FILM · 2009 · USA
A Single Man
26 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (26)
- #001
When Colin Firth won the BAFTA for Best Actor on 21 February 2010, the man who had repaired his refrigerator was among the people he thanked. Firth explained that he had decided to turn down the role and that an email to director Tom Ford was sitting in his outbox waiting to be sent. Then a man came to fix the refrigerator, and Firth had time to reconsider.
- #002
The dog George sees in the car, India, belongs to Tom Ford.
- #003
The voice of Hank Ackerley, who addresses Colin Firth's character at the start of the film, is not credited in the titles.
- #004
Tom Ford financed the film himself.
- #005
The glass-and-wood house shared by George and Jim is the Schaffer Residence, a real house built in 1949 in Glendale, California, by the mid-century Modernist architect John Lautner.
- #006
In the DVD commentary, Tom Ford says that some of what Jennifer says when she talks to George at the bank is based on his own childhood. She has a pet scorpion because Ford and his sister had a pet scorpion when they were young. Her older brother is named "Tom" because Ford's first name is Tom. She relates that her brother Tom does his hair with eggs because this was something Ford himself did many times for his own sister. Ford says that, because he is gay, he was unaware that her brother Tom was "light in his loafers" (a derogatory euphemism for being gay).
- #007
The film was shot in 21 days.
- #008
In an interview, Tom Ford said that the role of Kenny was initially given to a more famous actor (Jamie Bell, according to an E! Online article) and that this actor did not show up for the costume fitting five days before shooting. Ford then remembered a casting tape Nicholas Hoult had prepared.
- #009
Colin Firth is the only English actor playing an English character. His American partner and student are played by the English actors Matthew Goode and Nicholas Hoult respectively, while his English friend Charlotte is played by the American actress Julianne Moore.
- #010
During the shoot, Tom Ford applied Creed's Bois du Portugal cologne to Colin Firth, believing it would help Firth get into the character of George Falconer.
- #011
Contrary to popular belief, the costumes were designed by Arianne Phillips, not Tom Ford.
- #012
George and other characters refer several times to their "invisibility" as a minority (in their case, as gay men in early-1960s American society). George, an English professor at the university, is alluding here to the concept of the social "invisibility" of Black people that Ralph Ellison set out in his classic novel "Invisible Man," published about a decade before the events of this film take place.
- #013
In an interview with Terry Gross, Tom Ford explained that he created a backstory for George's suit. He decided that George had it made to order on Savile Row during a trip to England, which informed its cut and color. He also decided that the suit was several years old, because 'old money' Englishmen tended to be frugal about clothing. Ford put a label inside the jacket bearing George's name and the year it was made, 1957.
- #014
It was Tom Ford's directorial debut.
- #015
Colin Firth was initially unavailable for the role and someone else was cast. After a change in the film's schedule, Firth was eventually able to take the part.
- #016
George's gun is a Webley revolver, the standard firearm issued to British and Commonwealth forces from 1887 to 1963, chambered for the .455-caliber Eley cartridge.
- #017
One scene shows a large drawing by Don Bachardy, Christopher Isherwood's longtime partner.
- #018
The car driven by Colin Firth's character is a Mercedes 220S coupe.
- #019
The scenes set at the college where George teaches were filmed at the old Ambassador College campus in Pasadena. Ambassador College was founded in the 1940s by Herbert W. Armstrong, the famous radio preacher of the time, to prepare students for lives of service to his church. Campuses were opened in Texas and the United Kingdom during the 1960s and '70s. By 1990 enrollment had fallen so much that the Pasadena campus closed; the rest closed in 1997. Since 1990, the former Ambassador Pasadena campus has also been used for high school classes and church services. It has also long been the subject of a stalled mixed-use apartment and commercial development called "Westgate Pasadena."
- #020
In the English department's staff room. According to Tom Ford, in an interview with Terry Gross on December 14, 2009, Bachardy is wearing a pair of lucky red socks that belonged to Isherwood.
- #021
This was the first time Chris Weitz worked as a producer on a feature film without the involvement of his brother, Paul Weitz.
- #022
Jim is reading Truman Capote's 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' on the couch. Lee Pace appeared in Infamous (2006), the film about Capote's life while he was writing In Cold Blood.
- #023
Ridge Canipe, who sells George ammunition for his gun, and Ginnifer Goodwin, who plays George's friendly neighbor Mrs. Strunk, appeared together in Walk the Line (2005) as the young Johnny Cash and Vivian, respectively.
- #024
Jon Kortajarena's character is named "Carlos," and Julianne Moore plays "Charley." Carlyle is director Tom Ford's middle name. All of these names are variants of "Charles:" "Carlos" is the Spanish version, "Charley" is its familiar form, and "Carlyle" contains another form of "Charles." "Charles" also means free man.
- #025
Victoria Silvstedt auditioned for a role.
- #026
David Geffen is among those thanked.
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