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On its 40th anniversary: What you didn’t know about Sleeper, Woody Allen’s (mostly) filmed-in-Colorado flick.
1. A call for extras in the Denver Post asked for “beautiful people,” age 20 to 45, who were “caucasian, black, and Oriental” and wanted to “sign on for a swinging experience.”
2. $20,000: the amount Allen’s production company paid to film at the Sculptured House on Genesee Mountain for one week—exteriors only.
3. According to Joel Schumacher, who designed costumes for Sleeper, the crew’s favorite indulgence during filming was McDonald’s Big Macs.
4. National Center for Atmospheric Research employees competed to be extras in scenes filmed at the Mesa Lab. They took time off to shoot and earned $20 a day.
5. In a climactic scene, trained hawks were supposed to snatch the rebel leader’s nose from a driveway, but the birds got distracted and flew away. Allen rented a steamroller to run the nose over instead.
