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In 1979, the American embassy in Iran was invaded by Iranian revolutionaries and several Americans were taken hostage. However, six managed to escape to the official residence of the Canadian Ambassador and the CIA was eventually ordered to get them out of the country. With few options, exfiltration expert Tony Mendez devised a daring plan: to create a phony Canadian film project looking to shoot in Iran and smuggle the Americans out as its production crew. With the help of some trusted Hollywood contacts, Mendez created the ruse and proceed to Iran as its associate producer. However, time was running out with the Iranian security forces closing in on the truth while both his charges and the White House had grave doubts about the operation themselves.
Trivia:
Besides being the title of the "movie" being filmed in the movie, "Argo" is from Greek mythology. It was the ship Jason and the Argonauts sailed in to retrieve the Golden Fleece.
In order to make the movie feel like the 1970s, Ben Affleck shot it on regular film, cut the frames in half, and blew those images up 200% to increase their graininess. He also copied camera movements and bustling office scenes from All the President's Men for sequences depicting CIA headquarters; for L.A. exteriors, he borrowed from The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
Both Hamilton Jordan and Kyle Chandler, who plays him in the film, graduated from the University of Georgia.
As shown in this movie, by the late 1970s, the Hollywood sign (which had first been erected in 1923 as "HOLLYWOODLAND" to advertise an upcoming real estate development) had fallen into severe disrepair. In 1978, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce had a fund-raising campaign in which they solicited nine prominent people to give about $28,000 each (one donor for each letter) for the restoration. Some of these benefactors included: Playboy Magazine founder Hugh M. Hefner, who gave the Y; singers Gene Autry and Andy Williams (the second L and the W, respectively), and heavy metal/shock rock star Alice Cooper, who replaced the third O (by far the most damaged of the letters) in memory of Groucho Marx. Warner Bros. Records, a division of the company that later released Argo, donated the second O. However, unlike the movie's depiction, this renovation was completed by the end of November 1978 -- a year before the hostages in Iran were even taken.
The character of Jack Kirby (played by Michael Parks), shown briefly as the artist of the storyboards for the fake movie, is the same Jack Kirby who was a pioneer of the American comic book industry and a co-creator of such seminal comic book characters as Captain America, Iron Man, The Hulk, the Silver Surfer, and the teams known as The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, and The X-Men. Kirby did indeed create storyboards for the adaptation of Roger Zelazny's novel Lord of Light, which were used as "proof" of the movie production during the real-life "Canadian Caper."
While Chambers, Mendez, and Siegel are trying to figure out how to make their fake movie project look plausible, Siegel recalls that he made a movie once with Rock Hudson, and from that draws the conclusion that if you want people to believe a lie, you should have the media disseminate it for you. This seeming non sequitur is a reference to the fact that Hudson, one of the biggest Hollywood stars and six symbols of the 1950s, was secretly gay, and his agent, Henry Wilson, actively fed misinformation about Hudson's "girlfriends" (really studio-arranged dates for publicity only) to the mainstream media. When the gossip tabloid "Confidential" threatened to expose Hudson's homosixuality, Wilson instead fed them then-scandalous information about two of the less-famous stars on his roster (Rory Calhoun and Tab Hunter) and arranged a sham marriage between his secretary and Hudson. Hudson's homosixuality was not widely known outside of Hollywood until about half a decade after this movie takes place.
It is stated that both British and New Zealand embassies turned away the six, leaving the Canadian as their only refuge. In fact the British embassy did shelter them for a few days but it was agreed by everyone that the Canadian embassy was the most secure and suitable so they moved. A New Zealand official transported them and the British embassy helped other Americans trapped in the country at the time. Director Ben Affleck acknowledged that he intentionally deviated from the real events in order to quicken the pace and build up the tension.
Victor Garber is the second cast member from Toronto's legendary 1972 stage production of "Godspell" to portray Ken Taylor on screen. Martin Short played Taylor in a 1982 skit on SCTV.
Lester Siegel (played by Alan Arkin) is said to be a composite character. However, in real life, makeup artist Robert Sidell, a friend of John Chambers, posed as the fake film's producer. Sidell's wife, Andi, was the fake production company's receptionist. Ben Affleck assumed Sidell, like Chambers, had passed away, but was informed just prior to the film's release that he was still alive and well. Affleck had Robert Sidell flown to the film's LA premiere, and, in his opening remarks, gave recognition to Sidell for his part in the Canadian Caper.
