Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Although the novel version of The Hours describes Laura Brown as a "dark," "foreign-looking" woman, the fair-skinned redhead Julianne Moore plays her in the film adaptation. (Source)
At one point in The Hours, Clarissa Vaughan is convinced that she has glimpsed a famous movie star outside. She thinks it may have been Meryl Streep or Vanessa Redgrave, but she can't tell which. Fast-forward to a few years later, and who do we find playing Clarissa in the film adaptation of the novel? You guessed it: the immortal Meryl herself. (Source)
Yet another coincidence: Vanessa Redgrave doesn't appear in the film adaptation of The Hours, but she does play Clarissa Dalloway in a 1997 adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel. (Source)
According to Michael Cunningham himself (and we like to think he would know), Richard Brown is based on the American writer Harold Brodkey. (Source)
The Hours contains an extended, subtle reference to a short story by Doris Lessing called "To Room Nineteen." (It's so subtle, in fact, that even we didn't catch it until we heard Michael Cunningham hinting at it himself.) The reference begins when Laura Brown checks in to Room Nineteen at the Normandy hotel. (Source)