FILM · 2013 · SPAIN
Mama
23 archived facts 2 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (23)
- #001
Mama is played by a man named Javier Botet, who has a genetic disorder called Marfan syndrome. The symptoms of the condition are what give him his thin body and long fingers.
- #002
Isabelle Nélisse could not speak English, so she was given very little dialogue and communicates mostly through body language.
- #003
Mama's appearance was inspired by a painting by Amedeo Modigliani owned by Andy Muschietti. The same image was used again a few years later in Muschietti's It: Chapter One (2017), where the painting comes to life and terrifies young Stan.
- #004
Applying Javier Botet's Mama makeup took four hours every day, and removing it took another two hours.
- #005
The moths Lilly eats were made of chocolate. Isabelle Nélisse, who was not told by the crew, does not even like chocolate.
- #006
This was not the first time Javier Botet played a terrifying woman, as he had previously appeared as the infected patient zero in REC (2007).
- #007
In the opening scenes where the father drives the car with the children over the cliff, their car's license plate reads "no 1 dad"; this is a joke by the directors, given that the father is in the middle of killing his family and is on his way to killing the children and himself.
- #008
The screenplay was written by the siblings Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti, expanded from their earlier short film of the same name.
- #009
When this film opened at number one while Zero Dark Thirty (2012) opened in second place, it dealt Jessica Chastain a one-two punch in the US box office revenue charts.
- #010
Jessica Chastain was the first and only choice for the role of Annabel.
- #011
According to Jessica Chastain, Annabel's octopus tattoo describes her character. When Annabel found herself in a situation she disliked, like an octopus, she would shed her tentacles and grow new ones to escape.
- #012
This was not the only film in which Javier Botet played a demon in one of Andy Muschietti's movies. He also played the Leper, a form of the demon mentioned in It (2017).
- #013
Jessica Chastain worked again with director Andy Muschietti on It Chapter Two, playing the adult Beverly Marsh.
- #014
Jessica Chastain took guitar lessons because the character she plays is a bassist.
- #015
Clifton Forge, Virginia is a real place, as is Douthat State Park in Bath County, Virginia, about 10 miles away, where the lake and cabins mentioned in the film are located. Even the stand-in main street is very similar. However, the actual town is not nine miles down a dirt/gravel road. In reality, it has direct access to Interstate 64, which passes through Richmond. It is also the only city in the world with this unique name.
- #016
Jessica Chastain based her performance as Annabel on Crystal Castles singer Alice Glass.
- #017
While Annabel is watching television (about 41 minutes into the film), she looks at the screen and says, "Nice butt, Bruce." She is referring to the actor Bruce Dern, and the film she is watching is Silent Running (1972).
- #018
The film's release, initially planned for October 2012, was pushed back to January 2013 so as not to compete with Paranormal Activity 4 (2012).
- #019
British writer Neil Cross, the creator of Luther, contributed to the screenplay.
- #020
In one scene, Dr. Dreyfuss asks Victoria where Mama is, and she replies flatly, "I don't know." This closely resembles a scene in The Exorcist (1973), in which the 12-year-old protagonist Regan, possessed by a demon, is asked under hypnosis whether she knows who is inside her and gives a similar "I don't know" answer.
- #021
At the beginning, Jeffrey Desange's car license plate reads "1 numaralı baba" (number one dad), an ironic contradiction to what he does at the start of the film.
- #022
Jessica Chastain and her The Help co-star Octavia Spencer both appear in mother-themed films: Chastain in this film, Mama, and Spencer in Ma.
- #023
Mama was the last film to feature Universal Pictures' 100th anniversary logo.
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