20 Things You Didn’t Know About The Green Mile
11. Of Mice And Men
Fifteen real mice were actually used in The Green Mile, each trained for months to do specific tricks. In the part where Mr Jingles pushes the spool across the floor, it was actually being pulled by a small rig that was later digitally removed from the shot - the mouse was just following scent applied to it.
However, most of the time the actors were reacting to a laser pointer moving around the floor and not to a real rodent. For the stomping scene where Mr Jingles loses his life, a puppet was used that was far more expensive than any of the genuine mice had been.
The exception to that came with the moment where the mouse defecates on Edgecomb. That didn’t require any acting on Tom Hanks’ part - the mouse really did sh*t on him.