14 Fun Facts About ‘Now and Then’

In October 1995, the female-centric coming-of-age film Now and Then hit theaters. It tells the story of four friends who grew up in the same Indiana neighborhood and reunite there as adults to support Chrissy (Rita Wilson) as she prepares to give birth. Locally, Chrissy is supported by friend and gynecologist Roberta (Rosie O’Donnell). Returning to town for the occasion are movie star Teeny (Melanie Griffith) and science fiction writer Samantha (Demi Moore). As the friends reconnect, the film flashes back to a transformative summer they spent together in 1970 (in which their childhood versions are portrayed by Ashleigh Aston Moore, Christina Ricci, Thora Birch, and Gaby Hoffmann, respectively). The young girls participate in prank wars, embark on romances, uncover local mysteries, and grapple with family dynamics.

Thirty years after its release, the heartfelt film remains a resonant favorite to many who experienced the ups and downs of being 12 years old, particularly as a girl. The catchy soundtrack doesn’t hurt either. In honor of its anniversary, here are 14 facts you may not know about Now and Then.

1. The story was based on screenwriter I. Marlene King’s life.
2. The original title was The Gaslight Addition.
3. Demi Moore produced the film.
4. Georgia stood in for Indiana.
5. Some of the cast knew each other previously, and some became lifelong friends.
6. Christina Ricci advocated for Devon Sawa to get the part of Scott Wormer.
7. Leonardo DiCaprio almost played the Vietnam veteran part that went to Brendan Fraser.
8. Roberta was originally gay.
9. The tree holding the treehouse was dead.
10. The photo of Roberta’s mom was actually one of Now and Then’s producers.
11. There are some pop culture anachronisms.
12. Gaby Hoffman didn’t like her 1970s wardrobe.
13. It was poorly reviewed, but made money and became a cult classic.
14. There was almost a TV adaptation.

The story was based on screenwriter I. Marlene King’s life.

The film’s screenwriter, I. Marlene King, really grew up in Indiana (though she lived in Winchester, which became Shelby for the film). In the early days of her writing career, King kept hearing the age-old advice to “write what you know”—so that’s exactly what she did. She wrote a screenplay that echoed her real-world experience of what it was like to go through her parents’ divorce and roam around on bikes with her best friends. Even the cemetery séances and central mystery of the film were autobiographical. In Now and Then, the girls discover the gravestone of Johnny, a local boy who died young. That gravestone eventually goes missing, leading them to try to dig up the story behind his death. According to King, her friends also conducted a séance, realized a gravestone had gone missing, and attempted to solve the mystery.

Another scene based in truth: the kiss between Roberta and Scott Wormer (Devon Sawa). King has said, “That was just like my first kiss when he kisses Roberta. That was like right out of my life’s story and was so true to life.” 

The original title was The Gaslight Addition.

The young girls all live in the same cul-de-sac within an idyllic neighborhood where every house looks alike. It’s called the Gaslight Addition, which was the real name of the neighborhood where King grew up. It was also the film’s original title; right before release, distributor New Line Cinema changed the name to Now and Then for marketing purposes. (Sadly, the real Gaslight Addition suffered heavy tornado damage in March 2024, and King’s childhood home was destroyed. King returned to the area the following year to help with disaster relief fundraising.) 

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Demi Moore produced the film.

Already an A-list movie star—with films like St. Elmo’s Fire, A Few Good Men, and Indecent Proposal on her resumé—Demi Moore branched out to producing in 1994 when she co-created Moving Pictures. The company would go on to produce G.I. Jane and the Austin Powers trilogy, but Now and Then was one of their first projects.

In addition to the film having women in producing, writing, and directing roles (Lesli Linka Glatter), there was an emphasis on providing opportunities for women across the entire production. In an on-set interview, Moore noted, “I can tell you the biggest reward so far: the fact that New Line greenlit this picture … In our entire crew, this is the most women I have ever seen on a film in terms of grips, and gaffers, and camera department. It’s really exciting.”

Moore also gave one of her daughters her acting debut in Now and Then. Rumer Willis played Samantha’s younger sister, Angela. Willis was just 6 years old at the time. In a 2019 interview, she recalled, “I remember being on that set and it was, like, heaven for me. All I wanted to do was talk to the older girls … It was so fun.” 

Georgia stood in for Indiana.

