Nightmare Alley (2021)

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Plot Synopsis

Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), an ambitious carny with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words, hooks up with Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a psychiatrist who is even more dangerous than he is.

Male Deaths

• Richard Jenkins [Ezra Grindle]
• Bill MacDonald [Stanton's Dad]
• Peter MacNeill [Judge Kimball]
• Holt McCallany [Anderon]
• David Strathairn [Pete Krumbein]

Female Deaths

• Mary Steenburgen [Mrs. Kimball]

Trivia

2. Bradley Cooper learned how to box in preparation for the role of Stanton Carlisle at the request of Guillermo del Toro, who wanted Cooper to convey through body language that Stanton has had a violent past.
3. Most of the early scenes were filmed after production suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bradley Cooper used the time to lose 15 pounds and appear younger for the beginning of the film.
4. Ron Perlman's seventh collaboration with director Guillermo del Toro. Pinocchio (2022) will be their eighth.
5. Rooney Mara was pregnant when filming began and gave birth to her child while production was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. She remarked that the timing and production schedule was advantageous since her early scenes in the picture appearing scantily clad in her carnival costume were filmed after the break.
6. Leonardo DiCaprio was originally picked for the lead role, as DiCaprio chose this over projects from Paul Thomas Anderson and Alejandro G. Iñárritu. But when negotiations fell through due to not reaching a financial agreement, DiCaprio opted out and was shortly replaced by Bradley Cooper.
7. Among the first of the new films to hold a Los Angeles premiere at the newly opened Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which opened to the public in September 2021.
8. Richard Jenkins claimed he had one scene left to film before production shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and, upon returning to Toronto to finish his performance, he had to quarantine in his hotel room for two weeks before he could enter the set.
9. During a January 2022 interview with Terry Gross on the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air," Guillermo del Toro said that one of the reasons he had long been interested in the subject of grifters and fake psychics who prey on vulnerable and grieving people (like the ones depicted in this movie) was that, in 1998, when his father was kidnapped in Mexico and held for ransom, his family was immediately preyed upon by con artists claiming to be psychics. del Toro recounted, "one of the first warnings that came ... from the [hostage negotiator]--he said, beware of the 'psychics.' They're going to show up really early. And no sooner had I hung up the phone than I went to see my mother, and there were two 'psychics' sitting in the living room telling her they knew and they could lead us to where my father was because they could sense him. And this made an indelible impression. And that cruelty, which I saw firsthand, also is part of the spirit in this movie." When Gross asked del Toro what the so-called "psychics" told his mother, he replied, "they were there very shortly because I kicked them out. But what they were saying is that they could sense my father, that he was trying to communicate with her. And the speech was almost identical to what they - what Stan says in the movie.... the first thing they hooked on was, he loves you so very, very much, and he's trying to reach you, and he knows that you can save him. They use the same hooks. And that was evident to me. But my mother for a moment was harboring hope."

Gallery

David Strathairn

Bill MacDonald last seen alive

Peter MacNeill

Mary Steenburgen about to die

Richard Jenkins

Holt McCallany