'The Birdcage' came out 25 years ago: Celebrate with these 25 facts about the iconic movie

Grab your white wine! The schnecken beckons! This week marks the 25th anniversary of "The Birdcage," the smash hit directed by Mike Nichols with a screenplay by Elaine May, starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Hank Azaria, Dan Futterman and Calista Flockhart.

Twenty-five years ago, gay marriage was not only illegal, it was banned in most states. But on March 8, 1996, audiences flocked to see something unusual in movie theaters: a lighthearted movie where openly gay men were the heroes and a family with gay parents was loving, happy and committed.

The film not only gave Lane, Flockhart and Azaria their first big Hollywood breaks, it may have helped make mainstream the idea of a non-heterosexual family.

The plot of "The Birdcage" is simple. Armand Goldman (a subdued, sarcastic Williams) runs a successful drag club in South Beach, Miami, and his longtime life-partner, Albert (Lane at his flamboyant, high-strung diva best), is the star. Armand's son (Futterman) gets engaged to a young woman (Flockhart) whose parents are ultra-conservative (Hackman and Wiest). All Armand's son is asking is for Armand to change his clothes, house decorations, job, voice, mannerisms, and, well, Albert, and play it straight for the length of one uncomfortable dinner.

Robin Williams was fresh from his own gender-bending movie, "Mrs. Doubtfire," which broke a different kind of cultural ground by showing flexible gender roles and demonstrating how separated parents can work out what's best for their kids — without Hollywood magic somehow reuniting them.

In honor of the film's anniversary, here are 25 facts you may not know.

1. The time was right

America was just about ready for this. At the time Ellen DeGeneres had not yet come out. Two recent movies featuring drag queens — "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" and "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar" had been released to mixed reviews and decent-if-not-great box office.

Did Robin Williams' name help bring more people into the theaters? No way to know, But within a few years after "The Birdcage" there was "In & Out," "Will & Grace," "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," "The L Word," "Queer as Folk," "Brokeback Mountain," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and more, all bringing more gay people into mainstream entertainment.

Hollywood's casting dilemma: Should straight, cisgender actors play LGBTQ characters?

2. "The Birdcage" was the 7th incarnation of the French farce "La Cage aux Folles"

"La Cage aux Folles" ("The Cage of Madwomen") is a 1973 French play by Jean Poiret and Francis Veber with more or less the same plot as above, just substitute Saint-Tropez for South Beach. It was made into a French-Italian movie in 1978, had two sequels, spawned an American TV pilot called "Adam and Yves" that failed, and was adapted as a hugely successful U.S. musical in 1983 with book by Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. More recently there was a Broadway revival with a new version starring Kelsey Grammer.

3. It was the first Elaine May/Mike Nichols movie collaboration

Younger audiences may not grasp the significance, but Elaine May and Mike Nichols were a massively influential comedy duo in the 50s and 60s who redefined both improv and standup comedy with multiple appearances on stage and TV before launching a year-long, sold-out Broadway show together. They separated afterwards at the height of their fame to become successful individually in stage and cinema.

Nichols saw the 1978 "La Cage aux Folles" film and wanted to Americanize it — he was briefly involved with the Broadway musical — and 15 years later, three decades after he and May had ended their partnership, they teamed up to create "The Birdcage."

They reunited again two years later to write and direct "Primary Colors."

More: Nichols captured human behavior, funny or not

4. Most of the improvising happened in rehearsal

It can be difficult to corral brilliant comic improvisors such as Robin Williams and Nathan Lane, but Nichols insisted on weeks of rehearsal — not a common thing for movies — and let them improvise all they wanted then. The best ideas went into the script because Nichols wanted to shoot the movie as much like a play as possible, without much editing.

"We sort of got all the improvising out of our systems the first two weeks, and then we shot basically what we all agreed on," Hank Azaria told The A.V. Club. "And it was very tough for Robin, who really wanted to still go bananas."

But Nichols recognized there was only so much you could do.

