Trivia / Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

• Ability over Appearance: Branagh may not match Christie's description of Poirot but he nails the character's compassion, genius, and arrogance perfectly.
• Actor-Shared Background: Count Andrenyi is a dancer and Dance Battler, "no stranger to rage and violence"; his actor, Sergei Polunin, was the youngest-ever dancer to be made a principal with the world-class Royal Ballet and has been dubbed "the bad boy of ballet" due to his rebellious image and incendiary remarks.
• All-Star Cast: Let's see: Sir Kenneth Branagh, Penélope Cruz, Josh Gad, Sir Derek Jacobi, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dame Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe, Olivia Colman, Daisy Ridley, Johnny Depp, and Leslie Odom Jr., with Cassandra Pentaghast as Sonia Armstrong. Sergei Polunin appears in his first acting role, but he is a superstar in the world of ballet. The promotional materials don't hesitate to flex the cast's Oscar cred.
• The Cast Showoff: Michelle Pfeiffer sings the end credits song "Never Forget", showing off her singing chops as she did in The Fabulous Baker Boys and Hairspray (2007).
• California Doubling: As filming in front of the real Western Wall is obviously not practical, Malta stood in for Jerusalem.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, Hercule Poirot is voiced by the actor and model Masao Kusakari, and Natalia Dragomiroff is voiced by the actress Momiji Yamamura.
• Costume Backlash:
  • Kenneth Branagh expressed regret at making Poirot's mustache as big as it is, as it was a nightmare to maintain. For the sequel Death on the Nile, the mustache was noticeably smaller. Ironically, Agatha Christie's lone complaint about the 1974 adaptation was that Albert Finney's mustache wasn't grand enough; one wonders what she would have thought of Branagh's.
  • Josh Gad disliked his own mustache as well, as it made him look creepy and his children refused to come near him until he shaved it off.
• Descended Creator: Kenneth Branagh got the director gig and cast himself as Poirot.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Hector MacQueen mentioned speaking in French because Edward Ratchett "doesn't speak a word of it." Johnny Depp, however, speaks a decent level of French.
• No Stunt Double: Kenneth Branagh really walked atop an actual train for the scene where Poirot does the same, and despite the addition of a safety wire he found it properly terrifying "for this 56-year-old actor".
• Playing with Character Type: On the surface, Mary Debenham is rather like many of Daisy Ridley's other roles; a modest, kind-hearted woman who still speaks up against injustice. However, she's revealed to have a darker side when it turns out she helped kill the murder victim and attempted to conceal this from Poirot. That said, the man she helped kill was an utter scumbag and she agreed to take part because he abducted and murdered a little girl she cared for as a governess; she's also willing to be arrested for her crime rather than kill Poirot to escape.
• Production Posse:
  • This is Sir Derek Jacobi's fifth time appearing in a Kenneth Branagh film, after Henry V (1989), Dead Again, Hamlet, and Cinderella.
  • This is Dame Judi Dench's third Branagh film she has appeared in, after Henry V and Hamlet.
  • The composer of the film is Patrick Doyle, who has done the scores for all of Branagh's films.
  • Long-term Branagh film and theatre collaborators Gerard Horan and Jimmy Yuill are involved in the film, as the character Aynesworth and as a performance consultant respectively. Gerard Horan also worked with Josh Gad in Beauty and the Beast, released earlier the same year.
• Romance on the Set: Tom Bateman and Daisy Ridley started dating after working on this movie and have since married.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron were approached for the role of Mrs. Hubbard before the casting of Michelle Pfeiffer.
  • Michael Peña was initially cast as Marquez before the casting of Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, but dropped out of the project due to scheduling conflicts with CHiPs.
• Written-In Infirmity: Judi Dench is most often sitting down, and guided by Olivia Colman when she does walk, due to her failing eyesight.

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