FILM · 1991 · USA
Defending Your Life
38 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (38)
- #001
The image in the coffee table book "Above Judgment City" is actually an aerial view of Downtown Denver, Colorado.
- #002
The streetcars used throughout the film are old Universal Studios Hollywood trams.
- #003
Mirroring his Lost in America (1985) character's affection for Easy Rider (1969), Albert Brooks wanted a star of that film to play Bob Diamond. He first offered the role to Dennis Hopper, who passed because of scheduling conflicts. The role was then offered to Jack Nicholson, who was also unavailable. Brooks recalled that Rip Torn was offered the part Nicholson played in Easy Rider and was later fired for pulling a knife on Hopper, who apparently also took over directing the film, and that he ultimately offered the role to Torn, who accepted.
- #004
The Past Lives Pavilion is actually the former Fluor Daniel building in Irvine, California.
- #005
Albert Brooks briefly considered asking Peter Fonda to play Bob Diamond. However, David Geffen, who produced the film, advised against it through his production company, feeling that Fonda had not achieved any notable success since Easy Rider (1969) twenty years earlier and that this could therefore hurt the film's success. Fonda did not return to films until his Oscar-nominated performance in Ulee's Gold (1997), six years after this film.
- #006
Defending Your Life was released about six months after Postcards from the Edge, a film broadly based on the real-life experiences of mother and daughter Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. Both stars had been close to Albert Brooks since their high school days and remained so throughout the production of Postcards. Fisher wrote the screenplay for that film, which starred Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine. Brooks then approached Streep and MacLaine for his next project, Defending Your Life. Reynolds teamed up with Brooks five years later, playing a critically acclaimed lead in his comedy Mother (1996).
- #007
Albert Brooks first offered the role of Lena Foster to Audrey Hepburn. She had, however, retired from acting two years earlier after a small role in Steven Spielberg's Always (1989) and was so busy as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador that she ultimately turned the part down to focus on that famous role alongside her acting.
- #008
Jane Fonda was offered the role of Lena Foster but had retired from acting the previous year after her film Stanley & Iris (1990) failed, and she did not return to acting until Monster-in-Law (2005), fifteen years later.
- #009
In the original screenplay Julia (Meryl Streep) was given a surname, so that Daniel knew what name to give the hotel telephone operator when he later calls her at the Majestic Hotel. On Streep's suggestion to writer/director/star Albert Brooks, however, she felt that Julia had a mysterious quality and that withholding her surname would thicken the plot and give her a more mysterious feel as a character. Brooks agreed and rewrote it so that Julia's surname is never revealed.
- #010
Shirley MacLaine was not originally going to have a cameo in the film; the role was initially to be offered to a character actor. When Albert Brooks offered Warren Beatty a role in the film, however, Beatty had to decline because he was finishing Dick Tracy (1990). But upon seeing the joke in the script about the past lives pavilion, he suggested to Brooks that he offer the role of the pavilion guide to his sister Shirley MacLaine, who, as noted earlier, firmly believes in reincarnation. Brooks loved the idea, and he and Beatty persuaded her to do the cameo. On the other hand, Brooks had only a miniature in Terms of Endearment (1983), eight years earlier, for which MacLaine won her Oscar.
- #011
This was the first feature film for Ethan Embry (credited as Ethan Randall), who plays Steve.
- #012
Daniel was apparently far more successful in life than was assumed. As seen in one of the flashbacks, he held a high position at Foote, Cone & Belding, one of the top advertising agencies in the United States, and was chosen to give a speech to numerous representatives of the Ford Motor Company, one of the world's largest advertising accounts. Early in the film, the subject of income had been raised as a negative matter. In that position at Footecone he would have been earning a six-figure salary.
- #013
In the scene where Daniel and Mr. Diamond have lunch, the dish Mr. Diamond eats is actually meatballs in sauce.
- #014
Albert Brooks offered the role of Julia to Glenn Close, but Glenn was unable to accept the offer and instead suggested her friend Meryl Streep for the part.
- #015
The film, similar to Albert Brooks's classic road comedy Lost in America, opens with him buying a new and expensive car: a BMW here and a Mercedes in Lost in America. For very different reasons, he either does not buy the car or does not keep it… for very long. In each case, moreover, the car represents a somewhat shallow, yuppie lifestyle that he either chooses to escape or that this choice is made for him.
