For in-flight viewing, several airlines deleted the sequence in which Raymond Babbitt reels off statistics on airline accidents, except Qantas. They even promoted one of the movie's writers to first class once when he travelled on their airline.
During filming, Dustin Hoffman was unsure of the film's potential and his own performance. Three weeks into the project, Hoffman wanted out, telling Barry Levinson, "Get Richard Dreyfuss, get somebody, Barry, because this is the worst work of my life." Hoffman would nab his second Best Actor Academy Award for his work.
What Raymond Babbitt says about Qantas was, and still is true. From 1921 to 2023, Qantas has never lost any jet airliners.
Dustin Hoffman spent a lot of time with savant Kim Peek, the inspiration for the character of Raymond. Rain Man writer Barry Morrow first met Peek in 1986, and on winning an Oscar for the screenplay for this movie in 1989, gave his Oscar trophy to Kim Peek. Hoffman made Kim's father (the main caregiver) a promise that he would "share Kim with the world." For nearly twenty years until his death, Kim Peek went all over the world impressing people with his incredible memory and ability to recall minute details from centuries of history.
The elderly man in the waiting room who talks on and on about the Pony Express is Byron P. Cavnar, an 89-year-old local who was in the waiting room when the crew arrived to film there. He got to talking on his favorite subject, the Pony Express, and director Barry Levinson got such a kick out of it that he let Cavnar keep on talking as the cameras rolled. All his dialogue was spontaneous and not scripted.
Barry Levinson: [Ralph Tabakin] (Shift Boss) has appeared in every Levinson picture from Diner (1982) to Liberty Heights (1999).
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