The Professor and the Madman

The making of the film led to a legal battle between star Mel Gibson and Voltage Pictures, which would not allow Gibson and original director Farhad Safinia to shoot scenes in Oxford, England. Because the film was already over budget and behind schedule, Voltage forced them to use Trinity College in Ireland as a substitute. Gibson and Safinia eventually left the project, and a new director and a new screenwriter (Todd Komarnicki) took over. Gibson and the production company Icon Productions went to court to block the film's release, claiming they had not been allowed to finish it, but they failed. Gibson later refused to promote the film.

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When the professor first meets the 'madman', he assumes he is the director of the institution rather than a patient. This was a popular story at the time but was in fact false. Dr. Murray had been aware of his condition long before his first visit.

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Dr. Minor contributed to the OED for 20 years, signing his submissions "Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire." Broadmoor Hospital, the institution for criminally insane patients where Dr. Minor resided, sits on 290 acres in the village of Crowthorne in Berkshire, England, and dates to an estimated 1863.

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Because of the legal disputes over the making and completion of this film, there was a three-year delay between the start of shooting and the film's theatrical release.

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It was filmed partly in Dublin, Ireland, in 2016.

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This film marks the first time Mel Gibson and Sean Penn have acted together.

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Scenes of W. C. Minor as a young man (played by Jordan Lennon) were shot but were cut from the finished film.

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Both stars, Mel Gibson and Sean Penn, are film directors, and both had their second films released in 1995: Gibson directed Braveheart (1995) and Penn directed The Crossing Guard (1995).

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Luc Besson and John Boorman were both asked to direct this film at different times.

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This film reunites David O'Hara and Mel Gibson, who had appeared together in Braveheart (1995) about 25 years earlier.

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The first name of Laurence Sterne's book "Tristram Shandy" is dropped. Steve Coogan took the lead role in the adaptation of the book, Tristram Shandy (2005).

CHARACTERS & CAST · SOURCED

In 2000, Luc Besson planned to produce this film.

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Filmed in Dublin in 2016, the film became part of the legal battle between Gibson and Safinia against Voltage Pictures, its release was pushed back to 2019, and it ended with the pair rejecting the final product.

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Both Sean Penn and Mel Gibson returned to filming in Ireland, after This Must Be the Place (2011) and Braveheart (1995) respectively.

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The film is about Professor James Murray, who in 1879 was the editor of The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (now known as the Oxford English Dictionary), a project of Oxford University Press, and his friend and colleague W. C. Minor (William Chester Minor). W. C. Minor (William Chester Minor) was a doctor who submitted more than 10,000 entries while he was confined at the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Crowthorne after being found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

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Epilogue: "Sir James A. H. Murray was awarded a knighthood by His Majesty on 26 June 1908. He completed everything up to the letter 'T'. He died of pleurisy on 26 June 1915. The dictionary had been closed." "Dr. William Chester Minor was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia after treatment at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. He died peacefully of pneumonia in his sleep at his home on 26 March 1920. The dictionary was at 'V'." "The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, consisting of 12 volumes, 414,825 words and 1,827,306 illustrative quotations, was completed on 1 January 1928. Seventy years after it was first conceived."

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Both Natalie Dormer and Stephen Dillane appeared in Game of Thrones (2011).

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The film's cast includes two Oscar winners, Mel Gibson and Sean Penn, and one Oscar nominee, Steve Coogan.

CAREER & AWARDS · SOURCED

As of 2025, this is Anthony Andrews's final film role.

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