20 Things You Didn't Know About The Truman Show

There are countless theories on where writer Andrew Niccol and director Peter Weir pulled inspiration for The Truman Show.

Many point to the similarities between the film and the 1989 episode of The Twilight Zone, "Special Service", in which John Selig discovers that the last five years of his life has been part of a TV series running 24/7. Parallels have also been drawn from Thomas More's book, Utopia, which depicts a fictional island that is closed off from the rest of the world.

While there's no doubting the influence those had on The Truman Show, the main inspiration was actually the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. In an interview with the director, Weir was quoted as saying; "You watch The Truman Show and, I mean, Jim Carrey did a fantastic job, but Michael Jackson is Truman. He’s who I based him on and he is the nearest thing to Truman".

It's hard to argue with his logic, as Jackson has been thrown in front of cameras his entire life. From the early days of the Jackson 5 right up to the star's death, the singer had zero privacy which no doubt played a large part in his mental decline.