The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
Trivia
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Spoilers (5)
This is Matt Damon's favorite film of those he has made.
Jude Law learned to play the saxophone and Matt Damon learned to play the piano for this film. However while Damon's training enabled him to recreate the proper keyboard fingering, the music heard in the film is played by Sally Heath (the Bach) and Gabriel Yared (the Vivaldi).
Matt Damon actually sang the song "My Funny Valentine."
Is based on a novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. There are also four novels which follow "The Talented Mr. Ripley" named: "Ripley Underground," "Ripley's Game," "The Boy Who Followed Ripley," and finally "Ripley Under Water."
Matt Damon lost 30 pounds for his role in the movie.
These are the adjectives that appear on the title before "talented" in different colors: THE "mysterious, yearning, secretive, sad, lonely, troubled, confused, loving, musical, gifted, intelligent, beautiful, tender, sensitive, haunted, passionate" TALENTED MR. RIPLEY.
Anthony Minghella originally wanted Tom Cruise for the role of Ripley but after seeing Good Will Hunting (1997), he decided to cast Matt Damon.
After viewing this film, Tommy Wiseau was so emotionally moved that he vowed to make a film just as, if not more compelling. This film would become The Room (2003).
When Anthony Minghella learned that Cate Blanchett was interested in playing the small supporting role of Meredith - as opposed to the female lead - he duly expanded the role to get her on board.
To prepare for the part of Dickie Greenleaf, Anthony Minghella sent Jude Law to Ischia to get a suntan and to learn sailing.
The scenes set in New York City that open the film were originally shot in Rome but were deemed unsatisfactory and later reshot in New York City.
Fausto and Dickie (and Tom, later) sing "Tu Vuo' Fa' L'Americano," a humorous song about an Italian man in the 50s who wants to imitate the American lifestyle he sees in the movies. But American food doesn't do him any good and in the end, the money he spends comes from his mother's purse.
Although much of the film is shot upon or next to water, the character of Tom Ripley in the novel (of the same name by Patricia Highsmith) is actually afraid of water. This is reflected in Tom Ripley's behavior throughout the film. During the beach scene where Tom first meets Dickie, Tom does not go far from the shore when he enters the sea and turns almost immediately back to the beach. He also refuses to join Freddie and Dickie in deep water from the sailing boat in the scene where Freddie and Dickie are play fighting. At the beginning of the hired motor boat scene in San Remo, Dickie deliberately begins to rock the boat back and forth, much to the discomfort of Tom who shouts to Dickie to stop. He is clearly politely terrified of the boat capsizing.
Dickie's favorite men's tailor in Rome, Battistoni, is a real tailoring shop founded in 1946. It is housed in the inner-court of 61a Via Condotti.
John Malkovich remarked in an interview with the BBC that he came close to directing "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and that he was in negotiations to obtain the rights to direct a remake of the first "Talented Mr. Ripley" adaptation, Plein soleil (1960). Malkovich later played Tom Ripley in Ripley's Game (2002).
Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale were considered for the role of Tom Ripley.
The opera shown in the film is the end of Act II from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Yevgeny Onyegin." In this particular scene, Lenski challenged his friend Onyegin for a duel over Olga, who had been engaged to Lenski at that time. Lenski was mortally wounded, and Onyegin departed Russia for a self-imposed exile.
The store Ripley visits to have his wallet embossed with Dickie's initials is the Gucci boutique on Via Condotti.
During the shooting, Anthony Minghella said to Cate Blanchett, "Just imagine that everything you're doing is a diary of a trip."
Tom Ripley presents Marge with a bottle of perfume from Santa Maria Novella, the same perfumer who concocted Hannibal's telltale fragrance in Hannibal (2001).
Jude Law initially turned down the role of Dickie Greenleaf.
Matt Damon lost 20lbs for the role in consultation with a nutritionist. He had previously lost 40lbs for Courage Under Fire (1996) but on an unsupervised crash diet which caused damage to his adrenal glands.