The script used for the fake film project was based on the 1967 science fiction novel "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny. In real life, makeup artist John Chambers (played by John Goodman) came up with the title "Argo" because he loved knock-knock jokes. In the film, the title becomes an off-color joke.
Comic book artist Jim Lee owns some of the storyboards from the fake film. He stated on Twitter when this film was released that he had no idea they had been used in the mission, he only bought them being a fan of Jack Kirby.
In an interview with Piers Morgan, former American President Jimmy Carter said he believes the film was a "great drama" and deserved to win an Oscar for best film. However, Carter noted that although "90 per cent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian," the film "gives almost full credit to the American CIA. With that exception, the movie's very good," Carter said, going on to praise former Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor's role in resolving the Iran hostage crisis. "The main hero, in my opinion, was Ken Taylor, who was the Canadian ambassador who orchestrated the entire process," he said.
John Goodman appeared in two consecutive Oscar Winner Best Pictures: The Artist and Argo. In both films he performed a man involved in Hollywood Industry; in The Artist he was a producer, and in Argo he was a make up artist.
First movie in 7 years to win the Oscar for Best Motion Picture without winning the Oscar for Best Director (the previous movie was Crash). It is also the first movie in 23 years to win the Oscar for Best Motion Picture without being nominated for Best Director (the previous one was Driving Miss Daisy).
Tied with Gigi for being the shortest-titled Best Picture Academy Award-winner, at four letters.
The rifles carried by the Iranian revolutionary guards in the movie are accurately selected fixed-stock G3-A4, a variant of German H-K G3 rifles manufactured locally in Iran by the country's Defense Industries Organization. The movie producers obviously resisted the temptation to use the easy-to-find AK-47 rifles, which were indeed used by the Iran's revolutionary guards, but only a couple of years after the hostage crisis, during the war with Iraq.
The fake film poster created for the real Argo mission was rather plain and black-and-white. In the movie, it is briefly visible in the background before the script reading event is held for the press. In the same scene, the colorful fake poster used in the movie is briefly visible, too.
With John Goodman's performance as John Chambers, this is the only time that a real-life Oscar winner is portrayed in a film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Ben Affleck has stated that the production was granted unprecedented access to the CIA's actual headquarters, both for interiors and exteriors, and that the gratitude for that privilege belongs to Tony Mendez, the retired C.I.A. officer portrayed by Affleck in the film.
Zsa Zsa Gabor's Beverly Hills estate exteriors doubled for the home of Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin). Gabor, who was at home during filming, was too ill to observe the production proceedings.
Ben Affleck met former CIA operative Tony Mendez for the first time in March 2011 to discuss his role. The meeting took place at Washington D.C.'s famed Chadwicks Bar (on K Street) where infamous spy Aldrich Ames, to name one, had passed classified American documents to the KGB. In the movie, however, the initial meeting place where the pivotal scheme was hatched was staged at the Smoke House restaurant in Burbank, a regular real-life haunt for many movie celebrities. George Clooney and Grant Heslov's company, SmokeHouse Productions, is named after this premises.
In a curious coincidence, the Swissair McDonnell-Douglas plane that flew the six "houseguests" from Tehran to Zurich was code-named "Aargau" (after the canton/district in Switzerland).
Alan Arkin has admitted that, although his Lester Siegel is a composite character, he essentially based his character on the late Canadian-born movie mogul Jack L. Warner who died shortly before the actual hostage crisis.
Family members of the real Tony Mendez appear as bus passenger extras heading towards the airport.
The main person who pushed the Canadian caper story to be published was former CIA director George Tenet (1997-2004). While the story was never published due to bureaucracy and the yet to be concluded Iran hostage crisis, it was only in 1997 when Tenet assumed directorship of the agency and in conjunction with the agency's 50th anniversary that he persuaded Tony Mendez to write his account and memoir of the caper.
During one of the many promotions for this film Alan Arkin didn't realize that Bryan Cranston was in Little Miss Sunshine, surprisingly quoting "Get out of here. I had no idea!". This was due to the fact that both actors didn't share scenes together (just like in Argo).
While Chris Terrio was writing the script he imagined Tony Mendez being played by George Clooney.