Trivia / The Spectacular Now

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Shailene Woodley had been considering dropping out of acting, due to not receiving any good scripts lately. But she fell in love with this one and immediately signed on. She loved the story so much that she considered dropping out when rewrites were rumoured - that never ended up happening.
• Lying Creator: In order to get Jennifer Jason Leigh, producers told her agent that Julianne Moore desperately wanted the role and they would give it to her if she didn't say yes within that day.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Retroactively for Shailene Woodley. Her best known projects have her playing tough girls with a lot of attitude. It's thus a little different to see her as a Shrinking Violet.
  • Brie Larson herself is usually the dorky one. So with Shailene filling that role, she instead plays Sutter's Alpha Bitch of an ex-girlfriend.
  • Jennifer Jason Leigh got fame for playing junkies, prostitutes or otherwise troubled characters. Here she's the concerned mother and it's her ex-husband who's the troubled one.
• Playing with Character Type: The movie gradually deconstructs the type of wiseass frat boy type characters that Miles Teller often plays - showing Sutter as a Stepford Smiler who is severely detached from reality.
• Throw It In!: The scene in the bar with Sutter's father was meant to end with him asking the kids to pick up the tab. Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley improvised looking through their wallets trying to put together enough money to pay. The director left it in, finding the whole thing beautifully sad.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original draft of the script heavily revolved around Sutter developing diabetes. His habit of drinking large beverages is a left over from this.
  • The prom scene originally ran a lot longer. Shailene Woodley claims that she filmed a sequence where a very drunk Aimee would get annoyed at Sutter dancing with Cassidy, tell her "he's mine" and then throw up. It was cut so as not to make Aimee seem unsympathetic.
• Word of Saint Paul: The two leads differ on what they thought happened between Aimee and Sutter. Miles Teller thinks they went to lunch but Aimee has matured too much to be interested in Sutter anymore. Shailene Woodley meanwhile thinks that they reconcile romantically, even if it wouldn't be healthy.