'Holes' stars and creators share 26 little-known facts even die-hard fans may not know about the film

"Holes" author Louis Sachar told Insider that once his young-adult novel won a National Book Award and a Newberry Medal, directors and producers wanted to buy the rights to turn it into a film.

"I remember my wife and I were excited at firs, but then just kind of got pretty jaded by the whole thing," he said.

Among the flock of directors was Davis, who had recently directed "The Fugitive."

"At the time, Louis told us that the Coen brothers and Rob Reiner were also interested in it, and the reason that he let me do it was because of 'The Fugitive.'" the director said.

"I always liked the idea of working with Andy because I went and watched a lot of his movies, and I was really impressed by how gripping they were," Sachar added. "I didn't want someone to make it into a fluffy children's story. I wanted it to be gritty and tough."

Davis told Insider that Disney executives originally hired someone else to write the screenplay for "Holes."

"That writer came back with this insanely dark, dystopian film not even anywhere close to the story," producer Teresa Tucker-Davies added.

"At that point, I said, 'You know what? Louis should get credit for this. They're his characters, it's his story,'" Davis said.

Sachar told Insider, "Andy was persistent in having me write the screenplay. At the time, I didn't realize just how special that was — he was really going out on a limb for me."

The writer said he sat down with Davis and Tucker-Davies to storyboard the whole script on 3-by-5 index cards before writing his first draft.

"All this was new to me, but 'Holes' is the only book of mine that's ever been made into a movie, so I wanted it done right," Sachar said.

Beyond writing the screenplay, Sachar was on set throughout the filming process. At times, Davis turned to him for input.

"I didn't want to use voiceover. Andy kept saying there has to be some narrator somewhere, and I kept arguing that there was no one," Sachar said. "For the most part, I won that battle. There's some voiceover at the beginning and end, but not much — he wanted it throughout."

But the author also said he learned to pick his battles on set.

"They'd shoot a scene, and I'd maybe have some thoughts on it. But Andy would suddenly be surrounded by the camerapeople, the producers, the actors, all having questions and things to say," he told Insider. "I learned to wait until there was something I really felt strongly about to try to interject."

Davis was committed to making "Holes" a successful book-to-movie adaptation, which also involved some studying before filming began.

"We had to read the book and take a quiz on it and everything," Miguel Castro, who played Magnet, told Insider. "The only two books I ever read in my life are 'Holes' and 'Harry Potter.'"

Davis told Sachar that he'd put him and his family in the movie, but the writer didn't get any notice before his big moment.

"There was one scene where Sam is selling onions to a bald guy to make his hair grow — that happened to be the day Andy remembered he promised to put me in the movie," Sachar said. "Because it wasn't in the script, I was the only bald person on set."

The writer, his wife, and his daughter were all in costume as extras that day, and Sachar said he was glad he didn't know his cameo was going to happen beforehand.

"I would've practiced my one line in the mirror until the words had no meaning left," he told Insider.

When it came to the editing process, Sachar added, "I'd always keep my fingers crossed to see if my part was still there."

Nelson told Insider that when Davis originally offered him the role of Dr. Pendanski in "Holes," he wasn't sure he was going to accept.

"I hadn't read the novel yet. I didn't quite get the character as scripted, and my initial inclination was to say no," the actor said.

But Davis' commitment to capturing the complexities of the story, Sachar's help fleshing out the character, and other big names joining the cast eventually persuaded Nelson.

"It was one of the best decisions I've ever made," he told Insider. "I can't imagine the depth of regret I would have felt if I'd then gone to see the movie with my children, and I missed out on getting to play the role."

The first time Castro auditioned to play Magnet, he went through his agent.

"I didn't book anything," he told Insider. "I was horrible."

But the production team was also traveling around to different high schools, including Castro's in South LA, and his teacher helped him get in front of the casting directors for a second time.

"I guess they forgot who I was," he said. " I got a callback from school, not from my agent."

When Khleo Thomas showed up for his chemistry test, his character, Zero, had the longest list of auditioning actors under it. Among his competitors, he said, was Tahj Mowry, who at the time was well known for starring on The WB's "Smart Guy."

