The real Steve Schmidt, who is played in this movie by Woody Harrelson, called the film's portrayal of him, and the events surrounding Sarah Palin's GOP nomination as the party's Vice Presidential candidate and candidacy, accurate.
Nicolle Wallace, the real-life aide to Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, said the film was "highly credible", "true enough to make me squirm", and "captured the spirit and emotion of the campaign."
The production carefully placed background actors and actresses in the audience scenes to resemble actual audience members in convention and town hall scenes in order to enhance the cutting-in of newscast footage.
In the beginning of the film, a reporter asks, "Can a soufflé rise twice?" This was a famous quote by the Australian Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, about the opposition Australian Liberal Party politician Andrew Peacock, who was making a second attempt to gain the leadership of his party in the 1980s.
John Heilemann: One of the two original writers of the book "Game Change", on which the film is based. The other is Mark Halperin. Both appear as the two reporters asking Steve Schmidt (Woody Harrelson) about Sarah Palin's (Julianne Moore's) "amniotic fluid".