"The famous line from the film, 'You're the man now, Dog!', served as the inspiration for the popular internet site YTMND."
More trivia...
"In the opening, the stack of books (presumably Jamal's) is comprised of the following titles: 'Journey to the Center of the Earth', Jules Verne; 'After the Banquet,' Yukio Mishima; 'The Sound of Waves,' Yukio Mishima; 'The Temple of Dawn,' Yukio Mishima; 'The Sailor Who Feel from Grace with the Sea', Yukio Mishima; 'The Viking Portable Chekhov'; 'Philosophical Fragments,' Soren Kierkegaard; 'The Sickness Unto Death,' Soren Kierkegaard; 'Fear and Trembling,' Soren Kierkegaard; 'Marquis de Sade: A Study,' Simone de Beauvoir; 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man', James Joyce; 'Something Great,' Ken Kesey; 'Finnegans Wake,' James Joyce; 'The Illustrated Man,' Ray Bradbury; 'Fool for Love,' Sam Shepard; 'Discourse on Method and the Meditations on First Philosophy', Rene Descartes."
"Star
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
Gus Van Sant invited him to audition for the role of Jamal and liked his natural ability."
"In addition to being based onJ.D. Salinger, William Forrester is also heavily inspired byJohn Kennedy Toole. Toole wrote the book "A Confederacy of Dunces", a mysteriously autobiographical book, but when no one would publish it, he gassed himself to death in his car. Years later, the book was published and won the Pulitzer Prize."
"During filming, it was discovered that
Sean Connerycould not type. When you see Forrester's hands on the keys, they are the hands of someone else."
"The sketch used to portray a young Forrester in the New Yorker and on the wall of famous writers at the school is based on a youngSean Conneryfrom the James Bond period."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181536/trivia