The film cast includes four Oscar winners: Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Gwyneth Paltrow. It also includes one Oscar nominee: Jude Law.
In the novel, reference is made to Dickie being portrayed as a "combination of Paul Gauguin and Errol Flynn." Jude Law, who played Dickie Greenleaf in the film, would also make a cameo appearance as Flynn in The Aviator (2004).
This is the first of Patricia Highsmith's "Ripliad"; a series of novels surrounding her sociopathic anti-hero Tom Ripley.
The small boat on which Marge and Mr. Greenleaf ride after leaving Ripley was named Andrea Doria. This was also the name of an Italian ocean liner that sank in 1956.
Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn) is chauffeured about in a 1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith with James Young custom coachwork. Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) rides a 1952 Lambretta C Scooter. Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) rides a late 1950s Piaggio Vespa Scooter. Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman) makes his big entrance in a red 1955 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider.
The San Remo jazz club is named after the town of Sanremo, Italy. The town is on the Italian Riviera, just a few miles from the border with France.
The text that Dickie writes out for Tom for his handwriting analysis is from Act 1, Scene 4 of Shakespeare's "Macbeth": "The Prince of Cumberland - that is a step/On which I must fall down, or else overleap/For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires/Let not light see my black and deep desires./The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be/Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see."
This is the first of three collaborations between Anthony Minghella and Jude Law. The other two were Cold Mountain (2003) and Breaking and Entering (2006).
Tom Cruise and Edward Norton were considered for the role of Tom Ripley.
Included among the American Film Institute's 2001 list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies.
Has been followed by other Ripley novel adaptations Ripley's Game (2002) and Ripley Under Ground (2005), in which the role of Tom Ripley was played by John Malkovich and Barry Pepper, respectively, although neither was made as a direct sequel to this film. Matt Damon appeared with Malkovich in Rounders (1998) and Pepper in Saving Private Ryan (1998). Pepper and Malkovich also appeared together in Knockaround Guys (2001).
For any knowledgeable Seinfeld (1989) fan, seeing Philip Baker Hall cast here in the role of a private detective can't help but be reminded of his tour de force performances in two Seinfeld episodes portraying another intimidating lawman--Lt. Bookman of the New York City Public Library--when he was grilling hapless Jerry Seinfeld over a long-overdue book.
The film was a joint production of Paramount and Miramax. At the time of release, the latter was owned by Disney. Miramax was sold to Filmyard Holdings in 2010, then to beIN Media Group in 2016. Four years later, beIN sold a minority interest in MIramax to Paramount, currently owned by ViacomCBS (known as Viacom from 1971 to 2019). Paramount thus now owns worldwide rights to the film, having reached a long term deal to distribute the Miramax library worldwide.
Similar to the theme of the movie where Ripley imitates Greenleaf, in real life, Jude Law would be named 'Sexiest Man Alive' by people magazine in 2004, only for Matt Damon to "copy" him and win the title in 2007
According to the yearbook entry seen in the movie, Dickie Greenleaf was born on June 20, 1932, and resided at 56 Seawanhaka Drive, Oyster Bay, NY.
Philip Seymour Hoffman appeared with James Rebhorn in Scent of a Woman (1992), and with Philip Baker Hall in Sydney (1996), Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999).
Philip Baker Hall and Philip Seymour Hoffman have been one two other films together, Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999).
Spoilers
Jude Law fell backwards and broke a rib while filming the murder scene on the boat.
In 2018, Matt Damon had a brief cameo as a character named only "Redneck #2" in Deadpool 2 (2018). Damon, who was unrecognizable under heavy prosthetic makeup, was not credited under his own name, but as "Dickie Greenleaf," the name of Jude Law's character here who is murdered and then impersonated by Damon's "Tom Ripley."
Dickie's suicide note is dated 6 January 1959, director Anthony Minghella's fifth birthday.
This is one of two late '90s films--the other being Gattaca (1997) in which a piece of photo ID featuring Jude Law's picture is repeatedly used by another actor without getting caught. Ethan Hawke and Matt Damon are the two actors who manage this feat of identity fraud.
