Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Will the real Hugo please stand up? The character of Hugo may be fictional, but that doesn’t mean that Selznick didn’t need a little help envisioning him. He found a real live boy named Garrett to dress up in period clothing and pose for all the illustrations. (Source.)
Similarly, Isabelle was based off of a girl that Selznick saw in a pizza shop. Cool, huh? (Source.)
And all pictures of Georges Méliès are actually based off of Selznick’s friend Remy Charlip. (Source.)
Times have changed. Even though in the old Méliès movies, Georges’s wife appears with unshaven armpits, in the new recreated version, she's got shaved armpits. Guess that would have been too gross for movie audiences? (Source.)