Trivia / Peggy Sue Got Married

• Actor-Inspired Element: Nicolas Cage based his character's voice on Pokey of The Gumby Show. Francis Ford Coppola and the producers hated the voice and Cage was nearly fired. But Cage managed to convince Coppola he was making a good choice.
• Dawson Casting: Kathleen Turner plays her high school self at the age of 32. Averted as well because she also plays her 43 year old self. However, it's necessary so that she can switch between young and old. For a prime example, watch Turner's performance when she gets a phone call from her grandmother, who is still alive, but from Peggy's perspective, died decades ago. She goes from teenager to middle-aged "oh my God, it's my grandmother!" in a nanosecond.
• Hostility on the Set: Kathleen Turner says she found Nicolas Cage difficult to work with and that her frustrations with the actor helped fuel her portrayal of Peggy Sue's anger toward Charlie. She later made numerous allegations about his behavior in her memoirs but ended up getting sued by Cage for defamation and had to issue a public apology after losing.
• Method Acting: Kathleen Turner usually feels the role she's playing intensely. In this movie she had terrible nightmares about her dead grandmother calling her on the phone, similar to what Peggy Sue feels in the phone scene.
• Real-Life Relative: Francis Ford Coppola's daughter Sofia Coppola plays Peggy Sue's little sister. She appears opposite her cousin Nicolas Cage.
• Wag the Director: Nicolas Cage says he didn't want to appear in this film and only agreed to the repeated requests of his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, if he'd be allowed to go over-the-top.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Debra Winger was offered the role of Peggy Sue and was actually cast but a back injury from a bicycle accident forced her to withdraw from the film.
  • When Winger was attached to star, she asked Penny Marshall to direct the film. Marshall met with Tom Hanks and Sean Penn for the male lead, but was fired three weeks into pre-production by the producers, who felt that the film had gotten too big for a first-time director.
  • Dennis Quaid turned down the role of Charlie Bodell in order to appear in The Big Easy. Steve Guttenberg, Judge Reinhold and Martin Short were also considered.
  • In the original script, Rosalie, the woman in the wheelchair at Peggy Sue's high school reunion, was a gymnast who was crippled in an accident. In the original script, Peggy Sue tried to take advantage of her knowledge of the future. She invented pantyhose, encouraged people to invest in Xerox, and tried to prevent Rosalie from hurting herself.

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