Trivia: The infant playing Connie and Carlo's baby son Michael Francis Rizzi who Kay holds during the christening scene is Sofia Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, who was born in May 1971. Sofia later had a prominent role in Part III as Michael's daughter, Mary. Other than the main characters, Sofia is the only actor to have appeared in all three films. In The Godfather II, she can be briefly seen as an immigrant girl on the ship that brings Vito Corleone to Ellis Island.
Trivia: The entire "How am I funny?" scene was improvised by Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta.
Suggested correction: False. Joe Pesci told the anecdote to Scorsese in the earliest stages of the movie. Scorsese asked him to add it during previous script readings and further rehearsals while notes were being taken by crew members. Then it was finally shot following those rehearsals and notes. In this video all the actors involved tell how Scorsese works and even he himself says he rewrote that scene 4 times. Minute 13:04: https://youtu.be/_bbzUZuxEB8.
I have actually seen interviews where they admitted it was improvised. The reactions from the other actors was genuine.
Trivia: When James Brolin was offered the role of George Lutz, he was informed that they didn't have a script to give him. James bought a copy of the novel and began to read it. At two o'clock in the morning, while reading a very intense part of the book, a pair of pants that he had hung up earlier fell to the ground causing him to jump in fright. After that, James agreed to do the film.
Trivia: Yvonne Elliman and Barry Dennen, as Mary Magdalene and Pontius Pilate, respectively, are the only cast members who appeared on the concept album, in the original staging of the show on Broadway, and in the feature film.
Trivia: Richard Gere actually plays the piano - and he composed this piece himself.
Trivia: Not really a mistake, given the need to maintain the story arc in the first half of the film, but in real life, Pyle would have been discharged from the Marine Corps within days of his starting basic training - for his own good. It happens all the time - dropout rate of boot camp recruits varies but is generally around 10%.
Trivia: Director Tyler Perry loves his cast so much that most of them are in all of his films. Besides changing up the main characters, he always finds a spot for his regulars.
Trivia: Charlie Sheen stayed awake for 2 days to play the guy in the police station, so he could get the right look for the scene.
Trivia: John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten despises this film. He accused it of glamorizing the squalor of Sid and Nancy's life and making heroin addiction seem cool. He has referred to the film as "a f*ck*ng fantasy." Amongst his more scathing quotes : "To me this movie is the lowest form of life. I honestly believe that it celebrates heroin addiction. It definitely glorifies it at the end when that stupid taxi drives off into the sky." "I don't think they ever had the intent to research properly in order to make a seriously accurate movie. It was all just for money, wasn't it? To humiliate somebody's life like that - and very successfully - was very annoying to me." "I went to see it and was utterly appalled. I told [director] Alex Cox, which was the first time I met him, that he should be shot, and he was quite lucky I didn't shoot him. I still hold him in the lowest light. Will the real Sid please stand up?" "As for how I was portrayed... it was so off and ridiculous. It was absurd. Champagne and baked beans for breakfast? Sorry. I don't drink champagne. He didn't even speak like me. He had a Scouse accent." (Lydon is a Londoner.) Alex Cox later admitted that many of Lydon's criticisms of the film were correct and he should have shown the squalor and ugliness of Sid and Nancy's life in a far more realistic manner.
Trivia: At the climax of the movie when Russell Crowe confronts Senator Collins about his involvement with the death of the senate research aid, he goes outside to leave and is accosted by the assassin, Robert Bingham. Bingham is apparently going to kill Crowe when the police show up in force. Bingham raises his M-16 to shoot Crowe and the police shoot him. In the next scene Crowe is entering the news article in the newspaper's computer. The camera gives us a glimpse of the computer screen. If you pause it and read the story it says that the assassin, Bingham, is found by the police dead at his apartment from an apparent suicide instead of being shot down in a fusillade of police gunfire in front of Senator Collins' office.
Trivia: Linda Harrison, who portrayed Nova in the original Planet of the Apes and its sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes, has a cameo appearance in this movie as one of the people inside the rolling cage as it's being taken into the city. She is seen standing next to Mark Wahlberg, shaking her head when he asks her a question.
Trivia: Kathleen Marshall, who plays the role of Charlotte, is the director Garry Marshall's daughter.
Trivia: Director Jason Reitman is the son of Ivan Reitman, director of the original "Ghostbusters" and "Ghostbusters II." As a child, Jason actually had a cameo in "Ghostbusters II" during the birthday party in the beginning. (He's the kid who tells Ray he heard the Ghostbusters were "full of crap").
Trivia: Satan is actually played by a woman - the Italian actress Rosalinda Celentano.
Trivia: The scene where Tim approaches Harry at a tractor was filmed at the farm of NASCAR legend Junior Johnson.
Trivia: The name of Truman's boat is the "Santa Maria" - a ship sailed by Christopher Columbus. It is symbolic of going to a new land or a "new" place.