20 facts you might not know about 'Don't Look Up'

McKay had already gotten political with The Big Short and Vice. After Vice, the journalist and speechwriter David Sirota suggested that McKay make a movie about climate change that wasn’t in the vein of Mad Max. Sirota has a story credit on the film, his first film credit.

The film was first a Paramount production, but in February 2020, it moved to Netflix. At that point, Lawrence joined the cast. McKay had written the role of Kate Diabasky specifically for her, which may have helped make that happen.

McKay was interested in having DiCaprio for the role of Dr. Randall Mindy, but Leo didn’t sign on right away. The writer and director had to spend a few months talking with DiCaprio tweaking the character until the actor finally agreed to join the cast.

Hill plays Jason Orlean, son of President Janie Orlean, and Chief of Staff. In addition to being a riff on the nepotism of the Trump White House, Hill took inspiration from a non-human subject. On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he said his take on Jason was basically, “What if Fyre Festival was a person?”

McKay put together quite the cast for Don’t Look Up . Five different Oscar winners are in the movie. DiCaprio, Lawrence, and Mark Rylance each have one. Cate Blanchett has a couple. Then, of course, there’s Meryl Streep, one of the most revered actors of all time.

The Friends star was in a scene at a political rally with Hill’s Jason and a Kid Rock impersonator that was presumably playing Kid Rock. However, the scene got cut. When everybody exits the spaceship on the new planet at the movie's end, you may have noticed a guy who looks kind of like Kid Rock. He is held over from this deleted scene.

Don’t Look Up was shot during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant strict protocols. That went so far that Lawrence had to film with a broken tooth that she could not get fixed until after she was done filming the movie.

This was not the easiest shoot on Lawrence’s body, apparently. A controlled glass explosion on set one day did not go as planned, and Lawrence was injured as a result. Fortunately, it was only a minor issue, and she was fine to continue filming.

You’re watching this movie full of big stars, and then, suddenly, Chalamet pops in out of nowhere to add another star to the mix. His character has long hair, but this was not a choice made by the production. Filming was delayed for months due to a COVID-19 lockdown, and Chalamet didn’t cut his hair during that time. When McKay saw it, he decided he liked it for the character and let Chalamet keep it.

While Dr. Mindy becomes a celebrity, he gets a makeover, which includes trimming his beard. However, DiCaprio didn’t grow his beard out and have it shaved. Instead, hair extensions were woven into his beard to make it look longer early in the film.

There aren’t many movies about space objects crashing into the Earth and ending human life. And yet, Lynskey has done it twice. In addition to playing June, Dr. Mindy’s wife, in Don’t Look Up, she was in the 2012 film Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, which has a similar premise.

Astronomer Amy Mainzer works for NASA investigating near-Earth objects. She also served as an adviser for the movie and helped in crafting scenes. DiCaprio and Mainzer also talked extensively to give the actor a better sense of the world of astronomy.

Unfamiliar with the smartphones used by characters in the movie? That’s not surprising. They are Hydrogens, which were made by the company RED, primarily known for making movie cameras. The phone was a huge flop when they were released, presumably leaving many of them available. Don’t Look Up makes use of the Hydrogens, but it isn’t the only film to do so.

In the film, the U.S. government launches a hotline people can call to ask questions or to get “peace of mind.” The number they used in the movie was already used in the real world. It is one of those sex chat lines.

Real-life musicians Ariana Grande and Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi play musicians in Don’t Look Up. Their characters collaborate on the song “Just Look Up” at Grande’s Riley Bina’s concert. Grande and Cudi recorded a single version of the song, released to promote the film.

You may not think much about the wigs actors are wearing, but Don’t Look Up was an intense experience on the wig front. Both Lawrence and Streep put a lot of thought into their wigs. In fact, Lawrence and the hair department tried out 25 wigs before settling on one. Meanwhile, COVID-19 created some different kinds of wig issues. Cate Blanchett ended up bringing a wig from home, and Rob Morgan had to try out wigs in Atlanta before arriving for shooting since he couldn’t meet with the production team.

While the movie got a limited theatrical release, Don’t Look Up lives on Netflix. Apparently, people were quite interested in seeing it. According to Netflix and the metrics, the film was the most-streamed English-language film on the service in its debut week and had the second-biggest debut week ever on the service. Red Notice is the film with the biggest debut week numbers.

Reportedly, Evans was in consideration to play Peter Isherwell. In the end, Rylance ended up with the role, but the erstwhile Captain America still made an appearance. He has an uncredited cameo as Devin Peters, an actor in a movie inspired by the comet.

Silverman has a quick cameo in Don’t Look Up in one of the movie’s many montages of social media and internet videos. She appears to be on a podcast or something and makes a quippy remark. One might assume that Silverman is playing herself. However, according to the credits, she is playing a character named “Sarah Benterman,” who just happens to be exactly like Sarah Silverman.

Don’t Look Up is an admittedly heavy-handed satire about climate change. Naturally, its political nature has made it a lightning rod. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 55 percent rating, though that comes from critics. They might be responding a bit more to the film than the politics. The AFI and National Board of Review named it one of their top 10 films of the year, and some critics groups have given it awards. Even there, though, the divisiveness is apparent. The Detroit Film Critics Society gave it Best Original Screenplay, while the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle named it Most Disappointing Film.