- #016
Rip Torn was offered his most famous role, Artie on The Larry Sanders Show (1992), because the series' producer noted the similarities between the character of Bob Diamond (his character in this film) and Artie.
- #017
The two nice old men, Arthur and Ernie, in the comedy club audience where the bad comedian speaks on stage also played two nice old men in Albert Brooks's Lost in America.
- #018
Shirley MacLaine's miniature is somewhat ironic: her voice is provided only by a hologram of her image, meaning she is not physically there, whereas in Terms of Endearment Albert Brooks provided the voice of her husband, heard from another room in the opening background scene.
- #019
Because of its similarities to Heaven Can Wait, Albert Brooks wanted a star of that film to appear in this one. He initially offered the role of Dick Stanley to Warren Beatty, who declined while finishing Dick Tracy (1990). Brooks later asked Buck Henry who had accepted the role. Henry and Beatty had co-directed Heaven Can Wait, and Lee Grant, who plays Lena Foster, had appeared with Beatty in Shampoo (1975), which won her an Oscar.
- #020
It was among the 500 films on the American Film Institute's 2000 list of nominees for the 100 Funniest American Films.
- #021
Buck Henry, one of the film's leads, had previously co-directed with Warren Beatty another romantic comedy-fantasy about the afterlife, Heaven Can Wait (1978).
- #022
Christopher Lloyd was offered the role of Bob Diamond but turned it down because he was committed to Back to the Future Part III (1990).
- #023
Albert Brooks filled three different jobs on this film: the top-billed star, the sole writer and the director.
- #024
This 1991 film was Albert Brooks's first feature as an actor since Broadcast News (1987), a gap of four years.
- #025
It is the fourth feature film directed by Albert Brooks.
- #026
When Daniel (Brooks) dies in a bus accident, he is accompanied by Barbra Streisand's 1985 cover of "Something's Coming." The song originally comes from the first act of "West Side Story," where it is the first solo of the lead character Tony, who is disillusioned by gang warfare and dreams of a better future before meeting his love Maria — much as Daniel (Brooks) is disillusioned with his materialistic life and has not met his love Julia (Streep).
- #027
The film is part of the Criterion Collection as spine number 1,071.
- #028
Buck Henry, who plays Albert Brooks's stand-in attorney, also appeared in Heaven Can Wait (1978). In both films Henry's character is an afterlife official who assists the main character. In the earlier film he played a guardian angel who removes Warren Beatty's soul from his body before a nearly fatal accident. In both films the help fails: Henry's character in the second film cannot mount a proper defense, while in the earlier film Henry's character removes Warren Beatty's soul from his body just before a nearly fatal accident, not knowing that Beatty's character was actually meant to survive.
- #029
Lena Foster was written by Albert Brooks with Debbie Reynolds in mind. Reynolds, however, was semi-retired from the screen at the time and decided not to take the role. Brooks cast her as the lead in his next directing effort, Mother (1996). Bea Arthur was also considered for the role but could not commit because of her commitments to The Golden Girls (1985). Brooks also considered casting her as his mother in the second film but later changed his mind and gave the role to Reynolds.
- #030
The picture was shot in February, March, April and May 1990.
- #031
Albert Brooks's character finally gets leather in his new car, a BMW, here. In Lost In America he bought a Mercedes with Mercedes Leather, an expensive vinyl.
- #032
The character Daniel Miller dies on his own birthday.
- #033
Star billing: Albert Brooks (1st), Meryl Streep (2nd), Rip Torn (3rd), Lee Grant (4th) and Buck Henry (5th).
- #034
James Eckhouse (Brooks's friend who drives the car) and Greg Finley (a used-car salesman shown in his past) both played the fathers of ordinary characters on the original Beverly Hills 90210: Eckhouse as Brandon's father and Finley as the father of Brenda Walsh and Scott Scanlon.
- #035
Albert Brooks singing the song in his BMW with hand gestures and great intensity just before he dies resembles his singing of a French folk song in Broadcast News.
- #036
Meryl Streep and Rip Torn had previously appeared together in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979).
- #037
The Majestic Hotel scenes were shot at the historic Ambassador Hotel at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.
- #038
The film's cast includes three Oscar winners: Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine and Lee Grant, as well as two Oscar nominees: Buck Henry and Rip Torn.
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