Trivia / Joy (2015)

• Actor-Inspired Element: Melissa Rivers provided a lot of input on what her mother would have said for the scene where Joan Rivers gives Joy feedback.
• California Doubling: Massachusetts doubled for Texas.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Involuntarily. Although she wore a wig for the Important Haircut scene, Jennifer Lawrence accidentally snipped some of her own hair.
• Production Posse: Directed by David O. Russell and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro and Elisabeth Rohm - all of whom he has worked with several times.
• Real-Life Relative: Melissa Rivers plays her own mother, the late Joan Rivers. Robert De Niro's daughter Drena also has a role.
• Star-Derailing Role: The film seems to have dented some of the good will that Jennifer Lawrence was riding in her career; although getting an Oscar nomination, the film underperformed and was given lukewarm reviews. Her performance in X-Men: Apocalypse was received rather negatively, and her next two projects - Passengers (2016) and mother! (2017) were box office bombs - and she did not release another film in 2017.
• Underage Casting: Robert De Niro is eighteen years older than Virginia Madsen, who plays his first wife. He's only eight years younger than Diane Ladd, who plays the grandmother.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original script was for a more straightforward biopic of Joy Mangano. However David O. Russell wanted to make the film his way, and make Joy a Composite Character of various women who succeeded against all odds. Among the changes he made included adding the character of Peggy (who is completely fictional) and making Terry a singer (in real life he was a fellow business student at Pace University).
  • The decision was made to have Mimi narrate the film late in production, well after Diane Ladd's scenes had already been shot.