Editing Searching for Bobby Fischer (section)

==Cast==
{{Cast listing|
* [[Max Pomeranc]] as [[Josh Waitzkin]]
* [[Ben Kingsley]] as [[Bruce Pandolfini]]
* [[Joe Mantegna]] as [[Fred Waitzkin]], Josh's father
* [[Laurence Fishburne]] as "Vinnie" Vincent Livermore
* [[Joan Allen]] as Bonnie Waitzkin, Josh's mother
* [[Robert Stephens]] as Jonathan's teacher
* [[David Paymer]] as Kalev
* [[William H. Macy]] as Tunafish father
* [[Austin Pendleton]] as [[Asa Hoffmann]]
* [[Tony Shalhoub]] as Chess club player
* [[Josh Mostel]] as Chess club regular
* [[Dan Hedaya]] as Tournament director
* [[Laura Linney]] as Josh's school teacher
* [[Anthony Heald]] as Fighting parent
* Michael Nirenberg as Jonathan Poe
* [[Hal Scardino]] as [[Morgan Pehme]]
* Vasek Simek as Russian player
}}
Some famous chess players have cameos in the film: [[Anjelina Belakovskaia]], [[Joel Benjamin]], [[Roman Dzindzichashvili]], [[Kamran Shirazi]], along with the real [[Joshua Waitzkin]], [[Bruce Pandolfini]], Vincent Livermore, and Russell Garber. [[Chess master]] [[Asa Hoffmann]] is played by [[Austin Pendleton]]; the real Hoffmann was disappointed with his portrayal by Pendleton. Chess expert Poe McClinton, still a park regular, is seen throughout the film. [[Pal Benko]] was supposed to be in the film but his part was cut out. Waitzkin's real mother and sister also have cameos. [[Bobby Fischer]] appears in newsreel footage.

The Russian player in the park (played by Vasek Simek) who holds up the sign "{{smallcaps|Game or Photograf Of Man Who {{sic|Beet}} Tal 1953 • Five Dollars}}", was based on the real life of [[Israel Zilber]], who would regularly sleep in the park, awakening only for a "five dollar game" that he would demand in a Russian accent (reduced to "two dollar game" during slow times if requested) and which he would invariably win.  Zilber also played the [[Queen's Gambit]] as White.<ref>{{Cite web|date=11 March 2006
| last = Wall | first= Bill
|title=Searching for Bobby Fischer (Josh Waitzkin) Trivia
| website= geocities.com
 |url=http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/searching.htm|access-date=8 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080105124423/http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/searching.htm |archive-date=January 5, 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001031717/http://www.chessgames.com/player/israel_zilber.html
| archive-date= 1 October 2007
|title=The chess games of Israel Zilber|url=https://www.chessgames.com/player/israel_zilber.html|access-date=8 January 2023|website=www.chessgames.com}}</ref> Zilber, [[Latvian Chess Championship|Latvian Chess Champion]] in 1958, defeated the teenage [[Mikhail Tal]] in 1952,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139182|title=Mikhail Tal vs. Josif Israel Zilber, LAT-ch (1952)|website=[[Chessgames.com]]|access-date=May 26, 2007|archive-date=October 1, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001031616/http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139182|url-status=live}}</ref> and during most of the 1980s was homeless and regarded as one of the top players in Washington Square Park.

Waitzkin's main chess [[Foil (literature)|foil character]] in the film, Jonathan Poe (played by Michael Nirenberg), is based on [[chess prodigy]] [[Jeff Sarwer]]. When Sarwer was asked what he felt about his portrayal in the film, he stated: <blockquote>At the end of the day it was a Hollywood film, a work of fiction, and it helped popularize chess more so that's always a good thing. But I have a lot of distance to the actual book and film, the way I was portrayed was nothing at all like how I was in real life so what's the point in comparing myself to it?<ref>{{cite news|last=Shahade|first=Jennifer|title=The United States Chess Federation – Lost and Found: An Interview with Jeff Sarwer|url=http://www.uschess.org/content/view/10007/571/|access-date=28 July 2017|work=[[United States Chess Federation]]|date=8 January 2010|archive-date=January 19, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190119234204/http://www.uschess.org/content/view/10007/571|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>