Trivia / The Town

• Ability over Appearance: Krista was written to be 37, a bitter chain smoker with a raspy voice. Blake Lively was only 21 and had to lobby hard for the role, but ultimately impressed enough to cast her.
• Career Resurrection: The widely lauded movie is credited with completely restoring Ben Affleck's credibility as an actor, as well as showing his good promise as a director. It also proved that Gone Baby Gone wasn't a fluke.
• Corpsing: When filming the first robbery, Rebecca Hall had a hard time keeping a straight face. The reason was because Ben Affleck would direct while in full costume in a skull mask.
• Directed by Cast Member: Ben Affleck as Doug.
• Enforced Method Acting: Self-inflicted. Jeremy Renner surrounded himself with actual convicted bank robbers in Charlestown to properly get into character as part of his research.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The studio wanted the book's ending where Doug dies and Krista gets the money. But test audiences disliked it and preferred the theatrical ending - so it was left in. The other ending was filmed and included as an extra in the Blu-Ray release.
  • Dez's death was going to be more violent, but because the scene was being filmed at Fenway Park, Major League Baseball would have to sign off on it. They didn't so it was toned down.
• Fake American: Claire and Fergie are played by British actors (the latter is also a case of Fake Irish).
• Playing Against Type: Blake Lively, best known as the glamorous Serena van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl at the time, as a trashy alcoholic.
• Those Two Actors: Titus Welliver and Slaine were in the previous film that Ben Affleck directed, Gone Baby Gone, which included Ben's brother Casey. Welliver and Victor Garber (Claire's boss) would also appear in Affleck's next film Argo.
• Throw It In!: The sequence of a cop turning away as he sees the robbers escaping wasn't in the original script. Ben Affleck added it in after interviewing a bank robber in prison - who said it happened to him.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Mark Wahlberg was the original choice for James Coughlin, but he was too busy filming The Fighter. It was Casey Affleck who recommended Jeremy Renner to his brother. Ben Affleck would later call Renner the Ensemble Dark Horse in the cast.
  • Dez's death scene had to be edited down because it was deemed too violent. The initial cut had blood splattering all over the ambulance.

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