The real Louis Zamperini passed away on July 2, 2014. He was able to watch a rough cut of the film on director Angelina Jolie's laptop while in the hospital before he passed.
While Zamperini and Phil are floating out at sea on the raft, the picture of a woman that Phil looks at is actually the real photo of his sweetheart and later wife, provided by his daughter to Angelina Jolie during filming.
Despite being a born-again Christian, Louis Zamperini requested that the film not delve too deeply into his religion, as he wanted his experiences with faith and forgiveness to reach the audience on a universal level.
Gunnar Höckert, the Finnish runner shown winning the gold medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympics was also a casualty of the Second World War. He went to the Winter War as a volunteer and was killed on the Karelian Isthmus just one day before his 30th birthday in February 1940.
Miyavi found performing the scene in which Zamperini is forced to hold a beam over his head at gunpoint so upsetting and intense that he vomited on set.