Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream came out more than twenty years ago, and the movie remains one of the most consequential films of the 21st century. This is true for the filmmaker, the outstanding cast that brought to life a damning story about the effects of addiction on the human psyche, and those of us who have vivid memories of either watching the unforgettable drama in the theater or at home… Or perhaps at one of our friends’ houses at some high school sleepover.
In honor of our partnership with Plex, where the movie is currently streaming for free, we’ve put together a list of some of the most extraordinary Requiem for a Dream behind-the-scenes facts that detail Aronofsky’s first encounter with Hubert Selby Jr.’s landmark novel, what the cast had to go through, and multiple other insights into the production of the cult classic.
The Requiem For A Dream Novel Was ‘So Intense And Honestly Brutal’ Darren Aronofsky Initially Couldn’t Finish Reading It
Though Requiem for a Dream gave Darren Aronofsky his big break as one of the most promising up-and-coming filmmakers with its 2000 release, he initially couldn’t bring himself to finish Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel when he first attempted to read it a decade earlier. When speaking with Film Threat ahead of the film’s release, the director recalled his experience with the book and why he couldn’t handle it at the time:
When I graduated, I concentrated on reading novels by my favorite authors, and I started reading “Requiem for a Dream,’ which I couldn’t finish. It was just so intense and honestly brutal – and so close to the writing I was working on in my personal life – that I didn’t want to read it anymore.
Years later, friend and producer Eric Watson asked to borrow the book to take with him on a vacation. And though he said the book ruined the trip, Watson told Aronofsky he had to finish reading it and turn it into a movie.
Ellen Burstyn Once Said Requiem For A Dream Was More Challenging Than The Exorcist
Ellen Burstyn received her sixth Academy Awards nomination (she previously won an Oscar for performance in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore) for her portrayal of Sara Goldfarb, a role she has described as the most challenging experience of her career. In a 2012 essay for the Evening Standard, the actress went into how she played a lonely Coney Island widow in the midst of a mental breakdown after becoming addicted to diet pills, saying:
I don't think I've ever been this challenged in a role - it was harder than The Exorcist.
Burstyn, who said she became interested in the project after watching two minutes of Darren Aronofsky’s Pi, went on to reveal that the director’s use of complicated and complex camera and rigging techniques, hours of prosthetics, and the use of various body suits and wigs all added to the chaos.
Jared Leto Fasted And Spent Time With Drug Addicts To Get Into Character For Requiem For A Dream
Jared Leto has developed a reputation as being one of the most diehard method actors in Hollywood today, and one of the best examples of this comes from his prep work for Requiem for a Dream. In early 2001, just weeks after the film opened in theaters, the future Academy Award winner told the BBC that he spent some time on the streets of New York City hanging out with drug addicts prior to the start of production, but that wasn’t all.
The actor also revealed that he lost 25 pounds for the role and spoke with a Brooklyn accent “24 hours a day” while making one of the most “enriching” yet “hardest” moves of his career up to that point. Leto’s fasting became so intense he started to experience hallucinations at one point.
Though He Was Initially Insulted By The Script, Marlon Wayans Pushed Himself To The Extreme For His Five Auditions
Known mostly for his comedic roles from Scary Movie (which came out the same year) and The Wayans Bros., Marlon Wayans showed off his dramatic chops with his portrayal of Tyrone C. Love in Requiem for a Dream. But as the actor revealed in a GQ breakdown of his career, he initially had no desire to be a part of it:
I read the script for [Requiem for a Dream], I was mad as a Black guy. ‘Brothers don’t really talk like that,’ I was insulted. ‘Come on, who still talks jive? This is 1990-something. How about they update the language?’ But this is a Hubert Selby book and they wanted to be authentic. I wasn’t really feeling it, my agent was like, ‘You gotta re-read this. I’m gonna send you the book.’ I read this book and it was the same thing. Then they sent the movie Pi, and when I saw the movie Pi, I instantly was like, ‘Wow, this director is amazing. I want to know what his vision is.’
Though Wayans was sold on the project after meeting Darren Aronofsky and he was an established star at the time, he still had to go through five auditions before he was ultimately cast. In the interview, he revealed that he wore the same outfit for all five tests, didn’t shower for days, made his own fake drug kit, and started to scare his concerned friends.
