Trivia / Lost in Translation (2003)

• Actor-Inspired Element: Before production began on the film, Bill Murray was in Japan with his brothers for a golfing event, and while drinking at the bar he noticed a picture of Harrison Ford on his drink coaster advertising Kirin Lager beer. Murray noticed a very sour look on his face, as if to say: "I can't believe I'm shilling this crap." He later saw an ad for canned coffee featuring Brad Pitt making the same face. He decided to integrate that into his performance, the self-loathing of a famous actor having to shill overseas.
• Cast the Expert: Catherine Lambert, the redheaded lounge singer, wasn't a professional actress. Sofia Coppola witnessed Catherine performing in Tokyo in 2001. A year later, her producer Ross Katz from Elemental Films (based in New York) tracked Catherine down in South Australia and invited her to return to Tokyo to play the part of the "Red Haired Jazz Singer".
• Completely Different Title: The film's Spanish title in South America, "Perdidos en Tokio", Chinese title "Mi Shi Dong Jing", and its Hebrew title in Israel, "Avudim be-Tokio", all mean "Lost in Tokyo", meaning that the titles themselves were literally lost in translation. The reason is probably that "Lost in Translation" sounds like a discussion on translation in other languages. The title got lost in translation in other versions as well: the title in Portuguese translates as "Love is a Strange Place"; the title in Polish translates as "In Between Words".
• Creator's Favorite Episode: This is Bill Murray's favorite film of his own.
• Defictionalization: Suntory started using the Catchphrase from the fictional Suntory ads in actual Suntory ads run in the United States (which also led Suntory to attempt an expansion of their distribution in America).
• Denied Parody: Rumor has it that Kelly was supposedly Cameron Diaz, with whom Spike Jonze worked with on Being John Malkovich, though Sofia Coppola denied the connection in an Entertainment Weekly interview.
• Shrug of God: When asked during a Reddit AMA what he said to Johansson at the end of the film, Murray responded: "You know? I forget."
• Star-Making Role: For Scarlett Johansson, who had already starred in a few other movies but Lost in Translation made her into an A-lister.
• Starring a Star as a Star: Aging American movie star Bob Harris is played by aging American movie star Bill Murray.
• Throw It In!:
  • The screenplay was very loose and informal, with few lines actually written down ahead of time. Much of the dialogue, particularly from Bob, was ad-libbed.
  • The Chanteuse in the hotel bar was not an actress, but the actual singer performing in the hotel bar. Sofia Coppola heard her perform "Scarborough Fair" and wrote her into the movie.
• Underage Casting: Scarlett Johansson was just about to turn 18 and finished high school at the time of shooting, playing a married college graduate in her early twenties. Her husky voice and excellent performance make the discrepancy virtually imperceptible.
• Write What You Know: The inspiration for having Bob Harris do a Suntory whisky commercial was partially inspired by the fact that Francis Ford Coppola made a real Suntory commercial with Akira Kurosawa in The '70s.
• Write Who You Know: John was loosely based on her then-husband Spike Jonze.

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