FILM · 2003 · USA
Big Fish
26 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
26 Interesting Facts About Big Fish
Interesting Facts (21)
- #001
At around 56 minutes, the elephant relieving itself while Edward daydreams wasn't in the script. The crew found it so funny that they quickly pulled the camera back to take in the whole scene.
- #002
At around 1 hour 3 minutes, Daniel Wallace, author of the original novel, appears as Sandra's economics professor at Auburn.
- #003
Matthew McGrory (Giant Karl) loved the shoes the costume department made him out of luggage. In his lifetime he held the Guinness World Record for the largest feet, US size 29.5, and the record for the world's tallest actor, at 7'6" (2.29 m).
- #004
At around 1 hour 8 minutes, although young Edward has landed in Korea, the ventriloquist and his dummy speak Tagalog (a language of the Philippines), while the Siamese twins and Edward speak Cantonese (a Chinese dialect). The soldiers who drag the ventriloquist off stage speak Mandarin Chinese (the language of mainland China and Taiwan), and the other soldiers speak Korean.
- #005
Marion Cotillard, a huge Tim Burton fan, slept with the script under her pillow for a month until she landed the part.
- #006
The finished script reached Tim Burton shortly after his father died, and it struck a deep emotional chord with him.
- #007
At around 19 minutes, the single note we hear when young Edward Bloom's voice cracks as he sings in church is really Ewan McGregor singing.
- #008
At around 1 hour 8 minutes: Tim Burton kept the ventriloquist's dummy from the war scene and has it at home. He named it Lang.
- #009
Young Edward becomes a traveling salesman for a company that sells "hands," finger-like metal tools held together by a plastic base. The crew knew people would think of Edward Scissorhands (1990), so they deliberately left scissors out of the design.
- #010
At around 34 minutes, when Norther Winslow shows Edward his half-finished poem (The grass so green/The sky so blue/The ghost is really great!), the handwriting is director Tim Burton's.
- #011
The Auburn scenes were first going to be shot on the Auburn University campus in Auburn, Alabama, but school officials wanted to approve the script and the production couldn't wait, so they filmed at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama, instead.
- #012
'Three years' keeps coming up in the film: Edward and Will don't speak for three years, Edward has to stay in bed for three years, works three years in Calloway's circus and serves three years in the army.
- #013
Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney, who play the same man at different ages, worked with a dialect coach to match their voices and accents, and bonded by learning to fish together.
- #014
Edward imagines Jenny's face turning into the Witch's, old and wrinkled, with one eye missing.
- #015
Ada Tai and Arlene Tai (Ping and Jing) are twins, but not conjoined. For their stage numbers they were joined at the hips and waists by a metal, corset-like rig so they could fit into a special costume. They didn't sing their own songs, and whenever their legs were in shot, one sister's legs were digitally removed.
- #016
(Around 28 minutes) Edward Bloom walks through a dark forest, loses his hat to a crow, is pestered by wasps and attacked by leaping spiders before reaching the little town of Spectre. The whole town was built for Big Fish on Jackson Lake Island in Alabama. Stan Winston Studio made the trees by shaping wire mesh around a steel frame and blowing Styrofoam into it, then sculpting, sealing and painting them to look real. When the spiders jump on Bloom, most are cable- and servo-operated puppets, though some were attached directly to his costume.
- #017
In a deleted scene, Edward Bloom was arrested for stalking. Tim Burton said that however realistic it was, it was better for the character to come across as charming rather than creepy.
- #018
(Around 47 minutes) In the circus scene, the ringmaster's trousers are striped, and so is the outside of the giant's box.
- #019
The town of Ashton, Alabama, is really a mix of two towns in the same state, Wetumpka and Prattville.
- #020
(Around 1 minute) A skull design can be seen spinning on one of the fishing lures as Ewan McGregor, narrating at the start, talks about fish that can't be caught.
- #021
(Around 1 hour 24 minutes) The two portraits on the bank's walls actually show the founders of the Bishop-Parker Furniture Company in Montgomery, Alabama, where several props were bought; the buyer spotted the portraits and thought they would pass for old bankers.
Behind the Scenes (1)
- #022
(Around 1 hour 55 minutes) The animatronic "big fish" was taken to a river in Alabama, where Tim Burton planned to shoot a closing scene of it swimming around Billy Crudup's William Bloom. To move it through the water, the crew mounted it on a track laid in the riverbed alongside a rural cotton field. "It was very challenging to mount this five-foot-long, heavy puppet on a track in a real river," Shane Mahan recalled. "Tim wanted to shoot the film at seven in the morning; that's when Billy Crudup would be standing there in the river. That meant we had to be there around three in the morning to do the setup and make sure everything was ready by seven. We had to wear dry suits and scuba gear, then lift the puppet into the water and place it on the track, close all the stops, and make sure the tail and rudder worked. We were setting all of this up in the water, working at midnight, in winter, in freezing cold, in the dark. And the old farmer who owned the cotton field showed up and told us: 'You boys be careful and watch out for that alligator.' And we're thinking: 'Great. There's an alligator too!'"
Characters & Cast (2)
- #023
(Around 30 minutes) When Edward Bloom first arrives in Spectre, Billy Redden is playing "Dueling Banjos," the famous tune from Deliverance (1972), in which he played Lonnie.
- #024
Sony executives first wanted Brian Cox to play old Ed Bloom, but casting supervisor Denise Chamian mistook his photos for Albert Finney and offered Finney the part. By the time Sony noticed the mix-up, production was too far along to change anything.
Deeper Meaning (1)
- #025
(Around 1 hour 5 minutes) After Ed is beaten up in the daffodil field, you can see the pattern of his tie: a near mirror image of the poster for The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).
Career & Awards (1)
- #026
At around 55 minutes, the circus fat man is played by famous sideshow attraction Howard Huge (Bruce Snowdon), in his last appearance as a professional fat man. Over a career of more than 25 years his weight peaked at 712 pounds; when he died in 2009, he reportedly weighed 'only' 609.
Related pages
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — Big Fish comes up in the facts on that page
- Helena Bonham Carter — Big Fish comes up in the facts on that page
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- IMDb
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work