FILM · 2005 · AE
Syriana
25 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (25)
- #001
George Clooney injured his spine during a stunt. The weight he gained for the role left him bedridden for a month and caused severe migraine pain, which prevented him from promoting Ocean's Twelve (2004). The injury was eventually corrected with surgery. Clooney has since called the weight gain "pretty stupid."
- #002
Syriana is a term used by Washington think tanks to describe the hypothetical reshaping of the Middle East.
- #003
Harrison Ford was the first choice to play Bob Barnes but turned it down. He later told Empire magazine it was one of the few career decisions he regretted.
- #004
George Clooney gained 35 kilos on a pasta-heavy diet to play CIA agent Robert Barnes. The actor also shaved back his hairline for the correct look.
- #005
In the days leading up to the Oscar nominations, the Academy announced that the film's screenplay was not adapted but considered original. Because it had been strongly promoted as an adaptation, many believed the film would not be nominated. It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay but lost to Crash (2004).
- #006
Michelle Monaghan initially had a significant role in the film, playing a Miss USA involved with a wealthy Arab oilman. However, the entire subplot was cut when the film seemed too long and complex for test audiences.
- #007
The character "Bob Barnes" in Syriana, played by George Clooney, is based on the real-life adventures of career CIA agent Bob Baer. Baer spent 21 years at the CIA as a manhunter. Mr. Baer is the lead investigator on the History Channel's popular TV series "Hunting Hitler." Season 3 will air in late 2017. Source: These details were stated by Baer in his overview/background for the opening team of both Season 1 and Season 2 of the program.
- #008
George Clooney and co-star William Hurt competed against each other for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Hurt for A History of Violence and Clooney for this film.
- #009
Greta Scacchi played Bob Barnes's wife and Robby Barnes's mother. Her role was cut from the final release.
- #010
When Prince Nasir is assassinated, an actor who closely resembles former CIA director George Tenet is walking in the background of the CIA operations room.
- #011
Stephen Gaghan wanted Christian Bale to play Bryan Woodman, but Bale had to turn the role down due to his commitment to The New World (2005).
- #012
When George Clooney meets his son at Princeton University, he is actually in front of Sellinger Hall at Loyola College in Maryland.
- #013
As of 2018, this is the only Oscar-nominated performance by George Clooney in a film not nominated for Best Picture. He won the Best Supporting Actor award for his role in this film.
- #014
The film's cast includes eight Oscar winners: Chris Cooper, George Clooney, William Hurt, Viola Davis, Will McCormack, Christopher Plummer, Matt Damon and Tom McCarthy (the last two won as screenwriters), and one Oscar nominee: Jeffrey Wright.
- #015
In the original screenplay, Bob Barnes was named Bob Baer, after Robert Baer's father.
- #016
Roger Ebert's theory about the film's Byzantine oil plot was that the US and China actually have a secret agreement to buy and transport oil from Kazakhstan without any drilling, and that the film's merger is a paper agreement providing legal cover for these actions.
- #017
In two clever examples of parallelism in the script and dialogue, CIA employee Fred Franks uses the phrase "Help me out here" in the film, directed at him by CIA supervisor Terry. And "Jimmy" is a name Bob Barnes insists on using when speaking with Mussawi — who is annoyed by it — but it is also a name Killen CEO Jimmy Pope invites Bennett Holiday to use when addressing him.
- #018
Both Chris Cooper and William Hurt played the real-life FBI traitor Robert Hanssen: Cooper in Breach (2007) and Hurt in Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story (2002).
- #019
The scene at the front door of the Whiting Sloan law firm next to the US Capitol is actually the real-life law firm Jones Day, located at 51 Louisiana Avenue, NW.
- #020
This is the only film released across all of Hollywood to show content about 'Falun Gong' (a word strictly banned by the Chinese Government).
- #021
Barnes, Woodman, Holiday, Whiting, Pope and Janus are the surnames of the main characters in Syriana; each is loaded with symbolism or evokes specific images, qualities or flaws.
- #022
Jeffery Wright is the only actor to appear in both Syriana and The Laundromat, and The Laundromat is the second Hollywood film to show the truth about the content concerning Falun Gong.
- #023
Syriana contains five father-son relationships.
- #024
George Clooney won his first Oscar for this film, in which he starred alongside Christopher Plummer. Plummer shares two roles with Clooney's uncle Jose Ferrer: the Oscar-winning role of Cyrano de Bergerac and Iago from Othello.
- #025
The Italian censorship visa # 99642 was issued on 21 February 2006.
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