Eventually, Thomas got his chance to read alongside Shia LaBeouf.

"Everyone else got to do multiple different things," he told Insider. "I only got a chance to do one thing — sit next to Shia and go through the scene of Stanley teaching Zero how to read."

The casting directors had them improvise the scene instead of reading from the script.

"Shia and I just had chemistry," Thomas said. "We immediately connected, and the rest is history."

Castro told Insider that when he was in his final round of callbacks, he was told Muniz was going to be starring as Stanley.

"But Frankie took 'Cody Banks' because it was gonna be a two-part series, and they couldn't match the millions," the actor said.

The part, instead, went to LaBeouf.

Stanley's grandfather was played by Nathan Davis, the director's father.

Adding the grandpa to the story was one of the big deviations from the plot of the book, but Louis said he was on board because it helped to tie together some of the bigger generational divides in the story.

"My father was a very well-respected Chicago theater actor," Davis told Insider. "He had had a little stroke, and we were concerned that he couldn't do it, but he was fantastic."

Nelson was in his late 30s when he starred in "Holes," placing him in between the ages of the child actors and the veterans, like Weaver and Voight.

"I spent a lot of time with Shia and Khleo, and I gravitated toward that," he told Insider. "I was kind of more comfortable being in their presence in terms of status."

The actor added that he would play football and Wiffle ball with the young stars.

"It was easier for me to be around the younger cast because I was initially less intimidated," Nelson said. "And then, eventually, I did start spending time with Jon, and we became friends."

"Holes" was filmed between Hollywood sound stages; the Disney Ranch in Santa Clarita, California; and Ridgewood, California.

For the portion in the desert, Davis said they mainly scouted locations around Cuddeback dry lake bed, a missile-testing location for the US Navy.

Castro told Insider that the pressing desert heat posed challenges during filming.

"We got to a point where we were hitting 104 degrees, and it was nothing to us anymore — that was a chill day," he said. "I remember one day was 119 degrees. I thought they were gonna cancel the filming, but we all agreed to knock it out. I was hallucinating, and I started seeing water, a swimming pool."

Sandstorms also got in the cast and crew's way.

"I remember a lot of dirt," Dulé Hill, who played Sam the Onion Man, told Insider. "I remember there were times when a dust storm would be coming in, and we'd have to run indoors or get inside a car or something."

"The kids were brave, but I'm kind of a wimp," Tucker-Davies added. "When dust storms came up, even though I was a full-fledged producer on the film, I'm embarrassed to admit that I just went to my trailer because it was brutal."

Before spending three months filming in the desert, the kids in the cast had to go through special training.

"We had to do six to eight weeks in boot camp," Castro said, adding, "We had to get prepared to be under weather conditions of 115 degrees Fahrenheit and higher."

The actor told Insider they had to run about 4 to 6 miles a day, and Davis said the film's stunt coordinator taught them how to dig holes.

"I remember when they put us in front of a rope on the first day, no one had the strength to go up the rope," Castro said. "At the end of the boot camp, everybody was running up that rope."

In one of the pivotal scenes of the film, Stanley and Zero find wild onions to eat while they're stranded out in the desert. But they weren't really chomping down on onions, that was just movie magic.

"It was an apple that was propped up very neatly to have the layer of an 'onion.'" Thomas told Insider. "It was made of like edible paper and purple food coloring."

There were a number of creatures on the set of "Holes," but Hill didn't love working with his character's donkey.

"I can't say that that was enjoyable, I mean, they get the name jackass for a reason," he told Insider.

He recalled a particularly difficult scene where Sam is standing out in the desert with the donkey watching Stanley's bus drive by.

"Even trying to get the donkey into the right position was a huge challenge," Hill said.

In addition to donkeys, there were plenty of reptiles on the "Holes" set, including rattlesnakes and lizards. But Castro wasn't a fan of them.

The actor said he told the production team, "I'll go running in my boxers, but don't put me around those reptiles."

Luckily, he didn't have to film anything around the animals.

