28 Movie Characters We Bet You Didn’t Know Were Based on Real People

Wait, Wes Craven’s childhood bully was... Freddy Krueger?!?!
28 Movie Characters We Bet You Didn’t Know Were Based on Real People

We love a good biopic. They don’t leave us guessing if the character is based on a real person. It’s cut-and-dry, with no sneaky stuff. Well, that whole “based on a true story” part leaves a lot of room for fantasy to creep into reality, but we at least know the name and that the actor was trying to portray someone.

These movies were a whole lot sneakier. Here we thought that Tina Fey just made up the name Janis Ian, but nope! What else isn’t she telling us?

Mean Girls

Mean Girls The JANIS IS NAMED At AFTER IAN INDRICH A by the real SINGER. song Seventeen Janis lan (which plays during the movie) is about the struggles of a social outcast in high school, like the fictional Janis lan. CRACKED.COM

Deadpool

Deadpool DOPINDER IS NAMED AFTER RYAN REYNOLDS' LATE FRIEND. The cabbie who drives Deadpool around was named Dopinder as a tribute to a friend Reynolds had in school (who died when he was struck by lightning). CRACKED.COM

Encanto

Encanto CAMILO IS A SHOUT-OUT TO THE FILMMAKERS' LOCAL GUIDE. The name of the shapeshifting Madrigal was chosen partly because it sounds like chameleon- and partly as a tribute to Camilo García Escobar, who was hired as the movie creators' tour guide in Colombia. CRACKED.COM

Luca

Luca ALBERTO WAS THE DIRECTOR'S CHILDHOOD FRIEND. It's not clear whether Enrico Casarosa's friend Alberto Surace was a sea monster - but he was a freewheeling troublemaker, just like his animated counterpart. CRACKED.COM

Inglorious Basterds

CRACKED.COM Inglourious Basterds THE REAL HUGO STIGLITZ IS MEXICAN, NOT GERMAN. The name of the Nazi-killing ex-Nazi is a homage to a prolific Mexican actor and director named... yeah, you guessed it right - Hugo Stiglitz.

Nosferatu

Batman Returns MAX SCHRECK WAS NAMED AFTER AN OLD-TIMEY HORROR ACTOR. Max Shreck is ... something of a vampire, sucking up energy, power, and money explained scriptwriter Daniel Waters. That's why he gave him the name of the actor playing the vampire in Nosferatu. CRACKED.COM

A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street FREDDY KRUEGER WAS NAMED AFTER WES CRAVEN'S BULLY. As a child, Craven was tortured by a kid named Fred Krueger. (That's also the reason why the main bad guy in The Last House on the Left is named Krug.) CRACKED.COM

Betty Boop

BETTY BOOP CRACKED.COM Betty Boop was created as a parody of Helen Kane, a popular actress and singer from the '20s who pretty much invented the whole I'm a sexy baby persona. She not only looked and sounded exactly like Betty, but her catchphrase was Boop-oop-a-doop.

Rocky

ROCKY CRACKED.COM Rocky was based on Chuck Wepner, liquor salesman by day and boxer by night. Не got the same deal as Rocky: a fight which, if he won, would make him the champion of the world. Instead of Apollo Creed, Wepner simply had to face one of the best boxers in history, Muhammad Ali.

Taxi Driver

TRAVIS BICKLE CRACKED.COM Travis Bickle, the nutjob played by Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver, was based on actual nutjob Arthur Bremer. First Bremer tried to assassinate President Richard Nixon, but he couldn't find a way past the Secret Service. Then in May 1972, he shot presidential candidate George Wallace.

Patch Adams

DR. HUNTER PATCH ADAMS PATCH ADAMS CRACKED.COM The actual Patch Adams was not amused by Robin Williams' take on his life and work, stating that his portrayal as simply a funny doctor inadequately captured the wide scope of his humanitarian and medical efforts, and telling Roger Ebert, I hate that movie.

Cinderella Man

MAX BAER CINDERELLA MAN CRACKED.COM Movies need bad guys. The 2005 film paints legendary boxer Max Baer as an evil womanizer who bragged about killing 2 opponents. In reality, Baer was a good man who, after accidentally killing an opponent, gave money to the victim's family and suffered PTSD after the incident.

Gladiator

COMMODUS GLADIATOR CRACKED.COM Although Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus is widely regarded as a great performance, filmmakers got his story so very wrong. The real Commodus never killed his dad. In fact, he served as t emperor with his father for 3 years before he died of natural causes.