Though Now and Then takes place in Indiana, the film was primarily shot in Georgia. On their long bike journey, the girls stop at a mom-and-pop shop to grab sodas, where Chrissy reveals she hasn’t French kissed because she doesn’t want to get pregnant. The scene was filmed at a real store called Pop & Gee at Smitty’s Country Store, located in Guyton, Georgia. As of 2015, Pop & Gee had Now and Then posters hanging inside to honor its cameo in the film. Statesboro, Georgia, stood in for downtown Shelby. The exterior of the Shelby Library is Statesboro’s Averitt Center for the Arts. And a couple of blocks from there, you’ll find the location of the storm drain where Samantha falls in and ultimately gets saved by not-so-scary-after all “Crazy Pete.” It’s right on the corner of Main Street and Walnut Street.

Some of the cast knew each other previously, and some became lifelong friends.

The cast had some filmography overlap before sharing the screen in Now and Then. The 1990 dark comedy The Bonfire of the Vanities featured both Rita Wilson and Melanie Griffith. Prior to playing the same character, Teeny, in Now and Then, Griffith and Thora Birch starred in the 1991 drama Paradise. And Rosie O’Donnell and Wilson both appeared in 1993’s hit rom-com Sleepless in Seattle.

Though they hadn’t worked together yet, Gaby Hoffman and Christina Ricci were also already acquainted because they often saw each other at auditions. In a 2022 joint interview with Hoffmann, Ricci recalled, “I think the first time I met you, you were 7 years old or something. Gaby was the most adorable little girl: long legs, [like a] colt, and then crazy, huge hair. I wanted to be friends with her for a long time, and then we ended up on a movie together.” The two became close friends during production, which involved regular weekend trips to watch—and rewatch—Pulp Fiction at the local movie theater. (Devon Sawa recalled attending four or five of these outings.)

As for the rest of the cast members, some have referenced on-set friction, but no long-term grudges seem to have emerged. Birch has said, “If I’m being honest, the thing was we were all 12 to 14 years old when we were making that film. And if anybody knows anything about 12 to 14-year-old girls, it doesn’t go well.”

According to Sawa, “We were like, 13, 14, 15 years old. Everything you can imagine in a childhood camp went on. Bickering between the girls, bickering between us. Then the next day everyone’s friends again, then somebody’s not talking to somebody. It was so childish and so innocent. I don’t think anybody would recall what it was all about.” 

Christina Ricci advocated for Devon Sawa to get the part of Scott Wormer.

Sawa plays Scott, the enemy-turned-love-interest to Ricci’s Roberta. Before Now and Then, the two met on the set of the family ghost flick Casper, which was also released in 1995. Because Sawa plays the human version of the titular ghost, he only spent a day and a half filming, but that involved attending one week of school with Ricci, and the two clicked.

Over the years, Sawa has repeatedly given Ricci credit for helping him get the role in Now and Then. In 2019, he recalled his audition process to Vulture: “I remember that I was in my childhood home in British Columbia, Canada, and this gentleman I used to put myself on tape with, who was an actor in Vancouver—the same guy that put me on tape for Casper—he came over and we laid down a VHS tape in our family room, and sent it off. I know that I’d been recommended by Christina Ricci for the part, and I waited a good solid week, and learned that I got it.”

As for the kissing scene the two eventually filmed, they saved the peck for their first take, which Sawa believed helped with authenticity. “We rehearsed the lines and just kept the kiss for the first take, so it would feel the way it did, which was supposed to be awkward and uncomfortable for me and whatever for her,” he said. “It all played into it.” 

Leonardo DiCaprio almost played the Vietnam veteran part that went to Brendan Fraser.

On their way home from Greenfield, the four young friends encounter a hitchhiking Vietnam veteran. According to King, the character provided for the girls “a hint of how the world [was] changing.” Brendan Fraser would eventually play the role, but the part almost went to another ’90s heartthrob: Leonardo DiCaprio. He was cast, but a last-minute scheduling issue popped up (Entertainment Tonight speculates it may have been production for the 1995 film Total Eclipse). Fraser swapped in for DiCaprio and, as King put it, “did such a good job.”

Roberta was originally gay.

On the page and throughout production, Roberta was a lesbian. Both Rosie O’Donnell and Christina Ricci played the character with that knowledge in mind. However, test screening audiences continually clutched their pearls about the fact that Roberta was gay and also Chrissy’s gynecologist, and New Line deemed the character’s sexuality to be too distracting. They removed all references to Roberta being gay and added a line about her living in sin with her boyfriend. King has said, “I know Rosie was really upset when they changed it at the last minute, and we all were.”