While filming in the Mojave Desert, producer Marty P. Ewing said, the production team butted heads a little with the Bureau of Land Management.

"The Bureau of Land Management comes in and says, 'Wait a second, we just double-checked our records and we need to prevent the disturbance of these lizards and toads,' or whatever reptile," he said.

The team had to keep a close eye out throughout filming, and the bureau supervised them every day.

"I'm just happy that we didn't kill any lizards or toads," the producer told Insider. "I think they would've actually shut us down had we done that."

Hogan played Stanley's mother and acted alongside Winkler in "Holes."

She told Insider that the pair decided to improvise the dance in the scene with her character's iconic line, "I don't smell anything."

"I remember the pot boiling over and the shoe and everything. And then we did the big dance because we wanted to get more screen time," she said. "Henry Winkler needed more screen time, and I was all on board."

"Us actually hanging out is what helped make the 'Dig It' song come to life," Thomas told Insider. "We would go to the back of the transportation bus and just freestyle."

The actor said the kids eventually caught the attention of Tucker-Davies.

"Andy let the boys do it," the producer said. "Of course, they were thrilled because they all had their guitars with them."

Tucker-Davies added that helping to write and organize "Dig It" ended up being her "favorite experience of the movie."

When it came time to promote the film, Davis said he wasn't convinced that Disney understood the material. He called the first trailer the studio made "so corny."

"I had my own trailer, which had no narration. It was just abstract and these wonderful images of kids that my editor Tom Norberg put together," the director told Insider. "The head of Disney's marketing at the time said no. We ended up with a compromise I wasn't really happy with it, but it worked."

Davis added, "The good thing was 'Holes' had a built-in audience because the book was so popular."

Thomas filmed "Holes" in the summer after seventh grade. But when it came time to finish middle school the next year, he said, he was turned away.

"Somebody let them know that I was in a film that was based on a book, and they didn't want me to be a distraction," he said. "So they pretty much told me I couldn't come back to school."

He told Insider he was homeschooled instead.

Castro told Insider about his first experience seeing the "Holes" promotional posters in a movie theater before the film was released.

"My eyes got watery. I was like, 'Why am I the chosen one to do this? From all these Hispanic kids, why does it have to be me?'" he said.

The actor said he asked the theater employee if he could buy the poster, but he was told that the theater throws them away after the promotion is over. Luckily, his costar Max Kasch's mom gave him a copy of his individual Magnet poster.

Castro said he and his date also got to see a movie for free that day once he told the employee who he was.

In the early 2000s, Hill was probably best known for playing Charlie Young on NBC's "The West Wing." But after "Holes," he went on to star on USA's "Psych" for eight seasons.

"We paid homage to 'Holes' on one of the episodes," the actor said. "Shawn was trying to get me to remember the film with Shia LaBeouf about a bunch of holes, and my character, Gus, didn't know what he was talking about."

Even 20 years later, Castro said he still assumes the role of Magnet on occasion.

"Here in my community, when the elementary schools are reading the book, I go to support them," he told Insider. "I put my jumpsuit on, put my bandana on, shave my beard, and I make it happen for these kids."

Sachar told Insider that didn't win all of his battles on set.

"I remember there was discussion about whether the Warden and Mr. Sir and Dr. Pendanski should all be arrested at the end. Both Sigourney Weaver and I thought she'd suffered enough and that it was just kind of redundant to have her then arrested," the writer said. "Jon Voigt and Andy were of the other opinion."

The production team went forward with the arrest at the end, and according to Davis, the officer was actually played by the film's stunt coordinator, Alex Daniels.

"Right after the movie came out, people wanted me to write a sequel," Sachar told Insider. "To me, it felt like the story was done, and it was done well. I didn't wanna diminish it at all with some sequel that wouldn't live up to it."

But the writer also said he's heard talk over the years of doing a new series based on "Holes" that focuses on a girls' correctional camp.

"If they're gonna do something like that, I think I'd almost rather someone else do it," Sachar said. "I've done 'Holes' too much. I did the book, I did the movie, I did the play based on the book — it's not fresh to me anymore at all."

Meghan Cook contributed to reporting for this story.