Trivia / Florence Foster Jenkins

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Hugh Grant considered himself retired from films, but was convinced to star in this mostly so he could work with Meryl Streep.
• Cast the Expert: Simon Helberg claims he was cast because he was a trained pianist like his character, and he auditioned primarily as a musician. He says that before the table read, Stephen Frears joked "now, time to see if you can actually act."
• Dueling Works: With Marguerite, a French film very loosely based on the life Florence Foster Jenkins.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Meryl Streep had to intensely train to in order to sing badly, and injured herself in the process because she was intentionally using bad vocal techniques at full volume.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Meryl Streep herself is a good singer - as a look at Mamma Mia!, Into the Woods and Ricki and the Flash will confirm. She actually studied to be a singer before she became an actress. In order to play Florence, she first had to learn the correct opera techniques - and then learn how to sing badly. She does get to sing well at the end of the movie during Florence's Imagine Spot
• Typecasting: Meryl Streep played an aspiring pianist whose career was similarly derailed (though by alcoholism and poverty rather than by syphilis) in the 1986 film of Ironweed.
• Word of Gay: Simon Helberg says he played Cosmé McMoon, the titular character's pianist, as gay and researched pre-World War II gay life while preparing for the role. There is no indication of the character's sexuality in the film other than Helberg's slightly effeminate portrayal, and little is known of McMoon's real-life sexuality other than he never married nor had children (though the fact that he was fascinated with male body-building competitions helps support Helberg's interpretation).