Christopher McDonald Interacted With Random People On The Streets As His Tappy Tibbons Character
Christopher McDonald’s Tappy Tibbons character, the motivational speaker who becomes a massive part of Sara Goldfarb’s story as she falls into a state of hysteria, has long been one of the most memorable parts of the movie. In an oral history about the making of the movie published by Vulture in 2020, the Happy Gilmore actor explained how he got into character and developed the whole “We got a winner!” motivational speaker persona. Basically, he channeled Tony Robbins, walked around the streets of New York, and began interacting with random people by riffing lines like “30 days, it’ll change your life.”
The Scene Where Sara Goldfarb Takes Diet Pills And Cleans Her Apartment Had To Be Choreographed
There’s a scene in Requiem for a Dream in which Sara Goldfarb is seen cleaning her entire Coney Island apartment in hyperspeed after she starts taking the diet pills that will eventually lead to her downfall. In the Vulture oral history mentioned above, producer Eric Watson revealed that the scene involved a motion-controlled camera that then moved from one side of the set to the other while Ellen Burstyn cleaned the apartment. And since the scene essentially had to be shot in one take, the production crew had to choreograph her every movement.
The MPAA Initially Gave Requiem For A Dream An NC-17 Rating
Requiem for a Dream is a movie that pushes things to the extreme, be it drug use or incredibly explicit sex scenes. And as IndieWire reported in the lead-up to the film's late 2000 theatrical release, those elements led to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) giving the movie the dreaded NC-17 rating at the time. The MPAA’s decision for the restrictive rating was reportedly due to the climatic scene in which Jennifer Connelly’s Marion Silver participates in extreme sexual acts to supply her drug habits.
But instead of going back and forcing Darren Aronofsky to recut the film for an R-rating, Artisan Entertainment stood by the director and appealed the decision. The appeal was ultimately denied, and so the distributor released the film as unrated.
Jennifer Connelly Spent Two Weeks In Costa Rica Cleansing Herself After Finishing Requiem For A Dream
All four of the main characters go through a lot before the credits begin to roll in Requiem for a Dream, and the whole experience really took a toll on Jennifer Connelly. Following the film’s release, the actress told the BBC how she decompressed and cleansed herself of the experience:
I was really looking forward to getting the role out of my system. I went on vacation afterwards to Costa Rica. I took my two-year-old, and my best friend, and we went and I floated in the ocean for two weeks to cleanse myself. It was hard, really hard to go through, emotionally. It was draining, sad, and uncomfortable.
But this doesn’t mean Connelly didn’t like the movie or its script, as she would go on to say that she “thought it was really brave” and tackled “really important issues.”
Darren Aronofsky Created The Digital Effects Company Amoeba Proteus For The Movie
With his feature film debut, Pi, Darren Aronofsky and his team created some cool visual effects to add to the movie’s presentation, and he expanded upon that with Requiem for a Dream. When speaking with IndieWire about the filmmaking process of his 2000 sophomore effort, the director revealed that he, producer Eric Watson, and a few animator buddies from college started Amoeba Proteus, a digital effects company. In the years following Requiem’s release, the company provided effects for movies like Frida, The Darjeeling Limited, and several other notable films.
Clint Mansell Sampled Classical Requiems And Bruce Lee Punches For The Score
In addition to the movie becoming a cult classic, the Requiem for a Dream score has also become incredibly popular over the years. In the same interview with IndieWire mentioned above, Darren Aronofsky revealed how Clint Mansell pieced together the film’s soundtrack by pulling from some incredibly random yet great sources:
It’s a great score, actually, some of Clint’s beats, for instance, are samples from Bruce Lee punches, stolen from movies and basically, turned into beats. For the third act, for that driving music which climaxes the film, we sampled from the greatest Requiems of all time, Mozart, Verdi, and put them into a drum machine and programmed them and gave that to the Kronos Quartet and they played over it.
It’s hard to imagine the movie without hearing Mansell and the Kronos Quartet’s work, and the score is some of the best material the partnership has created over the years.
Hopefully these behind-the-scenes facts from the making of Requiem for a Dream make you want to revisit Darren Aronofsky’s cult classic. If you want to check it out for the first time in years, or the first time entirely, you can do so as the movie is streaming for free on Plex.
