Trivia / Promising Young Woman

• Creator Cameo: Director/writer Emerald Fennell is the YouTube vlogger that Cassie watches for a makeup tutorial.
• Fake American: The characters are American. Carey Mulligan (Cassie) and Alfred Molina (Jordan Green) are British.
• Playing Against Type: Both of Cassie's parents.
  • Clancy Brown, best known for his villainous roles, plays not only a Nice Guy, but probably the nicest person in the cast. The fact that that this is a movie where All Men Are Perverts or compliant in such behavior makes this even more noticeable.
  • Jennifer Coolidge, best known for her comedic ditz roles and as Stifler's "MILF" in the American Pie series, plays a regular down-to-earth mother who passive-aggressively tries to push her daughter out of being a Basement-Dweller and isn't funny about it.
• Playing with Character Type:
  • Bo Burnham, who often writes his comedy around Dogged Nice Guy types and directed a film with a Near-Rape Experience between a so-called "nice guy" and the protagonist, plays Ryan, a "nice guy" who actually refuses to take accountability for his past actions (or lack thereof), lies about his knowledge of Cassie's whereabouts when she disappears, and — to top it all off — attends Al's wedding, knowing what he'd done.
  • The intent behind casting Adam Brody, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Max Greenfield, and Chris Lowell. They are known for playing "nice guys"^note  in The O.C., Superbad, Veronica Mars/New Girl, and Veronica Mars/GLOW respectively and play their characters in the film with similar earnestness and charm. However, their characters invariably turn out to be sleazy predators.
  • Alison Brie and Connie Britton also generally play sunny, lovable characters, making their roles as Cassie and Nina's old friend who did not believe Nina was raped and the dean who dismissed Nina's case for "lack of evidence" respectively hit pretty hard.
  • Sam Richardson plays the dim-witted doofus he’s associated with, only now he’s willing to take advantage of drunk girls.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original ending was even darker than the one that the film ultimately had, with Al and Joe getting away with killing Cassie and successfully disposing of her corpse instead of getting dealt a Karma Houdini Warranty by Cassie's Thanatos Gambit. Emerald Fennell said that she still preferred the original ending, but her financiers thought it was much too bleak.
  • Fennell also revealed another ending planned for the film, in which Cassie survives and kills Al and Joe by setting their house on fire.

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