Boardwalk Empire/Trivia

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• Absentee Actor: Notably, only Steve Buscemi has appeared in every episode of the series. Unsurprisingly for a show that spans so many locations and features so many regulars it is not uncommon for actors to not appear in some episodes:
  • Chalky and Al Capone appear in about half the episodes in most seasons though Chalky, because of his popularity with the fans, gets a big boost in Season 4 where he is basically the second lead and appears in more episodes than anybody besides Nucky.
  • Van Alden goes from appearing in all but one episode of Season 1 to appearing in a mere five episodes in Season 3.
  • In Season 4, Margaret is entirely gone for the first 5 episodes and appears in a scant 4 episodes afterwards. Lucky Luciano also only appears in 4 episodes.
• Actor Allusion: Harry takes Nucky to golf in "Gimcrack & Bunkum" (Harry's actor Christopher McDonald played the bad guy in Happy Gilmore).
• Cast the Expert: Margot Bingham (Daughter Maitland) is a Broadway singer in real life.
  • The Cast Showoff: Two of Bingham's songs can be found on the released Season 4 soundtrack.
• The Danza: Eric Sesbo played by Erik Weiner.
• Dawson Casting:
  • 37 year old Stephen Graham as 21 year old Al Capone.
  • Also, 30-year-old Michael Pitt as 23-year-old Jimmy Darmody.
  • Anatol Yusef as Meyer Lansky. No way is he 18.
  • 62 year-old Greg Antonacci as 38 year-old Johnny Torrio.
• Fake Nationality:
  • The very German Eddie Kessler is played by an American actor, Anthony Laciura. The casting crew was in fact surprised when they learned that Laciura, who had made his entire introduction in a German accent, was actually an Italian-American from the Bronx.
  • Fake American: Englishmen Stephen Graham, Anatol Yusef (of Turkish decent) and Jack Huston as Al Capone, Meyer Lansky and Richard Harrow, respectively.
  • Fake Irish: Scottish Kelly Macdonald and Englishman Charlie Cox as Margaret Rohan Schroeder and Owen Sleater. Also, Scot Tony Curran as Margaret's brother Eamon. Irish-American Nucky Thompson is played by Italian-American Steve Buscemi who is of half Irish descent. John McGarrigle is played by Ted Rooney who was born and raised in Portland, Oregon.
  • Also, the French Isabelle Jeunet is played by Swiss actress Anna Katarina.
  • Washington-born Jeffrey Wright plays Trinidarian gangster Valentin Narcisse.
  • Polish Jew character Jake Guzik is played by Italian-American actor Joe Caniano.
  • Sigrid Mueller is played by German-Danish actress Christiane Seidel.
• Fan Nickname: "Bork" for Sigrid Mueller.
• Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • Before appearing on Boardwalk Empire, Stephen Graham was famous for playing the violent, but sympathetic, skinhead Combo in This Is England.
    • He's also Shan, the Number Two to Leonardo DiCaprio in Gangs of New York.
    • And Baby Face Nelson in Public Enemies. Yep, he has a history of Mafia-related roles.
  • We've mentioned that Michael Stulbarg is Larry Gopnik, right? Talk about Playing Against Type.
  • Leo D'Alessio is Benny Fazio from The Sopranos!
• Name's the Same:
  • Averted. Margaret's teenage second sister's name "Beth" stands for Bethany, not Elizabeth, whose Irish form is Aylesh.
  • Pauline should not to be confused with Margaret's cook in the second season.
• The Other Darrin:
  • The role of Will, Eli's oldest son, was recast for Season 4. The first actor (Kevin Csolak) has blonde, straight hair; the second actor (Ben Rosenfield) has red, curly hair. The fact that his brothers have been consistently cast only highlights it.
  • Jess Smith was played by an extra in the first season.
  • Carolyn Rothstein was played by Jennifer Ferrin in Season 2 and Shae D'Lyn in Season 5.
• Playing Against Type:
  • While Steve Buscemi is no stranger to playing criminals, he's usually cast as weaselly supporting characters rather than the suave man in charge.
  • Michael Stuhlbarg, best known up to this point for playing Larry Gopnik in A Serious Man, now plays Arnold Rothstein, a ruthless mobster.
  • Perennial bed-wetter Michael Pitt as certified hard-ass Jimmy Darmody.
  • Jim True-Frost as the most famous no-nonsense cop in history Eliot Ness is hilarious to anyone who remembers him as the perpetual screw-up Roland Pryzbylewski on The Wire.
• Screwed by the Network: Chalky's Season 4 subplot, one of the year's heaviest, is rather contritely solved in just a few scenes of Season 5. Things surely would have been different, had HBO not cancelled the show 2 seasons early and given Winter only 8 episodes to tie everything up.
• Throw It In: Jack Huston came up with Harrow's guttural voice himself, using Marlon Brando's cotton-in-the-mouth trick from The Godfather.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The first casting calls for Season 1 called for the introduction in the season finale of "Declan", Margaret's long estranged brother who was now linked to the IRA. Instead, Season 2 divided this character and introduced separately Margaret's brother Eamonn, a Brooklyn subway-digger with no interest in politics, and Owen, an IRA enforcer completely unrelated to Margaret.
  • Aleksa Palladino revealed in an interview that one considered plot line for the third season involved Angela and Jimmy moving to NYC, and Angela meeting a female activist that would introduce her to Anarchism.
  • The first casting calls for Al Capone's brothers Frank and Ralph came out in Season 2, but Domenick Lombardozzi (seen in The Wire and Entourage) was confirmed as Ralph only in Season 4. In Season 2, Al mentions that he is going to Brooklyn to take his brothers and bring them to Chicago.
  • It has been said in at least one interview with TV Guide that Molly Parker(Mabel Thompson)'s photograph was a prelude to her appearance in flashback during Season 2, but that never materialized.