I think most of us are aware by now that even movies that claim to be based on true events take some serious liberties with the actual truth. I know I enjoy Googling afterward to see what things were actually real and which bits were given dramatic license.
Sometimes, though, Hollywood retells an event exactly as it happened, and you might be surprised to learn that these 14 moments are 100% true.
14. Marilyn Lovell losing her wedding ring the morning of the Apollo 13 launch.
Image Credit: Universal Pictures
Marilyn Lovell, the wife of astronaut Jim Lovell, actually lost her wedding ring the morning of that ill-fated launch, which she told the New York Times in 1995.
“I read where someone said the part where Marilyn dropped her wedding ring down the drain in the shower on the morning of the launch was written into the movie for effect. That did happen.”
Marilyn also said the nightmares she had about her husband dying in space also happened to her, and she thought for months they were bad omens.
13. Prince Charles in The Crown.
When Prince Charles and the future Princess Diana sat down to the press conference to announce their engagement in The Crown, the moment turned from sweet to awkward in the blink of an eye.
The reporter says that they appear to be very much in love, and Diana immediately replies “Oh yes, absolutely.”
To which Charles adds “Whatever ‘in love’ means.”
Crickets.
And guess what? The d-bag said the exact same thing in real life.
12. Some of the tactics used in Captain Phillips.
When the pirates in the film first attempt to hijack Captain Phillip’s boat, the title character makes up a conversation with a fake warship in an attempt to scare off his attackers.
The real Captain Phillips did the same thing, and it worked (for awhile), as he recounted in his book A Captain’s Duty.
“[He] lowered his voice and dropped his Boston accent to trick the pirates into believing that he was two people: Captain Phillips and a radio operator on the fictional Warship 237.”
11. Some of the events in Argo.
Image Credit: Warner Bros.
As the US Embassy employees were escaping in Iran, they took time to shred all of the documents in their possession. Not only did that really happen, but the Iranian Revolutionary Guards also actually hired carpet weavers to piece together the documents afterward (according to a 2007 article in Wired.
“The militants had been combing embassy records and figuring out who was CIA. They had even hired teams of carpet weavers to successfully reassemble shredded documents.”
10. The real Tonya Harding had to wear her skating outfit on school picture day, too.
Image Credit: A24 Films
Say what you will about Tonya Harding, there’s no denying the fact that she had a rough start to life, and that her mother wasn’t exactly the best.
Just like in I, Tonya, the small Harding was made to wear her figure skating costume to school – hair done and tiara and all – so they could have “free” pictures to show around as media.
Harding confirmed as much in her autobiography.
“She sends me to school in my skating outfit with my hair up in French braids with a tiara, so I could have pictures. Believe me. I have proof of that one, too.”
9. Astonishingly, part of Nacho Libre.
Image Credit: YouTube
There’s a Catholic priest in the movie that becomes a luchador so that he can raise money to give back to the orphanage where he grew up – and that is inspired by the actions and life of a real man.
Padre Fray Tormenta, according to a Vice profile, decided after being kicked out of a church due to his drug addiction that he would become a “cool priest.”
As soon as he was ordained he began to take in orphans, and after he lost his ability to care for the children in the orphanage he began to train in the art of lucha libre.
Despite the urgings from the church to quit, he refused unless they would fund his orphanage. Since they wouldn’t, he kept up his antics in the ring and allowed him to care for more than 2000 orphans over a 40-year span.
8. A pivotal moment in Hidden Figures.
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox
There’s a moment in this iconic film when astronaut John Glenn says he won’t feel safe going into space until Katherine Johnson – and no one else – double checks the math that was done by a computer.
NASA historian Bill Barry told CNET that moment was true to life, though in reality Johnson had about a day and a half to verify the numbers, not mere hours.
7. Aron Ralston’s video diary in 127 Hours.
Image Credit: Fox Searchlight
The video diary isn’t just a narrative device, but a real thing that he did during his time spent trapped alone in a canyon.
He told the Guardian “It’s like this lifeline to the outer world, to other living beings, to love. That’s what kept me alive.”
Much of what Franco says on film is word-for-word what Ralston said into his device in real life.
Ralston also said he thinks the movie is “so factually accurate it is as close to a documentary as you can get and still be a drama.”
6. The plane crash in The Death of Stalin.
Image Credit: IFC Films
There’s a running joke in the movie that involves Stalin’s incompetent son Vasily trying to hide from his father and the Russian people, resulting in the death of the entire national hockey team dying in a plane crash.
It’s not just a punchline, but something that happened in real life, according to Vulture.
“In 1950, all but two players perished in a plane cash attributed to Vasily’s insistence on the team traveling exclusively by shoddy Russian-built aircraft.”
Vasily was somehow able to hide the entire debacle from his father.
5. The “rehab facility” in Spotlight.
Image Credit: Open Road Films
In the film, journalist Matt Carroll discovers that a local “rehab facility” for priests accused to sexual abuse is located around the corner from his own house and leaves a note on his fridge telling his his own children to stay away from the address.
The real-life Carroll told MIT Media Lab that in real life, he stuck a picture of the single priest who lived in the home to his fridge not a note, a detail that filmmakers changed because it wasn’t “believable” enough.
4. The questionable pregnancy test in Hulu’s The Great.
Image Credit: Hulu
In the show, Peter’s eccentric Aunt Elizabeth has Catherine urinate on wheat, telling her that if the wheat sprouts that means she’s pregnant.
This was an actual “pregnancy test” used by women of the day.
According to Harvard, this is true, and dates all the way back to ancient Egypt.
“In the first known pregnancy tests, ancient Egyptian women peed on wheat and waited to see if it would bloom, just like Catherine does in the series. The test accurately predicted 70-85% of pregnancies.”
3. Julia Child’s choice words in Julie & Julia.
You might remember a scene where Julia Child grabs pasta out of a pot of boiling water and let loose with some choice words – which is turns out are a direct quote from a real letter her husband Paul wrote to his brother Charlie.
According to Julie Powell’s book, which inspired the film, it’s “one of my favorite JC stories.”
The quote? “These d**m things are as hot as a stiff c**k!”
2. A sweet conversation from The Theory of Everything.
Jane Wilde and Stephen Hawking discuss the glowing shirts they wore during their first meeting, and according to Jane’s memoir Travelling to Infinity, the adaptation was faithful.
“The lights were picking up the fluorescent elements contained in washing powder, which was why the men’s shirts were so visible.”
1. The subway serenade in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
There’s a heartwarming scene in which a group of schoolchildren sing the theme song from the show to Mr. Rogers on the subway, but according to journalist Tom Junod’s Esquire profile, it’s 100% factual.
“Once upon a time, Mister Rogers went to New York City and got caught in the rain. He didn’t have an umbrella, and he couldn’t find a taxi, either, so he ducked with a friend into the subway and got on one of the trains. It was late in the day, and the train was crowded with children who were going home from school. Though of all races, the schoolchildren were mostly Black and Latino, and they didn’t even approach Mister Rogers and ask for his autograph. They just sang. They sang, all at once, all together, the song he sings at the start of his program, ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’ and turned the clattering train into a single, soft, runaway choir.”
I don’t know about you, but I would have liked to have seen that.
I never would have guessed some of these, but I think things like this are very fun to know.
What television or film moments surprised you by being true to real life? If they’re not here, let us know what they are down in the comments!