In a 2023 podcast interview, O’Donnell explained, “They took every little tiny thing that I had done to build the character into an accurate gay woman and made her straight.” In 2022, Ricci also expressed her dissatisfaction with the change, saying, “I just think it’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Why would you bother? … It’s so bizarre.” She went on to call her character “clearly a lesbian.”

The tree holding the treehouse was dead.

At the beginning of the film, the four adult women reconnect in the backyard of Chrissy’s house. To transition to their younger selves, the camera pans up to a treehouse. When the camera pans back down, it is 1970, and there is no treehouse. It hasn’t been built yet, as the girls will spend that summer saving up the money to buy it. It’s a picturesque tree on screen, but it was actually dead. To get the right tree, the crew cut one down, and moved it to the filming location. They had to add extra support to the lifeless trunk so it could hold the treehouse with actors inside. 

The photo of Roberta’s mom was actually one of Now and Then’s producers.

A critical piece of Roberta’s backstory is the death of her mother when she was 4 years old. Young Roberta grapples with this loss throughout the summer, eventually learning and breaking down over the fact that her dad lied about it being a painless death. As the film introduces the young friends, Roberta is seen taking a photo of her mom off her bedroom mirror and sticking it in her back pocket. Samantha’s voiceover explains that Roberta brings the picture with her every time she leaves the house. The woman in the photo is Jennifer Todd, the film’s producer. 

There are some pop culture anachronisms.

Leading up to a bonding pivotal moment between the two friends, Sam finds Teeny on the roof of her house watching Love Story play on a nearby drive-in movie screen. It perfectly fits for Teeny, who spends the summer fixated on boys. The problem: Love Story wasn’t released until December 16, 1970, the winter after the scene would have taken place. Another anachronism occurs when the girls are biking and singing along to a radio that’s affixed to Teeny’s bicycle. They’re singing “Knock Three Times” by the band Dawn (who eventually changed their name to Tony Orlando and Dawn). That song wasn’t recorded until the fall of 1970. It became a No. 1 hit in January 1971. 

Gaby Hoffman didn’t like her 1970s wardrobe.

An unearthed behind-the-scenes video shows the cast being interviewed by Entertainment Tonight on the evening they filmed the séance. The clip also features a walkthrough of the wardrobe trailer, led by Hoffman, who had plenty of gripes about the “lovely” clothes she had to wear in order to not look too “now.” She clearly would have preferred a 1960s era look, as she complained, “It’s 1970, so we don’t get the cool clothes, like bell bottoms and every other thing like that. We get, like, the right in-between ugly clothes.”

Her least favorite outfit? The checkered shorts and red top she wears during the sequence in which the girls bike to the Greenfield Library. Holding the shorts, she said, “These, I have to wear the longest day in the movie, and I hate them the most. And they go with my really ugly top.” 

It was poorly reviewed, but made money and became a cult classic.

When Now and Then was released on October 20, 1995, it got bad reviews and unfavorable comparisons to 1986’s coming-of-age film Stand By Me. The LA Times called Now and Then “a memory film that derails into a smoldering heap before leaving the station.” The New York Times deemed it “a little dull and much too predictable.” King recalled, “I remember my mom calling me and saying that Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs down and she was so upset. I was like, ‘Oh, mom, they’re just two old dudes. They’re not going to get it and the audience will.’ ”

King was correct that an audience found it and got it. Now and Then opened at No. 2 at the box office, behind the Hollywood mobster movie Get Shorty, and it went on to earn $37.5 million off a $12 million budget. It’s now widely considered a cult classic, with fans applauding its accurate portrayal of girlhood and the complications that arise within crushes, families, and friendships. 

There was almost a TV adaptation.

King went on to become the executive producer and showrunner of the popular teen drama TV show Pretty Little Liars, which ran from 2010 through 2017. As the show took off in popularity, there was a resurgence of interest in Now and Then, which led to the development of its own TV adaptation. The show never got made, which King has clarified was due to the network’s push for a later timeline. In 2015, she told Entertainment Weekly, “It was on ABC Family but they wanted to change it so the ‘now’ was present day and the ‘then’ would be the ’90s. I didn’t want to do that—I felt that kind of ruins how special the movie is. The movie still is so special to so many people, I didn’t want to take a chance on changing the time period. To me, there will never be a 1970s again, so to try to set it in the ’90s when we had cell phones and things like that, I don’t think it would work.”

Though the TV version never came to fruition, King and Glatter did work together after Now and Then. Glatter directed the pilot and first two season finales of Pretty Little Liars. Previously, Glatter had directed four episodes of Twin Peaks, and King has said that she wanted Pretty Little Liars to be “Now and Then meets Twin Peaks for teenage girls.”