---

IMDB.com TRIVIA
The following contains miscellaneous information regarding the film's production.

 - The shot where Schmidt has dozed off while writing a letter in his bathtub is supposed to resemble the Jacques-Louis David painting "Death of Marat".

 - Listed on a cinema marquee: Sideways (2004), another film by Alexander Payne.

 - The church shown during the wedding rehearsal is in Boulder, Colorado, 20 miles northwest of Denver. The church can be seen on the right from Hwy. 136 just as you enter town.

 - Scenes supposedly taking place at the University of Kansas were actually shot at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

 - The production crew created a lifetime Endowed Scholarship for the real-life Ndugu, Abdallah Mtulu, through the real Childreach organization.

 - The scene where Warren is swinging on the monkey bars was filmed at Steinhart Park, in Nebraska City, Nebraska.

 - A scene that echoes Jack Nicholson's famous diner scene in Five Easy Pieces (1970) (his exchange with the waitress) was in an early cut of the movie. Though the preview audience went wild over it, director Alexander Payne cut it from the final film because it wasn't something that Warren Schmidt would do and was too much of a distraction.

 - The movie theater that Warren drives by before he goes to the museum to look at the arrowheads is the Pioneer 3 in Nebraska City, Nebraska. The "museum" is actually an old church building in the same town, just down the street.

 - The Woodmen Life Assurance Co. is an actual firm. Jack Nicholson filmed his scenes at the company's offices and was given a plaque making him an honorary Woodmen member.

 - The word "Ndugu" means "brother" literally in Kiswahili (same as Swahili). It is also used as slang for "friend" as in the US.

 - The film's plot involves the children's charity "Childreach". Since 2002, the year of the film's release, the organization has referenced the film and featured its poster in its literature for prospective child sponsors.

 - Nationally syndicated political cartoonist Jeff Koterba had a walk-on role in the film; however, it was cut from the final version.

 - Once the filmmakers bought the rights to the Louis Begley novel, they kept the title and the main character but changed just about everything else. In the book, the main character lived in the Hamptons and his daughter was about to marry a lawyer.