17 Things You Might Not Know About ‘The Shawshank Redemption’

You know Red and Andy, but did you know The Shawshank Redemption was probably the smartest dollar writer-director Frank Darabont ever spent? Here are 17 things you might not have known about the Oscar-nominated prison drama, which was released on September 23, 1994.

The Shawshank Redemption is based on a Stephen King novella.

The film is based on Stephen King’s novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, which was published in his 1982 short story collection, Different Seasons. Two other short stories in the collection were made into films: 1986’s Stand By Me and 1998’s Apt Pupil.

It has a connection to Leo Tolstoy.

King’s novella shares several plot points with a nine-page short story written by Leo Tolstoy called “God Sees the Truth, But Waits.” Both are about men sent to prison for murders they didn’t commit.

Director Frank Darabont got a good deal on the rights to King’s story.

He bought the rights from King for $1. (It was what King charged everyone who wanted to adapt his work—he dubbed it “the dollar baby program.”) Darabont later sent King a check for $5000 in royalties from the film—but the author never cashed it. Many years later, he mailed it back to Darabont in a frame with the note “In case you ever need bail money. Love, Steve.”

The production company that made the film has a nod to King in its name.

Castle Rock Entertainment, the production company that made The Shawshank Redemption, was co-founded by Stand By Me director Rob Reiner and is named after the mythical Maine town that provides the setting for many of King’s books. After Darabont pitched The Shawshank Redemption to Castle Rock, Reiner originally offered $2.5 million for the script to star Tom Cruise as Andy Dufresne and Harrison Ford as Red. Cruise bowed out when he discovered Reiner wouldn’t be heavily involved; other famous names who said no to the project include Brad Pitt (who was set to play Tommy but dropped out to do Thelma & Louise) and James Gandolfini (who said no to the role of Bogs to take a part in True Romance).

Darabont wrote the script in eight weeks.

He decided to drop the “Rita Hayworth” part of the novella because actresses sent their resumes in for consideration thinking it was a Rita Hayworth biopic. During the casting process, Darabont even received a call from an agent who represented a supermodel; he swore the script was the best she had ever read and that she’d be perfect for the (nonexistent) part of Hayworth.

Ohio stood in for Maine.

Although the film is set in Maine, the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, stood in for Shawshank Prison. The structure was slated to be torn down, but the production delayed its demolition for a year. After the film wrapped, all the buildings in the complex were leveled except the cellblock and main administrative building, which were preserved for historical purposes. And the tree where Red finds Andy’s letter isn’t in Buxton, Maine; it’s in Ohio’s Malabar Farm State Park.

In 2014, The New York Times reported that “Tourism has increased every year since ‘Shawshank’ had its premiere” in the area where the movie was filmed, with it bringing in “more than 18,000 visitors, and ... an estimated $3 million boost to the local economy in 2013.”

Red was originally a middle-aged Irishman.

In the original novella, Red is described as a middle-aged Irishman. Producer Liz Glotzer suggested Freeman for the role. The actor loved the script; he told Vanity Fair that “I called my agent and said, ‘It doesn’t matter which part it is—I want to be in it.’ He said, ‘Well, I think they want you to do Red.’ And I thought, Wow, I control the movie! I was flabbergasted by that.”

The mugshot of a young Red isn’t Morgan Freeman.

The young man in the photo is actually Freeman’s son, Alfonso. That wasn’t his only role in the film, either; he also played the inmate who called the incoming prisoners “fresh fish.”

In one scene, Freeman played catch for nine hours straight.

The scene where Andy first approaches Red about the rock hammer as Red plays catch in the main yard took nine hours to shoot. Freeman continued to play catch for the whole nine hours without complaining and showed up the next day with his arm in a sling. 

Goodfellas inspired the film’s style.

Darabont said his main source of inspiration was Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas because of its use of voiceover narration and editing techniques. 

Freeman recorded his voiceover before any film was shot.

Originally, all of Freeman’s voiceover was recorded before any of the film was shot. The fact that much of it syncs up to the onscreen action (see the scene on the roof where the inmates drink beer) isn’t simple editing; Darabont would play back the recorded voiceover on set during each take for the actors to specifically play off of the audio. But the audio quality of his voiceover was too poor to include in the movie due to tape hiss, so Freeman had to re-record the entire voiceover in post-production.

Darabont’s hands and feet make a cameo.

The hands and feet in the close-up shots of Andy don’t belong to Robbins; they’re Darabont’s.

The film’s property master contributed to the narrative.

The visual joke of Andy’s rock hammer being tucked into the Bible right after the first page of the Book of Exodus came from the film’s property master, Tom Shaw.

Tim Robbins apparently crawled through real poop in the escape scene.

Of the scene where Andy crawls through the sewer tunnels to get to freedom, Robbins would later say, “It wasn’t actually human shit; it was cow shit. It was pretty toxic.”

Shooting Robbins in the rain was no easy task.

Every take of the film’s signature shot of Robbins raising his arms outstretched in the rain after Andy breaks out of prison was out of focus except the one in the film. It was the final take.

The film was a box office flop.

The Shawshank Redemption hit theaters September 23, 1994, and got a wide release in October; by November, it was out of theaters having made just $16 million against its approximately $28 million budget. After it was nominated for several Oscars (including Best Picture and Best Actor for Freeman) but didn’t win, it was re-released in theaters, bringing in a further $12 million. And when the movie was released on VHS, it was rented even more than Forrest Gump. But its true success came from cable TV—specifically TNT, which had purchased Castle Rock and licensed the rights to air the film. Shawshank frequently appeared on the network, catapulting it to the classic status it holds today.

When Darabont thinks about filming the movie, he often thinks of one scene in particular.

It’s the scene where Red and Andy discuss going to Mexico, which Darabont says they nailed in about three takes. “I remember sitting on my apple box and just, you know, letting that moment wash over me because both of them were just so damn good,” Darabont told Deadline in 2019. “I sat there and I thought, ‘OK, I think we have the movie.’ This is the key scene of the film, really, where all the truth is out between them. It’s just the honesty and the friendship that’s flowing between them, except Andy’s got a little secret. He’s got this hole in the wall of the cell and he’s going to take off. But as far as the emotional level of the communication, it’s just a very honest and very beautiful scene. I’m so proud of both those guys.”

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