"(Nichols) very generously would say, all right, I will give you a wild take to get it all out of your system," Lane said in an interview with The Last Laugh podcast, "and say whatever it is that you're dying to say or if you have an idea you want to pursue, and you know, a few things came out of that."

5. Only parts of the movie were filmed in Miami

The incredible opening tracking shot starts with the camera sailing over the Atlantic Ocean to cross Lummus Park to enter Armand's nightclub The Birdcage, or, as it's known in real life, the Carlyle Hotel at 1250 Ocean Drive.

While most of the movie was shot in Hollywood, several exterior scenes were shot at various locations at the beach and in the Art Deco section of South Beach, including Albert's shopping stroll down Lincoln Road and the palimony scene at the bus stop next to Biscayne Bay.

6. Armand was almost Steve Martin, with Robin Williams playing Albert

Nichols had directed Martin and Williams in "Waiting for Godot" a few years earlier and they were set for this movie, but schedule conflicts prevented Martin from staying in.

7. Robin Williams didn't want to play Albert anyway

That turned out to be a good thing because Williams had just done a movie wearing women's clothing in "Mrs. Doubtfire" and he wanted the acting challenge of playing against his usual type to be the calm one for a change.

"I wanted to play Armand because it gave me an opportunity to portray a very dry type of comedy versus being outrageous," Williams said. "It was very interesting because it's restrained and reactive ... finding different layers of behavior."

Nichols believed he nailed it. "What I wanted in Armand was a kind of suppressed hysteria; someone who could appear perfectly straight and ordinary, but with a little something just under the surface that he can't completely control. Robin played that brilliantly."

8. This was Nathan Lane's first big break. And he turned it down

In movies, anyway. Lane was already becoming a name on Broadway but to this point his movie appearances were limited to bit parts in "Jeffrey," "The Addams Family" and others, and as the voice of Timmon in the animated "Lion King." Nichols offered him the part while he as starring in "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" by longtime Nichols collaborator Neil Simon.

"To have Mike Nichols come backstage and say, 'I'd like you to star in a movie,' was a dream come true," Lane said.

But then he turned it down.

He really wanted this opportunity, but Lane was committed to starring in a revival of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," so he regretfully declined.

But, as Lane told The Last Laugh, Nichols kept calling Lane while he was working on the play, even once from Ireland, to tell him, "You know, I'm seeing all these people, and I keep thinking you're the guy ..."

Lane says he told him, "You're Mike Nichols. Perhaps if you called (director) Scott Rudin, we could work something out." And Nichols did, and the play was pushed back so Lane could become Albert.

"Ultimately it worked out for everybody because the movie came out and fortunately was a success and that was just before we started," Lane said.

9. It wasn't originally called "The Birdcage"

On early drafts of the screenplay, the movie was titled "Birds of a Feather."

10. "The Birdcage" was a big break for other actors, too

Calista Flockhart didn't have much of a Hollywood resume at this point, but Nichols saw her in an off-Broadway production of "The Loop" and signed her up. She may be able to thank "The Birdcage" for "Ally McBeal" the next year. And while Hank Azaria was known for his voices in "The Simpsons" and a few movie roles, it was his scene-stealing portrayal of Armand and Albert's Guatemalan houseman Agador Spartacus that got him noticed on the big screen.

But that almost didn't happen. At first, Azaria was playing a much smaller part as a stage manager.

11. David Allen Grier was the original butler

In the first drafts the butler was a Black man, as he was in the original French version. After the first read through they decided to make a change, as Azaria explained to The A.V. Club.

"And they thought David was brilliant, but they thought that in an American context, the idea of a Black houseman would be somewhat distasteful and have racist overtones," Azaria said. "So since it’s set in Miami, they decided to make it a Latin character. And I was already playing the other character. So I think it was Robin Williams’ idea: 'Why not just combine the two roles and just let Azaria do it?'"

