Trivia / The Faculty

• Billing Displacement: R&B star Usher is featured prominently on the poster despite appearing in only five minutes of the movie. None of the other cast members were all that famous (at the time), while Usher is, well, Usher. This may have also leaned into Deleted Role territory, as some TV trailers for the film featured some additional footage of his character that was not present in the film's final cut.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Parasite (Japan)
  • Dangerous Classrooms (Mexico/Argentina)
  • A Lesson in Terror (Finland)
  • Final Exam (Brazil)^note Final Exam is known there as "Shadow Time"
  • Mystery in College (Portugal)
  • The Invasion (Greece)^note Ironically, this would be the title of an official remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers nine years later.
  • Them (Poland)^note Not to be confused with another sci-fi horror movie from 1954.
• Dawson Casting: Surprisingly little of it for a '90s teen horror film. The only twenty-something cast members playing teenagers were 22-year-olds Shawn Hatosy and Laura Harris and 21-year-old Clea DuVall, all of whom were very close to the cutoff. Elijah Wood, meanwhile, was 17 when he starred in this film, while Jordana Brewster was 18. Josh Hartnett was 20, but Zeke was repeating senior year, making him just a year or two younger than Hartnett (presuming this was the only time he'd been held back). And Harris technically gets a free pass, seeing as she was actually the alien anyway.
• Dueling Works: The Faculty was released on 25th December, 1998, six months after Disturbing Behavior, on 24th July, 1998. Both are quippy teen riffs on classic Paranoid Thriller material: The Stepford Wives in the earlier movie's case, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers in the later's case, both recycled in high school. Both have antagonistic adults, and both rewrite their source material's very depressing endings so that the good guys win.
• Deleted Role: Kidada Jones filmed several scenes portraying a girl called Venus, who was advertised in TV previews and a tie-in Tommy Hilfiger commercial. Most of them were cut and she can only be seen in the science class scene, standing next to Gabe (Usher's character).
• Fake American: The Canadian Laura Harris plays Marybeth, who claims to be from Atlanta and has a really thick Southern accent. She drops it or at least dials it down once she's revealed as the alien queen.
• Hey, It's That Place!: Zeke's house is the same one from the film Multiplicity. The driveway is cracked, referencing the opening of the film — where the wrong driveway's concrete was broken up.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Clea Duvall is a lesbian in real life. She portrays a straight girl who pretends to be gay to alienate people.
• Missing Trailer Scene: Many shots and scenes in the trailer are not featured in the final product, including more footage of Coach Willis menacing someone. One website joked about this by showing a scene with the title "The Faculty, as not seen in The Faculty."
• Production Posse: It's a Robert Rodriguez movie, so of course Salma Hayek is close behind. Rodriguez would also work with Elijah Wood and Josh Hartnett again in Sin City.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Subverted. While Clea DuVall would later come out as a lesbian, her character in this film is only pretending to be such to avoid attention, and is actually straight.
• Real-Life Relative: The tattooed girl who points Marybeth in the direction of the principal's office is Robert Rodriguez's sister Tina.
• Stunt Casting: R&B star Usher in a small role as one of Stan's fellow football players.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Delilah was written for Charisma Carpenter. She turned it down, fearing it was too similar to Cordelia Chase. Speaking of which, Sarah Michelle Gellar turned down the role. Jessica Alba also auditioned.
  • Gillian Anderson turned down the role of Principal Valerie Drake. Funnily enough, if she had accepted, then Principal Drake and Coach Willis would also have been Agent Scully and Agent Doggett.
  • Sherilyn Fenn was Rodriguez's first choice to play Elizabeth Burke.
  • Kevin Williamson was going to direct as well, but he was busy with Teaching Mrs. Tingle, so Robert Rodriguez came on board too.
  • The line "It must really blow being you" was originally said by Stan to Casey rather than the other way around.
  • An earlier draft of the script has Elijah Woods’ character named as Pacey. If that name sounds familiar it’s because it belongs to Joshua Jackson’s character on Dawsons Creek, another creation by writer Kevin Williamson. Casey’s name was changed after the series premiered on television nearly a year before this film was released.
• Working Title: The Feelers.

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