25 Totally Fierce and Fabulous 'Zoolander' Facts

When the fashion-world spoof Zoolander premiered on Sept. 28, 2001, the United States was still reeling from 9/11. The frivolity of the movie about a dim-bulb male model (Ben Stiller) in the face of real-life tragedy has been blamed for its poor critical reception and bad box office. (In his review at the time, Roger Ebert called it “why the United States is so hated in some parts of the world.”) A lot changed in the next 15 years. Zoolander became a cult classic on home video, Ben Stiller’s star was eclipsed by his co-stars Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell, and a goofball real-estate developer with a cameo in the movie is now a serious candidate for president. On the eve of Zoolander’s unlikely sequel — which hits theater on Friday — we’ve re-watched the original and listened to Stiller’s commentary to assemble this list of really, really ridiculously important facts about Zoolander.

1. Writer Drake Sather created Derek Zoolander for the 1996 VH1 Fashion Awards. His name inspired by real-life male models Johnny Zander and Mark Vanderloo, Derek (Ben Stiller) appeared in a short sketch in which he’s interviewed by a reporter. He came back for the 1997 VH1 Fashion Awards for another sketch that saw him pitching the Derek Zoolander male modeling school.

Watch the skit:

2. Those two bits were recreated, with a few changes, for Derek’s first scene in the movie and his last.

3. Mugatu’s name was originally McQuicken, a reference to the late British designer Alexander McQueen. That was later changed to Mugatu, a reference to a primate-like Star Trek character that Stiller loves.

4. Hansel was specifically written for Owen Wilson, whose somewhat unconventional face made him an ideal choice for a male model in a movie parodying male models. Wilson didn’t have the long hippie hair for the role though, so he wore a wig throughout filming.

5. Up until two weeks before shooting, Stiller planned to play Derek’s agent Maury Ballstein, a character he based on “The Do It Guy” from his sketch show. Once he realized it was unrealistic to play two characters and direct, he decided to cast his father Jerry Stiller instead.

6. One of the men attending to Derek during Matilda’s (Christine Taylor) initial interview is current Yahoo Style editor-in-chief Joe Zee, who oversaw the production of the photos showing Derek and Hansel on magazine covers and in advertisements.

7. Derek’s signature look, “Blue Steel,” which is the same as all of his other looks, was inspired by the face Stiller makes in the mirror when he’s brushing his hair. “It came of looking in the mirror when I was brushing my hair or whatever,” Stiller said. “My wife would say, ‘Why are you making that face? Why are you doing that?’”

8. Mugatu was originally written for Andy Dick, who couldn’t play the part because of scheduling reasons. He does however make a cameo as Derek’s aggressively unattractive, Princess Leia-bunned masseuse Olga. Stiller says on the commentary track that he remains unhappy with Olga’s makeup, which was slathered on so thick that it’s hard to tell that Dick is underneath.

9. Will Ferrell’s real hair was dyed and styled into Mugatu’s bizarre coif. His poodle, however, had to wear a wig.

10. The “earth to” exchange between models Meekus and Brint was meant to go on much longer than it does in the final version of the film. Initially, every line in the scene was preceded by the phrase, which Stiller thought was “the funniest thing in the world.” Test audiences disagreed and the scene was redone with progressively fewer “earth to”s. In the end, there are only four.

11. The gasoline in the male model gas fight was water with yellow coloring. Stiller was never satisfied with how it looked.

12. Even though it was super small, Stiller never thought Derek’s phone was small enough.

13. The writers toyed with several different backstories for Derek before settling on his coming from a coal mining family. Early versions had him growing up in New Jersey with a twin brother who worked as a Bruce Springsteen impersonator. Another had him growing up in the shadow of Mount Rushmore, which served as his inspiration to become a chiseled male model.

14. Derek’s dancing erection in the massage scene was actually a wooden dowel controlled by a special effects guy who controlled it with a joystick from under the massage table.

Related: ‘Zoolander 2’ Trailer: Derek and Hansel Must Save the Pretty People!

15. Wilson had a stable of doubles for the movie, including a breakdancing double, a scooter riding double and yo-yo double, who was a world champion from Florida.

16. Stiller recut the orgy in Hansel’s soil room five times, including once to remove a goat from the proceedings, in an attempt to get the MPAA to drop the movie’s R rating. When that didn’t work, he made an in-person plea for PG-13. The MPAA complied.

17. Outfitting Hansel’s soil room was a particular challenge for production designer Robin Standefer, especially since Hansel loft was on the fifth floor. In the end, it took a mini-backhoe and a freight elevator to move enough soil into the room to complete the look.

18. Derek and Hansel’s walk off was one of the hardest scenes to take from paper to screen, Stiller says. A choreographer was hired to script their moves and after waiting until the eleventh hour to edit the sequence, Stiller settled on the split screen technique. He was inspired by an early trailer made before the film was even complete.

19. The shot of Derek and Matilda’s baby flashing “Blue Steel” at the end of the movie was done with CGI. The baby’s head and hair were real. The look, alas, was not.

20. Plans to kill Derek at the end of the film were nixed by producers who thought the idea, which called for him to get hit by a train and ascend to heaven, would have been too expensive to shoot.

21. The look of hand model J.P. Prewitt (David Duchovny) was based on Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State, while his conspiracy-spinning monologue was a clear tip to Duchovny’s X-Files character, FBI agent Fox Mulder. (The sci-fi TV series was nearing the end of its run in 2001.) Duchovny wore a bald cap with a wig on top to give him the thinning pate the character required.

22. Cameos include Stiller’s mother as a protester at the Fashion Awards, Justin Theroux as Mugatu’s evil DJ, Mark Ronson as the DJ at the male model funeral, Vince Vaughn as one of Derek’s brothers, Stiller’s sister as a hanger-on at Hansel’s apartment and his brother-in-law as the director of the commercial that closes the film.

23. Both Malaysia and Singapore banned the movie because of the depiction of violence aimed at the former’s Prime Minister.

24. Despite shooting in New York City before September 11, Zoolander includes no shots of the World Trade Center’s twin towers. Stiller chose to digitally remove them from all scenes because he “felt that people who chose to see the movie as escapist entertainment were not looking for another reminder of tragedy.”

25. Author Bret Easton Ellis threatened to sue over the similarities between Zoolander and his 1998 novel Glamorama, which was about models who became international terrorists.

Watch the ‘Zoolander 2′ cast hunt for the next Blue Steel: