Rob Brown got the role after initially auditioning as an extra. Brown had no aspirations of being an actor, and was only hoping to make some money to pay his $300 cell phone bill. But director Gus Van Sant invited him to audition for the role of Jamal, and liked his natural ability.
When Jamal checks out the data on Forrester with the school's computer, the facts he discovers are Sir Sean Connery's real-life data.
During filming, it was discovered that Sir Sean Connery could not type. When you see Forrester's hands on the keys, they are someone else's hands.
In addition to being based on J.D. Salinger, William Forrester is also heavily inspired by John Kennedy Toole. Toole wrote the book "A Confederacy of Dunces", a mysteriously autobiographical book, but when no one would publish it, he committed suicide in his car. Several years later, the book was published and won the Pulitzer Prize.
The sketch used to portray a young Forrester in the New Yorker and on the wall of famous writers at the school was based on a young Sir Sean Connery. The same picture was on a desk in Mark Trevor's house in "Another Time, Another Place (1958)," in which Connery was introduced to a big audience.
Gus Van Sant: (At around one hour and seven minutes) Library assistant (at a computer in background) where Jamal attempts to check out Forrester's "Avalon Landing" novel.
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