Trivia / The Bling Ring

• Billing Displacement: Katie Chang is billed before Israel Broussard, despite Marc being more prominent than Rebecca.
• Dawson Casting: Averted, with the exception of Emma Watson, who is in her early 20s; the actors playing the other members of the Bling Ring are in their teens (and Katie Chang was only 16 when the movie was shot).
• Disowned Adaptation: Alexis Neiers slammed the film for inaccuracies.
• Dueling Movies: This movie had the unfortunate situation of being released at the same time with Spring Breakers, another movie that shows the moral decays of teenage girls; that movie ended up doing better critically. Both were also released by A24.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • Sofia Coppola got the actors playing the teens to fake-burgle a house before filming and see what mistakes they would make.
  • Emma Watson listened to Britney Spears's Femme Fatale album over and over to get into the mindset for her character.
  • Israel Broussard watched Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Fashion Police to get into character.
• Fake American: The English Emma Watson as Nicki.
• One-Book Author: Claire Julien who plays Chloe has just one short and a tiny part in The Dark Knight Rises to her resume aside from this, and has not acted since.
• Playing Against Type:
  • At the time of the film's production, Emma Watson was primarily known for playing the Brainy Brunette character of Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, and an assortment of good-natured woobies in other roles (Ballet Shoes, Noah, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, etc). Here, she plays a vapid ditz who steals, smokes and drinks.
  • Sofia Coppola doesn't go against type here, but rather just does the inverse of some of her other films. Whilst Marie Antoinette cannot cope with the attention she receives, and Bob Harris cannot cope having lost people's attention, the teenagers (especially Nicki) desperately want the attention and fame of celebrity.
• Promoted Fanboy: Emma Watson was a big fan of director Sofia Coppola.
• Throw It In!:
  • Kirsten Dunst made an unplanned visit to the set to say hi to Sofia Coppola, and she was then given an unscripted cameo.
  • The scene where Marc dances in front of the webcam only came about because Sofia Coppola found a video of Nic Prugo doing the same.
• What Could Have Been: Sofia Coppola considered cutting The Oner of the burglary in the glass house. She was persuaded to keep it in, and it became the most celebrated shot of the film.
• Win Back the Crowd: The Bling Ring helped Sofia Coppola begin to return to some degree of respectability after Marie Antoinette (2006).
• Write What You Know: Marc's status as the lead character came from Sofia Coppola meeting with Nic Prugo several times.