Was the song "Let's Go Fly a Kite" really responsible for P.L. Travers "breakthrough?" No. It was actually the song "Feed the Birds" that made her sing a new tune. Collie explains that while "Feed the Birds" is a beautiful song when you hear the chords, it's not as upbeat as "Let's Go Fly a Kite," which is what they show Thompson's Travers tapping her feet to in the film.
The character of Robert Sherman (played by B.J. Novak) only mentions once that the reason he walks with a limp was because he was shot. Did that really happen? I asked Collie, who said "I'm fairly sure he was wounded in the war, so he had a walking stick."
Was P.L.'s difficult behavior exaggerated at all for the sake of the movie? Not at all, says Tom Hanks (who plays Walt Disney). In fact, Hanks thinks that if P.L. were alive today (she died in 1996), she would hate this film. "She would! She would absolutely hate it! She would say, 'Why don't you make a movie about the poetry I wrote?!' But that's what's great about it."
That's Emma Thompson's actual hair in the film. No wigs! "Darling, they permed my hair," the Oscar-winning actress told me. "So I just got up every day and walked onto the set! That was after a liberal application of orange lipstick—horrible. It was big in those days. Just horrible."
How did they create Beverly Hills before it was built up? Giamatti explains that the Beverly Hills Hotel still looks quite similar to how it did back in the day, so they filmed some scenes at the iconic hotel, while others were on a soundstage. But all the driving scenes with Giamatti at the wheel (that showed vast land in the background) was shot in front of a green screen. "We were sitting there with these guys kind of moving the car a bit with us in it, and it was hilarious. It's my favorite thing to do in movies! Green screen!"
