“Sir, you have no call to get snippy with me, I’m just doing my job here.”
Frances McDormand (Chief Marge Gunderson) is married to director Joel Cohen. To help perfect her character’s accent she worked with Larissa Kokernot who played one of the hookers – referring to her accent and mannerisms as “Minnesota nice”. William H. Macy begged the Coen brothers for the role of Jerry Lundegaard. He did two readings for the part and became convinced he was the best actor for the role. When they didn’t get back to him, he flew to New York (where they were starting production) and told them, “I’m very, very worried that you are going to screw up this movie by giving this role to somebody else. It’s my role, and I’ll shoot your dogs if you don’t give it to me.” (He was joking, of course.) Macy got nominated for Best Supporting Actor while McDormand won for Best Actress. The role of Carl Showalter was written specifically for Steve Buscemi. Buscemi dies in nearly every Coen Brothers film he appears in, with the exception of The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). Buscemi disappeared in Miller’s Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991) and The Big Lebowski (1998). With each successive role his remains get smaller. In Fargo we only see half of his leg in the wood-chipper. The reference to “Midwest Federal... talk to ol’ Bill Diehl” is a nod to film critic Bill Diehl, who wrote for the St. Paul Pioneer Press-Dispatch and interviewed the Coen Brothers shortly after the release of their first film, Blood Simple (1984). None of the movie scenes were actually filmed in Fargo. Contrary to the setup, the film is not, in fact, “Based on a true story”.