12. It was such a funny movie the director couldn't stop laughing and had to be covered up

When you get that cast together, it can be tough not to laugh, and the director had an especially tough time of it. "Mike Nichols would laugh so hard they would have to put a blanket over his head," Robin Williams said during a Reddit AMA.

13. Was Nathan Lane intimidated having to act against comedic force-of-nature Robin Williams?

Nope. "Because of him. Because he was a saint, he was a kind, generous, sensitive soul," Lane said.

"He was a real actor, and he wanted the challenge of playing that role, and he graciously shared the scene. And certainly, he was a movie star who could have said, 'I don't want to do it with this guy, get me Billy Crystal.'"

Watch: Great scenes from movies starring Robin Williams

14. Mike Nichols was sure the film would prove his haters wrong

Not all of Nichols' films have been critical or commercial successes. But after screening the final cut of "The Birdcage" for his editing team in Martha's Vineyard, the director said he felt confident the movie would stick it to his detractors.

“I was very emotional and very angry: I couldn’t speak all through lunch,” he said in his 2000 profile in The New Yorker. "The film was so good, so strong. I realized I’d had no inkling of my anger at the people who had written me off. My reaction, instantaneously, was '(expletive) you, bastards. You thought I couldn’t do this anymore. Well, look at this.' "

15. "The Birdcage" features original Stephen Sondheim music

Three songs, in fact. Broadway legend Sondheim wrote "Little Dream" for the movie; Albert sings it in the rehearsal scene. "Love Is In The Air," sung by Armand and Val's biological mother Katherine (Christine Baranski) in her office, was the original opening number for "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." And the song Albert sings while performing in the club, "Can That Boy Foxtrot," was cut from Sondheim's "Follies."

Sondheim also wrote "It Takes All Kinds" for "The Birdcage" as the theme of the movie to be played under the opening title. But Nichols decided to go with "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge instead.

More: Meryl Streep sings showtunes and slings cocktails for Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday

16. Robin Williams' fall during the kitchen scene was accidental, but they left it in

As the dinner is crashing and burning and Armand is getting frantic in the kitchen, he slips and falls to the floor out of scene only to jump back up, scream at Agador, and run out. Only it wasn't supposed to happen and you can see Williams, Azaria and Futterman visibly trying to control their laughter.

"You'll see I'm kind of laughing, and I have to pretend I'm crying," Azaria told the Daily News. "That was completely a mistake, and it ended up in the movie."

17. Williams ad-libbed the end of the toothbrush scene

After Albert grabs a small bag and dramatically announces he is going off to Los Copa, presumably to die, Armand says, "Oh I see, so you're going to a cemetery, with your toothbrush."

Williams improvised the closer, "How Egyptian," and it stuck.

Other adlibs included Lane's "When the schnecken beckons."

18. The long opening tracking shot was actually three shots

The spectacular two-minute scene was created by Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki ("Birdman," "Gravity") and consisted of a helicopter flying in over the ocean, then a Steadicam operator on a crane getting lowered to the ground so he could walk into the club's front door, and finally the interior of the club filmed on a soundstage in Hollywood, all nicely edited together.

19. Agador was based on Judy Garland's dresser and Hank Azaria's grandmother

Azaria told Vanity Fair, for an article on Nichols, that when he admitted he was having a problem understanding Agador in his introductory scene when he is soothing a frantic Albert, the director told him the character was partly based on Judy Garland's dresser.

"Judy would panic before every performance and her dresser would panic with her and he would panic more than her so that she’d have to be the one to tell him to calm down," Azaria said, "and that was the ritual they had."

As for the voice ... Azaria had a couple of voices he was trying out, a deeper one and the higher pitched one. He asked a friend who was a drag performer and they settled on the second one. It was several weeks into the production that Azaria — who grew up in a Sephardic Jewish household where Ladino, a Spanish dialect, was spoken — realized he was just imitating his grandmother's accent and personality.

20. Ages can be deceiving

Calista Flockhart, playing the "not even 18" character of Barbara, was 31 at the time. Dan Futterman, then 28, was playing the 20-year-old Val.

