Trivia / Hereditary

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Shortly before receiving Hereditary's script, Toni Collette had told her agent that she didn't want to do any more heavy, dark films at the time and only wanted to do comedies. Upon receiving the script, she loved it so much that she was mildly infuriated that she couldn't turn it down.
• Breakthrough Hit: For Ari Aster.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Latin America: The Legacy of the Devil
  • Croatia: Inherited Evil
  • Czech Republic: Scary Heritage
  • Denmark: House of Evil
  • Greece: The Succession
  • Latvia and Russia: Reincarnation
  • Romania: Evil Legacy
  • Slovakia: Damned Inheritance
  • Taiwan: Old Grudge
  • Turkey: Ritual
• California Doubling: Averted. The film is set and filmed in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• Creator Breakdown: Ari Aster has stated that the inspiration for the film came from a three-year period where he and his family went through a series of hardships so intense that "the feeling prevailed that we basically must be cursed." From there, he started to envision what story could be told if a family went through a similar period of tragedy because they actually were cursed. He has remained steadfast in refraining from publicly discussing that time in his life and its connection to the film in any further detail, noting that he was "more pulling from feelings than experiences."
• Dawson Casting: Milly Shapiro, 16 at the time of the film's production, portrays 13-year-old Charlie Graham.
• Deleted Scene: One officially released scene consists of a small exchange between Peter and Charlie before they head into the party. Several others have also surfaced, primarily consisting of exchanges between the family members.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Toni Collette stated that she went to the gym a lot during shooting because she needed to be moving around during such an arduous filming process.
• Enforced Method Acting: Alex Wolff offered to break his nose for real in the scene where Peter slams his head into a desk, but Ari Aster respectfully declined and told him they would be using a soft, cushioned foam desk. When he arrived on set to shoot the scene, Wolff realized that the desk he'd be using was in between both of their ideas — only the top half was foam, and the bottom was very much hard. For added pressure, there were only two desks made, so he had only two takes to get it right. The extent of Wolff's injuries reportedly included his nose getting damaged, blood gushing down his knee from hitting the desk, losing his voice, being unable to move his arm, and his ankle swelling, so all things considered, the extreme pain you see Peter in afterwards is coming from a very real place.
• Fake American: Toni Collette is Australian and plays the American Annie Graham.
• The Foreign Subtitle:
  • Germany: Hereditary: The Legacy
  • Finland: Hereditary: The Legacy of Evil
  • Italy: Hereditary: The Roots of Evil
  • Norway: Hereditary: House of Evil
• Method Acting: Alex Wolff stayed in character as Peter to some extent on set, with Ari Aster referring to him as Peter. Aster also sent Alex out with Milly Shapiro to complete a number of tasks in character, which reportedly included them going out to eat only to sit for up to three hours in silence while Milly wouldn't speak and Alex would try to get her to talk.
• Those Two Actors: This wasn't the first time that Gabriel Byrne and Alex Wolff played father and son in a project; 10 years prior, Wolff played Byrne's child in In Treatment.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The rough cut of the film ran over three hours. According to Ari Aster, most of the deleted footage was dialogue exchanges between the family.
  • According to early test screenings, an early version of the ending was slightly more on the graphic side. After the crowning is complete with Peter, he would then rip his eyes out to finish his transformation into Charlie/Paimon. This would also act as a payoff to all of the pictures we see of Peter and eyes sketched out.
• Word of God: According to Ari Aster, Charlie has in a sense been Dead All Along, the "real" Charlie having essentially been displaced since birth and her body used as a vessel for Paimon the entire time. The film hints at this, including how out-of-character and bewildered she seems to be when Annie channels her during the seance.

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