FILM · 2013 · USA
Coherence
38 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (38)
- #001
Instead of scripts, each actor received only a short paragraph, visible only to themselves, as that day's 'goals.' This allowed the story to develop naturally and to provoke genuine reactions from the other actors.
- #002
Alex Manugian, who plays Amir, is also the co-writer. In fact, he was the 'mole' who helped steer scenes if the actors went off track.
- #003
When Kevin (Maury Sterling) tries to leave the house alone, Em (Emily Baldoni) is given a note telling her not to let him go, and the note itself says to let him go.
- #004
When the first group visits the other house, the neighborhood was supposed to look completely dark. That same night, a Snickers commercial was being shot in the neighborhood using large lights and hundreds of people.
- #005
When the box is first discovered, Emily Baldoni wanted to open it immediately. Director James Ward Byrkit had to step in because the producers had only one box.
- #006
Lorene Scafaria (Lee) had no idea which film was being made, since the other actors had already done test shoots. She only knew it would be improvised. On the third day of shooting, she realized it was not meant to be a big, broad comedy.
- #007
There were only 5 crew members on set: 2 sound people, the cinematographer, the director and producer Lene Bausager.
- #008
Emily Baldoni (Em) realized she was the film's lead when she was shown understanding what the numbers meant.
- #009
3 rental cars were used for the glass breaking. The windows were replaced before the cars were returned.
- #010
According to Emily Baldoni, after the first mysterious knock at the 'door that leads nowhere,' the actors were both frightened and very excited by the unfolding story. 'Of course we knew we were in safe hands, but that's when things got really exciting, because we could see how ingenious and well planned everything was. We just had no idea.'.
- #011
It was shot chronologically.
- #012
When the original Amir (Alex Manugian) and Hugh (Hugo Armstrong) finally return to the house, there was a 45-minute separation in which the others inside would not let them in. To move the story forward, the director had to step in and allow them to enter.
- #013
When Em (Emily Baldoni) leaves to find a new house, a deleted scene led her to a scene in which a session was being held over Mike's (Nicholas Brendon) corpse.
- #014
Writing the story took one year.
- #015
The cameras were so shaky not because of a stylistic preference but because it gave the actors the freedom to go wherever they wanted.
- #016
At the beginning of the film, both sides of the phone call were recorded together, rather than the common practice of adding the other side later.
- #017
(At around the 32nd minute) Director James Ward Byrkit says his favorite line is spoken by Alex Manugian (Amir): 'We're not splitting up; we're just dividing into groups.' Ward describes it as the key to the whole film and also speaks of the film's breaking down of cinematic clichés.
- #018
The car that Em (Emily Baldoni) knocks out her double with is her real-life car.
- #019
Throughout filming, only two cameras were used, except for the dinner scene, which had an additional camera.
- #020
The producers say only that the comet was a practical effect and do not explain how it was filmed.
- #021
Some scenes were reshot six months later. Lorene Scafaria (Lee) had changed her hair in the meantime, and they spent $8,000 on a wig to match her original hair. That was as much as the entire budget of the first shoot.
- #022
The night Em (Emily Baldoni) goes to search the different houses was filmed on the night the director's wife gave birth to their baby. It was a home birth in the house where the film was shot.
- #023
The characters (and therefore the film) use the terms quantum coherence and decoherence in exactly the opposite way. The characters refer to an isolated, independent quantum state as "decoherent" and therefore stable, whereas in reality a quantum state is said to be coherent when it remains isolated in this way. Quantum decoherence occurs when the system interacts with its environment and is no longer in a preserved, coherent quantum state.
- #024
Emily Baldoni's and director James Ward Byrkit's favorite scene is the one where Em (Emily Baldoni) meets "other" Kevin (Maury Sterling) after checking the car.
- #025
Test footage was shot a year earlier. The role of Mike's wife (played by Lorene Scafaria) was originally played by the director's wife. Because she was 8 and a half months pregnant, she chose not to appear in the final film.
- #026
At the beginning of the film, Mike (Nicholas Brendon) says he played a character on the series Roswell (1999-2002). This may be a nod to Brendon's real role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1996-2003). It may be an early hint showing a different reality in which he played a different character on a different 90s teen series.
- #027
The flickering lights at the end of the bathroom are not an effect; they are actually an assistant turning the lights on and off.
- #028
There is a deleted scene explaining that Amir's (Alex Manugian) photo was printed from Kevin's (Maury Sterling) battery-powered printer because of his photography profession.
- #029
Director James Ward Byrkit first met Lauren Maher (Laurie) while working on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). She played Scarlett, the prostitute who slaps Johnny Depp.
- #030
Before filming, Lorene Scafaria (Lee) was just finishing writing/directing Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012). That film features an asteroid (instead of a comet) coming to Earth.
- #031
(At about 1 hour 6 minutes in) While Hugh calculates the different outcomes on his iPhone, the number of different outcomes comes to 5,038,848 = (6^8)*3, meaning 6 numbers per person, 8 people and 3 glow stick colors per house (although the availability of the colors in the calculation is questionable).
- #032
The discussion about what happened shortly after the book was delivered lasted 45 minutes and included a conversation in which Kevin (Maury Sterling) talks about traveling in the Middle East.
- #033
Maury Sterling was afraid of improvising.
- #034
The fade-to-black cuts used as scene transitions are placed strategically. The producers implied that this relates to the fracturing of realities and follows certain rules. Act 1 ends with Kevin (Maury Sterling) discovering the duplicate note, but the fade-to-black cut is not used to transition to the start of Act 2 because it does not follow the rules.
- #035
The person who actually broke the car windows was Hugo Armstrong (Hugh).
- #036
There is no character named Joe in Roswell.
- #037
Although Elizabeth Gracen and Lauren Maher play enemies in the film, they are very good friends in real life.
- #038
Producer Lene Bausager flew in from the United Kingdom specifically to make sure the film would happen.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
Sources for the entries on this page
- IMDb IMDb kaydı
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