FILM · 2005 · GERMANY
The Jacket
19 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
19 Interesting Facts About The Jacket
Interesting Facts (10)
- #001
The Jacket (2005) shares its title, and the idea of a man who travels through time out of his body while inside an unbearably tight straitjacket, with a 1915 novel by Jack London. The novel was published as The Jacket in the United Kingdom and as The Star Rover in the United States. Director John Maybury said the film "is based on a true story, which became a Jack London story." The true story is that of Ed Morrell (1868-1946), who told Jack London about San Quentin Prison's inhumane use of the narrow straitjacket. Morrell suffered severe physical abuse while imprisoned at Folsom State Prison and San Quentin Prison in the late 1890s. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison, from 1894 until his life sentence in 1908. As a free man he was an advocate of prison reform and lived another 38 years.
- #002
- #003
According to John Maybury, the love scene between Adrien Brody (Jack Starks) and Keira Knightley (Jackie Price) was longer, but it was cut because American test audiences disliked the scene containing nudity.
- #004
Mark Wahlberg was cast as Jack Starks after John Maybury was hired as director. According to Maybury, when The Italian Job (2003) opened as a big box-office earner, Wahlberg was persuaded to postpone joining this film in order to negotiate a bigger pay cheque. That opened the door for Adrien Brody to sign on.
- #005
- #006
- #007
- #008
An accidental "time travel paradox": the soldiers in the flashback scene were Royal Marines Commandos, reservists from Scotland. Op Telic, also known as the Second Gulf War, ran from January to June 2003, and many of them did not return from Iraq. The action scene in this film featuring the Marines was set in Iraq between 1990 and 1991.
- #009
- #010
Production Story (1)
Behind the Scenes (4)
- #012
- #013
The asylum scenes were shot at the former Bangour Village Hospital, a disused psychiatric hospital in West Lothian, Scotland, near Edinburgh. When the film was released, several other filmmakers expressed interest in the hospital building as a location, but the site had already been earmarked for a housing development. The housing project was later scrapped, and Bangour Village Hospital is still standing as it was during filming, continuing to attract ghost hunters because some of the patient villas are believed to be haunted. Since 2019 it has been the construction site of a new village.
- #014
During the shooting of the key flashback scene in which Angelo Andreo (the Iraqi boy) shoots Adrien Brody (Jack Starks) in the head, the boy is actually aiming at Tom Burke, the extra playing the Humvee gunner. When Adrien Brody realised he would not be in front of the camera for that shot, he fled to his trailer to take a break.
- #015
Characters & Cast (4)
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- IMDb
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