Trivia: Disabled U.S. veterans would tell Gary Sinise that they were inspired by his portrayal of Lt. Dan in this film. Feeling humbled because he himself was neither a veteran or disabled, he established the Gary Sinise Foundation in order to help disabled veterans adjust to their new lives. https://www.garysinisefoundation.org.
Trivia: The film was based on an actual lawsuit against Hyatt Legal Services, a storefront chain in the Midwest with a less-than-sterling reputation in the legal profession.
Trivia: When we see the "regulators" riding over the hill on the way to kill Django and Schultz, if you look carefully at the right-center portion of screen, you can see one of the stuntmen fall off his horse and the horse continues to run down the hill without him. To make matters even worse, it appears the stuntman rolls right in front of another horse and gets trampled. (00:41:00)
Trivia: The font used for Live With Murray Franklin is identical to the Batman animated series titles. The name of the font is "Plaza," for those that might be curious.
Trivia: The word "fuck" and its derivatives are used a total of 246 times.
Trivia: Bill Skarsgård was purposely kept separated from the child-actors during filming, and outside of some early publicity photos, the kids never saw him until the first scene they filmed together in order to get their genuine reactions. The kids were both genuinely scared of him, but also incredibly excited after filming their first scene.
Trivia: Not really a mistake, given the need for drama in a war film, but the mission takes place the evening before D-Day, meaning the Allies had complete air supremacy, and knew the exact time, date and place of the meeting of the German officers, this mission would never have taken place. The brightly lit chateau would have been flattened by a squadron of heavy bombers. Lee Marvin, an experienced combat veteran, pointed this out to the producers and was told to keep his opinions to himself.
Trivia: Despite long being one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, this was the first Tom Cruise film to earn more than $100 million at the domestic box office on its opening weekend. It also went on to become his highest grossing film, as well as his first film to gross $1 billion worldwide.
Trivia: Hattie McDaniel's portrayal of Mammy earned her an Academy Award, the first to be given to an African American.
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: John Cusack's real-life sister, Joan Cusack, is wearing a neck brace on the bus at the beginning of the film.
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.
Just submitted a link to a video where they tell how they improvised during rehearsals and then scripted it.
Trivia: Shortly after the film opened in theaters, Samuel Adams Green filed a lawsuit against the film makers. He did admit to having a relationship with Baekeland but has stated that he has never had sex with her son and was not bisexual. He also stated that he didn't believe that Barbara did have sex with her son. She only claimed that she did because she enjoyed shocking people.
Trivia: The hat band on John Wayne's hat once belonged to Gary Cooper. It was a gift to John from Cooper.
Trivia: Bernard Fox, who portrayed Colonel Archibald Gracie IV, also played Frederick Fleet in the 1958 film, A Night to Remember, another film about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Frederick Fleet was the first person to notice the iceberg and shouted the warning to the crew.
Trivia: Richard Gere actually plays the piano - and he composed this piece himself.