Trivia / House of Sand and Fog

• Actor-Shared Background: Shohreh Aghdashloo had to flee Iran, like her character. Indeed, she read the book before the film was even greenlit, and pictured herself in the role of Nadi.
• Career Resurrection: Shohreh Aghdashloo had given up screen acting for the last two decades, out of annoyance at being typecast as terrorists or generic villains, and taken her career to the theatre. Her Oscar nominated performance saw her then appearing in things like The Nativity Story, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, X-Men: The Last Stand, 24 (which although a terrorist role, is a little more complicated), and eventually The Expanse and Star Trek Beyond.
• Enforced Method Acting: Ben Kingsley genuinely sealed a plastic bag around his head for the final scene.
• Fake Nationality: Ben Kingsley (Anglo-Indian) playing an Iranian. Navi Rawat, who plays his daughter, is Indian-American.
• Playing Against Type: While Jennifer Connelly had been showing her range, the press hyped up her going against type as a recovering alcoholic with depression.
• Typecasting: The third of three movies that Jennifer Connelly has done involving a shot where she stands at the end of a pier - after Dark City (1998) and Requiem for a Dream. She plays a drug addict in the latter too.
• What Could Have Been: Jonathan Ahdout had been turned down in the initial round of auditions, but Vadim Perelman had doubts about the actor they ended up casting as Esmail, and reviewed the former's audition tape. On calling him back to meet and perform with Shohreh Aghdashloo, he was given the part.