Carrie/Trivia

"“…that opening sequence in which the telekinetic, Carrie White, gets her first menstrual experience before the eyes of a covey of teenage shrikes, and more than the light bulb in the locker room exploded. Xeroxes of the manuscript were run off; they were disseminated widely in-house; women editors passed them on to female secretaries, who took them home and gave them to their friends. That first scene bit hard…It was Jungian archetype goosed with ten million volts of emotional power. It was the commonly-shared horrible memory of half the population, reinterpreted.”"
 * Ability Over Appearance: Sissy Spacek was widely thought to be too pretty for the title role, the character in the book being described as chunky, mousy-haired and covered in pimples with Spacek being a tall thin redhead with clear skin. But Spacek's Oscar nomination speaks for itself. The character was then rewritten slightly, saying that she would be pretty if she made an effort to tidy herself up a bit.
 * Angela Bettis from the TV remake is another example, not really matching the book's description but giving a great performance as Carrie. Though she did work hard to match other parts of the character's description.
 * Creator Backlash: Before he finished writing, Stephen King threw the entire manuscript in the trash, disappointed with how it was turning out. His wife Tabitha read it, loved it, and pushed for him to continue writing. The rest is history. He still regards the book as one of his weaker efforts, without the polish of his later novels.
 * According to his own account, he had originally been challenged to write something with which women could identify. He wrote the shower scene, didn't like it and threw it out; his wife, who had trouble with her periods, rescued it. The shower scene was what amazed every woman at Doubleday. Harlan Ellison said:


 * (He also used the word "trope" in this essay, which you'll find in his book Harlan Ellison's Watching.)
 * Creator Preferred Adaptation: King believes that DePalma's film adaptation is a superior work to his novel.
 * Fake American:
 * The 2002 version, having been shot in Vancouver, was so jam-packed with Canadians-playing-Americans that it would be simpler to list the actors who weren't Canadian: the Americans Angela Bettis, Patricia Clarkson, Rena Sofer and David Keith, and the Australian Emilie de Ravin.
 * The 2013 version has English actress Gabriella Wilde as Sue, along with the Australian Alex Russell.
 * Hey It's That Guy/Retroactive Recognition:
 * In The Musical, Miss Desjardin/Collins herself, Betty Buckley, plays Margaret.
 * Sarah Packard has spent the last fifteen years converting to Christianity, having a daughter and going batshit crazy.
 * Believe it or not, Carrie's prom date is also The Greatest American Hero.
 * It's a surprise that nobody's written a Pulp Fiction High School AU Crossover fic setting Vincent Vega against Carrie.
 * Subverted by Sissy Spacek -- while her most famous role is her Oscar-winning turn as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, this is probably her second most famous (and it also got her an Oscar nomination).
 * In the 2002 version, Carrie is May Canady, she went to school with Claire Littleton, Anastasia Dualla and Ginger Fitzgerald, and her mother is Sarah O'Connor.
 * For the 2012 version, may God help all the supervillains in New York, because Hit-Girl now has real superpowers. (On top of her being a vampire.) Meanwhile, Matt Garrety has lost his superpowers and is now experiencing what it's like to be on the receiving end of them.
 * Hey It's That Voice: Both the original movie and the TV remake were dubbed in Japan and both versions has very interesting casting choices, since many of the voice actors worked in many classics of the Mecha genre as protagonists:
 * Carrie is Luna and Lalah Sun. This is also considered as Hilarious in Hindsight since both girls have psychic powers and  In the TV remake, her younger self is Mikuru Asahina, Menace and Anya Alstreim.
 * Chris Hargensen is Michiru Saotome.
 * Billy Nolan is Hyoma Aoi.
 * Real Life Relative:
 * Amy Irving and her mother Priscilla Pointer played Sue and her mother respectively.
 * The song that plays during Carrie and Tommy's dance at the prom is sung by Katie Irving, Amy's sister and Priscilla's other daughter.
 * What Could Have Been:
 * The production of the original film experienced a literal example of Special Effect Failure, detailed in the special features on the DVD. The finale was supposed to involve Carrie calling down a meteor shower on her house, destroying it. Indeed, the interior scenes, showing the rocks coming through the ceiling, had already been shot. However, when they shot the exterior of the house burning down, the rig that was supposed to drop the stones malfunctioned. The production didn't have enough money left to redo the shot, so they simply filmed it sans meteors.
 * The original film was cast in a joint session with the casting of Star Wars, which creates some very interesting casting possibilities. John Travolta as Luke Skywalker? Nancy Allen or Sissy Spacek as Princess Leia? And the obvious one, Carrie Fisher as Carrie White? (Allegedly, that was the role that she was originally auditioning for before she was cast as Princess Leia.)
 * Bernard Herrmann was the first choice to score the film but died during production. Pino Donaggio replaced him.
 * For the 2012 remake, Shailene Woodley was offered the role of Carrie, but turned it down, while Haley Bennett, Dakota Fanning, Emily Browning, Lily Collins and Bella Heathcote all auditioned. Jodie Foster was also considered to play Margaret.