Trivia / The Ides of March

• California Doubling: Averted. Most of the film was shot in Clooney's childhood home of Cincinnati (bizarrely enough, the film's theatrical credits forgot to mention the city).
• Directed by Cast Member: Directed by Clooney himself.
• Reality Subtext:
  • A conversation about what presidents can and cannot do is rather obviously comparing Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.
  • The original play was inspired by Howard Dean's 2004 campaign.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Leonardo DiCaprio (who produced) and Chris Pine (who played the part onstage) were considered for the lead before Ryan Gosling was cast.
  • Brad Pitt was signed on to play Paul Zara, but left due to scheduling conflicts with Moneyball and was replaced by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
• Word of God: George Clooney said in the DVD Commentary that Ryan Gosling didn't like putting a Beat between "You can't fuck the interns" and "They get you for that." The Beat was so the audience would laugh.
  George Clooney (imitating Ryan Gosling): This isn't a sitcom, dude.
• Working Title: The film was originally named "Farragut North", after the play it was based on. The name change to "The Ides of March" seems to have been a late one as there is little relation to the actual title (unless one interprets it as a modern-day Julius Caesar).

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