Trivia for
Inside Man (2006) More at IMDbPro »

• Shot in 39 days.
  
  
• According to an interview with Spike Lee, Ron Howard was going to direct the film. But Russell Crowe showed him Cinderella Man (2005), and Howard went off to do that instead.
  
  
• The picture in Arthur Case's office is "Cards Player" by 'Paul Cézanne'.
  
  
• According to Spike Lee, he and Willem Dafoe met in the men's room during the intermission of the play ‘Julius Caesar’, in which Denzel Washington appears. As they were standing side by side in the men's room, Spike said: "We should work together" and Dafoe replied: "Yeah, Spike, we should" and that was it. Later on, Spike sent him the script.
  
  
• The song which plays at the start of the movie, as well as during the ending credits is an Indian song composed by Indian musician 'A.R Rahman' called "Chaiyya Chaiyya". This song was originally used in Dil Se.. (1998).
  
  
• Contains two references to previous Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing (1989), the pizza given to the hostages being from 'Sal's Pizzeria' and Denzel Washington's character quoting a line from the film.
  
  
• Jodie Foster filmed her part in three weeks.
  
  
• This marks the fourth collaboration of Spike Lee and Denzel Washington.
  
  
• Two actors from Dog Day Afternoon (1975) were cast as a homage to that film, with parallels. Marcia Jean Kurtz plays a hostage named Miriam in each film, and Lionel Pina delivers pizza in both.
  
  
• At the end of the movie, the girlfriend of Denzel's character is reading "Gotham Diaries", a novel co-written by Spike Lee's wife, Tonya Lewis Lee.
  
  
• The ringtone on P. Hammond's mobile at the start of the movie is Kanye West's "Gold Digger".
  
  
• Dalton Russell's first lines of the movie contain the phrase: "Which leaves us only with the How; and therein, as the Bard would tell us, lies the rub." This is a direct reference to William Shakespeare, taken from "Hamlet" and his famous monologue in Act III, scene I: "To sleep, perchance to dream, ay, there's the rub."
  
  
• The scene in the coffee shop was improvised. On the DVD commentary, Spike Lee states that when Denzel Washington ad-libbed the line, "I'll bet you can get a cab though," he nearly ruined the take by laughing so loud at Washington's line.
  
  
• The interrogation scenes were mostly ad-libbed.
  
  
• The barber in the scene at the exclusive men's club where Jodie Foster confronts Christopher Plummer named Vincent (his nameplate is affixed to the mirror, and Plummer addresses him by name too), is in real life the barber at the Down Town Association on Pine Street.
  
  
• Sandra Endo is a real-life news reporter for New York 1.
  
  
• Spike Lee says that, at the time of making the movie, he was not aware that riddles had been a major part of the plot in another thriller set in New York, Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995). He said if he had known that he would have cut out the riddle scenes in his movie.
  
  
• The ground scenes for the bank were filmed inside a real bank, whereas the underground scenes of the bank were filmed in a bank movie set in Brooklyn, New York.
  
  
• Spike Lee decided to cast Amir Ali Said after watching him perform in a "Chappelle's Show" (2003) skit.
  
  
• The scene in which the boy shows the video game he is playing on his PSP to Dalton was not in the original script. Director Spike Lee added it to "make a comment on gangster rap's infatuation with violence." The game is not real but was created by an animation house. Lee asked them to come up with animation for "the most violent game ever".
  
  
• The Cartier diamond ring is a real diamond ring, it was borrowed from Cartier for the movie for three days. The ring is valued at $1.5 million.
  
  
• The line: "Detective First Grade Keith Frazier.....Yesss!!!" is a tribute to New York Knicks former long-time announcer Marv Albert. After a made basket by 1970's New York Knicks star Walter Frazier, Albert would say: "Walt Frazier shoots....Yesss!!!"
  
  
• The shoot-out sequence between the police and the robbers was not in the original script. Spike Lee said he added it because he felt that "it was a good time to interject some action" in the movie. This scene was the last one, it was filmed on the last day so they could "shoot up" the bank movie set.
  
  
• Paul's (Lemon Andersen) line calling one of the detectives that were interrogating him a "wassa-wassa" was improvised. So was Detective Frazier's (Denzel Washington) answer: "Do you know how to say Rikers Island in Spanish?"
  
  
• Rachel Nichols, Kate Hudson and Rachael Leigh Cook were all offered the role of Madeleine but turned it down. Jennifer Jason Leigh was offered the role of Madeleine but turned it down. Marcia Cross was originally cast as Madeleine, but turned it down due to her commitment as Bree in the TV series "Desperate Housewives" (2004). Jennifer Love Hewitt was offered the role of Madeleine but turned it down due to her commitment with the TV series "Ghost Whisperer" (2005). Jennifer Connelly auditioned for the role of Madeleine but turned it down.
  
  

• SPOILER: At the end of the film, as Denzel's character walks into his apartment, his girlfriend's brother is passed out on the couch, holding a "bomb" shaped bottle in his arms. This is a reference to Spike Lee's previous films Clockers (1995) and Bamboozled (2000) which feature a fictitious alcoholic product called "Da Bomb," which was sold in the same "bomb-shaped" container.
  
  
• SPOILER: At the beginning of the movie, the slogan on the thieves' stolen van offers a clue to the method of the heist: "We don't leave until the job is done!"
  
  
• SPOILER: There are several instances of product placement in the film, such as an iPod seen playing propaganda messages, the Dell computer boxes covering the entrance to Dalton's 'cell', Madeline White's Apple Cinema Display and Hermès Birkin Bag, the Sony PSP owned by the little boy, the Chevrolet van used to transport the crew to the bank, and the Volkswagen SUV, which is used to pick up Russell. A North Face backpack was used to carry the diamonds out of the bank. Also, Poland Springs water, Pepsi, and Wrigley's Juicy Fruit are shown.
  
  
• SPOILER: During the first scene in which Frazier talks to Russell on the phone ("Is this the president of Albania?") you can see the earpiece in his right ear through which he is listening to the cops.
  
  
• SPOILER: In the shot of the bus leaving with the hostages, we can see Steve, Stevie, Chaim, and Steve-O sitting in a sequence, mixed with the rest of the hostages.
  
  
• SPOILER: Christopher Plummer's character turns out to have hauled with the Nazis. In The Sound of Music (1965), the movie that made him famous for his role as Captain Von Trapp, he refused to cooperate with the Nazis and had to flee them.
  
  

Related Links