21. The actors were very aware of the potential pitfalls

Nathan Lane, who portrayed the most flamboyant of the characters, tried not to go to the stereotype well. "It's not about extremes," he said. "I just tried to be more feminine and softer. When Albert is in drag, it's a performance, and though he's melodramatic at times — as many performers are — at home he loves being a family man."

"I think it's true of Elaine's script that you come away with a sense that there's love and dignity to all these characters, however eccentric they are," Christine Baranski said. "Love levels things; unconditional love can normalize any situation."

There were (and are) some complaints.

"When it came out, the gay press was very hard on it," said Lane, who had come out to friends and family as gay in his 20s but had not made it public at the time of the movie, even ducking Oprah's questions about it during an interview.

But for the most part "The Birdcage" was well-received for its portrayals for a loving gay family. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) said, "We have seen so many films with very one-dimensional stereotypical characters. Their purpose has been to play the 'straight man' to rounds of jokes. In 'The Birdcage' we go beyond the stereotypes to see the characters' depth and humanity."

22. Williams' history of dance montage was choreographed, but the ending was improvised

During a rehearsal for the dancer Celsius, who's a little slow, Armand launches into a wild demonstration of dance styles (put together by the movie's choreographer Vincent Paterson on William's request) as inspiration for him. "You do an eclectic celebration of the dance! You do Fosse, Fosse, Fosse! You do Martha Graham, Martha Graham, Martha Graham! Or Twyla, Twyla, Twyla! Or Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd! Or Madonna, Madonna, Madonna!"

But there was a question that it might be too Robin-Williamsy and take people out of the movie, but someone suggested the perfect ending. Stories say that was Nichols, but Lane claimed it in a recent interview.

"It was Robin and I and Mike, we were all standing there, and he's saying I dunno and what about, you know, and so Robin and I... I said, you know, a director once said to me, 'I love what you're doing, but keep it all inside.'"

Bonus fact from IMDB: the actor who played Celsius, Luca Tommassini, did actually dance in Madonna's 1993 The Girlie Show World Tour.

23. Hank Azaria worried about his portrayal of Agador

"I think whenever you have straight or gay actors portraying gays in a humorous way, you are making fun of what you also are treating lovingly at the same time," Azaria said in an interview with The Daily News. "That definitely lends itself to a crossing of the line. I certainly can understand gay or Latin people having a problem with what I did… but I felt it was authentic in its own way. I definitely did my best to make him a three-dimensional person, someone who wasn't just funny, but was also touching and sweet in his own way."

24. "The Birdcage" made a few bucks

"The Birdcage" reportedly cost $31 million to make. It opened at #1 with $18.3 million on its opening weekend, the highest grossing opening of a movie with openly gay lead characters until Sascha Baron Cohen's "Bruno" in 2009, and it stayed at #1 for four weeks.

The total box office for "The Birdcage" was over $185 million worldwide, making it Mike Nichols' most financially successful movie.

25. Yes, a sequel was actually considered

In 2018 the hosts of a British podcast, "Beyond the Boxset," that claims it "pitches the sequels that nobody asked for," wondered "how Nathan Lane's flamboyant Albert would cope with the loss of his remarkably patient life partner. Not to mention the tantalizing/terrifying notion of how Agador Spartacus' personal style might have evolved as he entered his mid-fifties ..." "Birdcage 2: Starina Rides Again" includes pitches for different versions, and Nathan Lane heard about it.

What they came up with was Albert traveling to Guatemala with Agador. "It's a really smart, funny pitch," Lane said. So, what the heck, he sent it to his manager, who sent it to MGM. MGM optioned it... but Hank Azaria stopped it cold, saying he couldn't possibly play the part.

Azaria told Lane he loved playing the character but it wasn't appropriate now and they should get a Latin actor.

"He said, 'I have one word for you: Apu,'" Lane said.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: 'The Birdcage' is 25! Here are 25 facts about the movie to celebrate