Find Out What's Reel About Moonlight

Moonlight chronicles the story of a gay black man growing up in a rough neighbourhood in Miami. It is split into 3 parts showing his childhood, adolescence and young adulthood and was originally based on a play. Moonlight surprised many by beating out La La Land to the Best Picture Academy Award this year propelling it into the spotlight of the average movie-viewer. It also won awards for Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali and Best Adapted Screenplay for writers Barry Jenkins and Tarell McCraney.

Here are some other facts that you may not have known about Moonlight;

1. This movie was a first for a lot of the actors. It’s not really a surprise that it’s the first movie for the child actors playing Little and Kevin but it was also the first time acting for many of the teen and adult actors. The biggest name debut would be Janelle Monáe who has created quite the name for herself as a singer/songwriter but this was her first experience acting!

2. Writer/director Barry Jenkins and Tarell McCraney who wrote the play that the movie is based on both grew up in the neighbourhoods in Miami where the film was set. Many of the locations where the movie was filmed were in the neighbourhoods they grew up in!

3. Trevante Rhodes who plays Black in the film originally auditioned for the role of adult Kevin. Watching him audition, a producer passed Jenkins a note during Rhodes’ audition saying simply “Not Kevin, Black.”

4. “Chiron’s Theme”, the music that plays throughout the film (though each are variants of each other in the 3 stories) was written to the script and not to the filmed scene. The theme was bent during the fight scene in the 2nd story.

5. The crack house that Little takes refuge in was an actual crack house. The filmmakers found an abandoned building close to where the opening shot was filmed and they didn’t need much in terms of decorating the set. Barry Jenkins states on the DVD commentary, “All the things we wanted to bring to the set, I’ll just say, were already on the set. We actually had to take several of them out and replace them with our various safe and clean products.”

*not pictured: crack house

6. In the scene where the kids are dancing, it is to a song by Janelle Monáe though another song is used in the final film.

7. Tanisha Cidel who plays Principal Williams in the 2nd story is in fact the drama teacher of the young actors who play Little and Kevin. Both boys had only been in the class for 2 weeks before acting in this movie. Additionally, Stephon Bron who plays Travis in the 3rd story also went to the same drama elementary school.

8. Naomie Harris was reluctant to play a crack addict because she had made it her mission to pick her roles based on portraying positive images of women in general and black women in particular. Barry Jenkins convinced her to take the role when he mentioned that she would be playing a character based on his own mother. Harris shot all of her scenes in just 3 days while she was on a press tour for Spectre since there were issues with her Visa (she’s from the UK).

9. André Holland sent in an audition tape to the filmmakers for his audition as adult Kevin. During his tape he improvised taking out his wallet and showing Black the picture of his son. Barry Jenkins really liked this idea and added it into the script. The photo that was used in the scene was actually of the production designer’s son

10. The song playing in the diner when Black arrives to meet Kevin is the same one Barry Jenkins had playing in one ear while filming the scene. Jenkins said he was listening to it ”just to get the pacing and the timing right. I had no idea we would actually get the song, but this is the flow I wanted from the movement.” This was unlike the song that Kevin plays on the jukebox, Hello Stranger by Barbara Lewis, which was specifically written into the script.

Think we missed something? Want to learn more about another movie? Let us know in the comments!

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