Halloween

CRACKED.COM Halloween MICHAEL MYERS IS A TRIBUTE TO A BRITISH DISTRIBUTOR. The real Myers did a great job of promoting John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, so Carpenter thanked him by, uh... naming a vicious murderer after him? That's cool, we guess.

The Departed

JACK NICHOLSON'S DILDO-WAVING DEPARTED VILLAIN IS BASED on A REAL moBSTeR. Nicholson played Frank Costello, a character directly based on James Whitey Bulger, right down to the fact that both of them (spoiler alert) turned out to be FBI informants. Bolger's former cronies even acted as advisors to the film. The dildo scene was all Nicholson. CRACKED.COM

50 First Dates

50 FIRST DATeS IS BASED on A REAL PeRson. In the movie, Lucy suffers from anterograde amnesia, where she can't anything that happens after the date of her accident, and wackiness ensues. In real life, Michelle Philpots has to look at her wedding album every morning, and uses sticky notes and a GPS to get through her day, because her brain keeps resetting to 1994. CRACKED.COM

The Incredibles

INCREDIBLES COSTUME DESIGNER EDNA MODE IS BASED on HOLLYWOOD COSTUME DESIGNER eDITH HEAD. Head, who was a petite brunette in bangs and round glasses, was incredibly prolific during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. She was nominated for 35 Oscars and won eight. I'm the best of I hate modesty. - Edith Head the best. - Edna Mode CRACKED.COM

Dirty Harry

THE REAL DIRTY HARRY WAS nAmeD DAVE. Dave Toschi was a San Francisco cop who focused on hunting down the Zodiac killer. Не was also the inspiration for Bullitt, and the subject of a biopic called Zodiac. In Zodiac, the Toschi character actually goes to see Dirty Harry. CRACKED.COM

Lakeview Terrace

THE oBsessive COP in LAKEVIEW TERRACE WAS A REAL GUY. In 2002, Officer Irsie Henry terrorized his Altadena, CA neighbors for being a mixed-race couple. But instead of being shot, Henry was fired. CRACKED.COM

The Joker

THe JOKER IS BASED on A '20s FILM STAR. That star was Conrad Veidt, who played Gwynplaine, a character who has his face deliberately cut into a permanent rictus grin in a 1928 silent film called The Man Who Laughs. CRACKED.COM

Return of the Jedi

Sydney Greenstreet was famous for playing greedy gangsters in movies like Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. не WAS THe INSPIRATION FOR JABBA THE HUTT. George Lucas instructed his design team to make Jabba alien and grotesque, just like Sydney Greenstreet. CRACKED.COM

Psycho

Norman Bates, the knife-wielding momma's boy in Devrun Puruno was actually much tamer than the real-life inspiration for the movie, Ed Gein. Gein liked to visit cemeteries and exhume women's bodies, which he used to craft tributes to his dead mother. Police who searched his house found a large collection of body parts, and trash baskets, chairs, and several pieces of clothing, all made from tanned human skin. CRACKED.COM

Nacho Libre

Sergio Gutierrez Benitez was a Mexican priest who fought as mysterious masked wrestler Fray Tormenta, then used his winnings to buy food for orphans. When Jack Black played him, he was called NACHO LIBRE. CRACKED.COM

The Big Lebowski

THe DUDE IS A REAL DUDE. This is Jeff Dowd, friend of the Coen brothers. The Big Lebowsky Dude's personality, drink of choice, nickname, and even biography (some parts, anyway) are all borrowed from Dowd. AB CRACKED.COM

The Little Mermaid

URSULA IS LITERALLY DIVIne. The Little Mermaid sea witch is based on drag queen Divine, who made a splash in the '70s with Pink Flamingoes and Mondo Trasho. CRACKED.COM

American Horror Story: Freak Show

TWISTY WAS BASED on A REAL SERIAL KILLER. One of the most terrifying characters in American Horror Story: Freak Show was based on a terrifying real person. John Wayne Gacy, who killed at least 33 young males, used to show up at child charity functions dressed as a clown. CRACKED.COM

Shrek

THeRe WAS A REAL SHREK. Maurice Tillet was a French wrestler known as the freak ogre of the ring in the '40s. Tillet suffered from acromegaly, a thickening of the bones. CRACKED.COM

Harry Potter

JOHN NETTLESHIP described himself as a short-tempered chemistry teacher with long hair... gloomy, malodorous laboratory who enjoyed picking on bright students. Не made such an impression on one of his students-Miss Rowling- that she based one of her most iconic characters on him. Oddly, he didn't recognize himself as Severus Snape until directly asked by a reporter. CRACKED.COM

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