as the Belafonte.
  
  
• Wes Anderson has stated the walking sequence in the final credits is an homage to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), also starring Jeff Goldblum.
  
  
• The red woolen caps worn by the characters are a reference to Jacques-Yves Cousteau, famed underwater film-maker and co-inventor of the modern aqualung.
  
  
• In the scene where Steve Zissou stumbles on the kidnappers playing cards, one of the kidnappers can be seen wearing a hat featuring the Longhorn logo of the University of Texas. Wes Anderson graduated from the University of Texas at Austin.
  
  
• In Wes Anderson's earlier film, Rushmore (1998), there is a shot of Max Fisher on his go-kart which is a direct homage to a Jacques Henri Lartigue photograph. The man in this photo, as well as others taken by Lartigue is named Zissou.
  
  
• Seu Jorge plays the character of Pelé Dos Santos. Pelé was Brazil's greatest soccer player, his real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, and, like with most soccer players, when they make the major leagues, they get re-baptized with a nickname. Furthermore for the majority of his career Pele played at the club Santos in Brazil. Another important player was Manuel Francisco dos Santos, aka Garrincha. Brazil's national team never lost when both were playing.
  
  
• In the scene where Steve discovers the pirates playing cards, Hennessey wears a t-shirt with "I'm a pepper" written on it. This is the same T-shirt worn by the gun seller in the original Bottle Rocket (1994) short.
  
  
• The original script called for the pirates to be Indonesians, but since there wasn't enough of an Indonesian population in Italy where the film was shot, it was changed to Filipinos.
  
  
• 'Owen Wilson''s Southern accent is based on that of Will Patton.
  
  
• Jacques Cousteau's boat, the "Calypso," was an old British minesweeper. The Belefonte was also an old minesweeper.
  
  
• Seu Jorge's character's name, Pelé Dos Santos, comes from famous footballer (soccer player) Pelé and the only club he played for in his home country of Brazil, Santos.
  
  
• The jaguar shark is one of the largest stop-motion puppets ever constructed. It measured eight feet in length and required five hand-cranked controls for the swimming action.
  
  
• Seu Jorge translated the David Bowie songs into Brazilian Portuguese and arranged them for guitar himself.
  
  
• Cate Blanchett never rehearsed with the crew and hadn't even met most of them before filming the nighttime electric jellyfish scene in which she first appears in the movie to add spontaneity to the scene.
  
  
• Writers Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson named several of the places and crew members in the film spontaneously after things and people they saw around them at the Italian restaurant where they held many of their meetings about the film. Pescespada Island, for instance, was named for one of the dishes on the menu. Some of the characters' names are named after waiters and patrons at the restaurant.
  
  
• The shot of Bill Murray feeding a fish to a killer whale, which appears during a montage on Zissou's island, was also in the script for Anderson's earlier film Rushmore (1998) (where it was written into a montage when Murray's character is looking at fish specimens for his new aquarium)
  
  
• During filming the Chicago Cubs made a deep run into the Major League playoffs, mounting a 3-1 lead in the NLCS. Bill Murray, a native of the Chicago area, had it written in to his contract that he receive a live feed of all the Cubs' games. The Cubs eventually lost the series to the Florida Marlins, prolonging its World Series drought to 95 years.
  
  
• Michael Gambon's character's glasses were modeled after those of Ennio Morricone.
  
  
• Wes Anderson watched many films set on the ocean to see how the sea movement was simulated. He found that in The Black Stallion (1979) there was only one scene set in a hallway that had the camera rocking, and so he decided to have just one rocking hallway scene in "The Life Aquatic."
  
  
• Seymour Cassel has a brief role as Esteban, the friend of Steve Zissou who is eaten by the Jaguar shark. According to Roger Ebert, Cassel once told him in an interview many years previously that he had always wanted to be eaten by a shark in a movie.
  
  
• Matthew Gray Gubler (Intern #1) sprained his ankle while filming a scene where the interns are exercising (the take where he falls made it into the final cut of the film). Gubler always wears mismatched socks and contributes his bad luck to having worn matching socks that particular day for the first time in several years.
  
  
• As a pilot, early in the film, Ned Plimpton wears a Rolex GMT Master. This watch is popular with airline pilots for calculating time zones. By the end of the film, he has given up the GMT and plumped for a Rolex Submariner, for obvious reasons.
  
  
• The character of Vladimir Wolodarsky, was named after Wallace Wolodarsky who played Brendan in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited (2007).
  
  
• The score that plays on the soundtrack when Steve Zissou gives the tour of his boat is actually a theme from _Royal Tenenbaums, The (2002)_ being played in reverse.
  
  
• The ailment acquired by Steve, hydrogen psychosis (or "crazy-eye") is a fictional version of decompression sickness (or "the Bends").
  
  

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