Invictus - Influence

Influence

• In the 1942 film Casablanca, Captain Renault, an official played by Claude Rains recites the last two lines of the poem when talking to Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, referring to his power in Casablanca.
• In the 1945 film Kings Row, Parris Mitchell, a psychiatrist played by Robert Cummings, recites the first two stanzas of "Invictus" to his friend Drake McHugh, played by Ronald Reagan, before revealing to Drake that his legs were unnecessarily amputated by a cruel doctor.
• FDR (Franklin D. Roosevelt) mentions that this is one of his favorite poems in the 1958 play Sunrise at Campobello (play) (Act 2, Scene 2). Later, in the same scene, his friend and advisor, Louis Howe, reads the entire poem aloud as a tribute to Roosevelt.
• The fourth stanza was quoted by Lachesis to Zane in Piers Anthony's novel On a Pale Horse, the first of his Incarnations of Immortality series.
• While incarcerated on Robben Island prison, Nelson Mandela recited the poem to other prisoners and was empowered by its message of self-mastery. In the movie Invictus, Mandela gives the captain of the national South African rugby team the poem to inspire him to lead his team to a Rugby World Cup win, telling him how it inspired him in prison.

• The poem was used as the title of one of the final episodes of the 1987-1989 television series Beauty and the Beast.
• The poem was used in a voice-over by Lucas Scott in the hit television series One Tree Hill.
• The American Heavy Metal band Virgin Steele take influence from the poem for their 1998 release Invictus (album). In the song of the same name, many of the lyrics take influence from the poem.
• Canadian poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen recited the poem as an introduction to his own song "The Darkness", during a couple of shows on his 2010 world tour, most notably at his State Kremlin Palace show on 7 October.
• The poem was used by Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) to inspire Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) in the 30 Rock episode "Everything Sunny All the Time Always".
• Novelist Jeffrey Archer quoted the poem in the first volume of his A Prison Diary series 'Hell' which recounted his time inside HMP Belmarsh.
• The line "bloody, but unbowed" was the Daily Mirror's headline the day after the 7 July 2005 London bombings.
• The Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi stated, "This poem had inspired my father, Aung San, and his contemporaries during the independent struggle, as it also seemed to have inspired freedom fighters in other places at other times."
• The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh chose the last two lines of the poem as his final (written) statement.
• In the 2012 game Mass Effect 3 the second stanza of the poem is cited by one of the main characters: Ashley Williams, lieutenant-commander of the Alliance
• Tennis player Andre Agassi quoted the poem in his autobiography, Open.
• In a Lost in Space episode, Dr. Smith quotes the poem in the line "each man is the master of his fate, the captain of his soul".
• The Japanese Visual Novel Robotics;Notes uses the last two lines in this poem in the tagline for the game.
• The Korean Manhwa Noblesse (manhwa) uses the last two lines as the motto for Ye Ran High School.