Trivia / The Florida Project

• Amateur Cast: Aside from Willem Dafoe, none of the other actors were particularly well known or famous.
• Billing Displacement: Despite only playing a supporting role, Willem Dafoe gets top billing, almost certainly due to him being the biggest name in the film's otherwise Amateur Cast.
• Colbert Bump: The Magic Castle is an actual motel in Kissimmee, which got a nice little bit of exposure from the movie.
• Method Acting: Prior to filming, Dafoe spent a week living in Kissimmee in order to gain a proper understanding of what life there was like for people.
• No Budget: Even with having known names like Willem Dafoe involved, the film only cost $2 million.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The scene of Moonee and Jancey running towards a rainbow was meant to be set in a grass field and the rainbow itself would've been CGI, that is until a stormy day ended up creating a real rainbow right over the Magic Castle motel, two weeks before the scene was supposed to be shot. Baker, seeing a great opportunity, swiftly got the film crew together and had them shoot the scene right there; a move that not only looked better artistically, but also saved the production about $50,000.
• Throw It In!: The scene of Bobby trying to shoo a group of sandhill cranes away from the motel driveway was written in at the last minute after the crew noticed and were amused by how the birds would come by the motel every day and knock on the lobby window with their beaks.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Bobby was originally going to have a brother that would've helped him out with the hotel. To go along with the parent-child themes of the film better, the character was re-written into being his son.
  • Also, Halley was supposed to have a severe drug problem in early drafts, but that was written out.
• Word of God: Sean Baker confirmed that the ending is intended to be a fantasy, and it is likely that Moonee was simply taken away and ended up in foster care.

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