18 details you probably missed in 'The Holiday'

Iris writes for the society column at The Daily Telegraph.

At the beginning of the film, the camera pans across her desk, showing scattered marriage announcements and photos.

These are all visible before her job title is actually mentioned during the company holiday party, so eagle-eyed viewers may have already figured it out. 

At the beginning of Amanda and Ethan's argument, she throws two sneakers at him.

Both shoes land behind him in the hallway outside their bedroom.

Throughout the next few shots, the shoes seem to disappear and reappear on the floor behind him. 

Amanda's gardener overhears the conversation between Amanda and Ethan when their argument continues outside.

Amanda asks Ethan to admit to having an affair with his secretary and says she really wants to know the truth. 

Before he answers, the gardener looks at Ethan and shakes his head, presumably to warn Ethan against confessing.

It's hard to miss Lohan's uncredited cameo in "The Holiday" — she appears in Amanda's movie trailer alongside James Franco. But there's a story behind her appearance in the film. 

Nancy Myers, the writer and director of "The Holiday," also created Lohan's first feature film, "The Parent Trap."

In a 2006 interview with ComingSoon.net, Meyer's said, "I know Lindsay because I directed 'The Parent Trap' and I told her she owes me everything so I made her do it."

The director added, "I called her and said, 'You have to do this for me,' but she was sweet about it, she was totally there."

The trailer Amanda works on at the beginning of the film and the one she dreams later on are both narrated by recognizable voice actor Hal Douglas.

Before his death in 2014 at the age of 89, he was well-known for narrating thousands of movie trailers, including those for "Forrest Gump" and "Lethal Weapon."

Amanda and Iris find each other through the house-swapping website HomeExchange.

It's a real company and website that's still running today. It continues to offer the experience shown in the film, where two users agree to stay at each other's homes for a set amount of time.

The site even credits the film for really putting it on the map. x

Amanda brings a big stack of books on her vacation, featuring many popular reads from the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

The pile includes the spiritual book "The Power of Now" (1997), young-adult fiction novel "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (1997), and Alice Munro's short-story collection "Runaway" (2004).

When Iris first arrives at Amanda's house, she excitedly explores each room.

For most of the tour, her scarf is loosely looped around her neck once.

However, there are a handful of shots where her scarf is instead tied in a double layer around her neck.

Amanda has a massive DVD collection at her house, which isn't surprising seeing as she makes movie trailers for a living. 

Based on various shots, the DVDs seem to be sorted in alphabetical order. When Iris looks more closely at the shelves, she's near the "G" section. 

"Enigma" (2001) can also be spotted on one shelf, which is a bit of a pop-culture paradox since Kate Winslet (who played Iris) starred in the movie.

After excitedly looking through Amanda's impressive DVD collection, Iris settles on "Punch-Drunk Love" (2002).

The choice pretty perfectly coincides with her plot in "The Holiday" as the 2002 rom-com follows an American man who falls for an English woman.

When Iris and Arthur have their meet-cute, he asks her where in England she's from, and she says, Surrey. 

He excitedly responds that Cary Grant was from Surrey, which he knows because the famous actor told him.

However, Grant was actually from Bristol, another English town. 

Arthur explains the concept of a meet-cute — the moment in a rom-com when a couple meets for the first time — to Iris.

He then gives an example of a man and a woman meeting at a store while trying to buy separate halves of the same pajama set.

This exact scenario is the meet-cute in "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife" (1938).

Graham and his daughters, Olivia and Sophie, tell Amanda that they always drink hot cocoa with five marshmallows each.

Whenever the shot shows a clear view of their mugs, there are indeed five marshmallows in each cup.

When Amanda hangs out with Graham and his daughters, Olivia comments that they never have girl visitors at the house.

But their aunt Iris lives nearby, and judging by their reaction to seeing her at the New Year's Eve party at the end of the film, they're fans of hers. 

Just like Amanda's wall of DVD shelves, Graham has a wall of bookcases in his house. This is equally fitting since he works as a book editor. 

His collection seems to include a number of classics — there's a Tennessee Williams collection visible on the same shelf as a Dylan Thomas book.

However, there are also multiple travel guides on the shelves.

While perusing Blockbuster with Iris, Miles picks up a copy of "Driving Miss Daisy" and tells her the iconic score was done by Hans Zimmer.

Zimmer actually composed the score for "The Holiday" as well.

Miles continues pulling multiple movies from the shelves of the video store to comment on the different scores, including "Jaws."

The movie was sorted in the "drama" section, but it's most commonly referred to as an adventure/thriller.

During the video-store scene, when Miles picks up "The Graduate" (1967) and starts singing Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson," the camera flashes down the row to Dustin Hoffman perusing the shelves. 

Hoffman starred as Ben Braddock in the 1967 film, and his cameo in "The Holiday" was actually happenstance. 

In the DVD commentary, Meyers said they were filming at a Blockbuster in the Brentwood neighborhood of LA, and Hoffman was having lunch next door. Meyers knew the actor, so she invited him on set, and he jumped into the scene. 

They didn't even change his clothes or give him any makeup. 

This story was originally published in December 2022 and most recently updated on December 19, 2024.