History Trivia / KissOfTheSpiderWoman

** Tensions started early on in the process between Creator/WilliamHurt and Hector Babenco. David Weisman later remarked that Hurt had a wonderful mastery of language and spoke in "great metaphorical ellipses that are hard to follow even if English is your native language." For Babenco it was impossible. He became frustrated by Hurt talking "for hours" and learned to just nod and pretend to agree in order to keep the conversations relatively short. Their relationship steadily deteriorated to the point where they didn't even speak to each other any more. Assistant Director Amilcar Monteiro Claro and actor Milton Gonçalves became the go-between, since they spoke both English and Brazilian Portuguese. Claro said the tension was terrible but actually good for the film because it helped Hurt with his performance.

* CastTheRunnerUp: During rehearsals, Creator/RaulJulia and Creator/WilliamHurt had trouble finding the chemistry they needed for their scenes together. To better understand what each needed from the other's role, Hurt suggested they try an experiment where they would switch roles, with Hurt as Valentin and Julia as Molina. The role-switching rehearsal went so well that Hurt initially suggested to director Hector Babenco that they should switch parts for the film as well. Obviously, the switch did not occur, but Hurt states that it was a very useful experiment in helping them more fully understand their own characters.

** The "film-within-a-film" segments have all the French and German characters played by Brazilian actors.

** Creator/WilliamHurt, an Irish-American, and Creator/RaulJulia, a Puerto Rican, both play Brazilians.

** Weisman and Babenco fought constantly during editing, sometimes to the point of physical confrontations, making things very difficult for the people cutting the picture. Leonard Schrader had to come back from Tokyo, where he was working on his brother Paul's film ''Film/MishimaALifeInFourChapters'', to act as go-between.

** Dan Weisman and Hector Babenco fought constantly during editing, sometimes to the point of physical confrontations, making things very difficult for the people cutting the picture. Leonard Schrader had to come back from Tokyo, where he was working on his brother Paul's film ''Film/MishimaALifeInFourChapters'', to act as go-between.

** Tensions started early on in the process between Creator/WilliamHurt and Hector Babenco. David Weisman later remarked that Hurt had a wonderful mastery of language and spoke in "great metaphorical ellipses that are hard to follow even if English is your native language." For Babenco it was impossible. He became frustrated by Hurt talking "for hours" and learned to just nod and pretend to agree in order to keep the conversations relatively short. Their relationship steadily deteriorated to the point where they didn't even speak to each other any more. Assistant Director Amilcar Monteiro Claro became the go-between, since he spoke both English and Brazilian Portuguese. Claro said the tension was terrible but actually good for the film because it helped Hurt with his performance.

** Dan Weisman and Hector Babenco fought constantly during editing, sometimes to the point of physical confrontations, making things very difficult for the people cutting the picture. Leonard Schrader had to come back from Tokyo, where he was working on his brother Paul's film ##Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters'', to act as go-between.

* TheOtherMarty: Choreographer Mara Borba was originally set to play the Spider Woman. (Shots exist of her in costume.) At the last minute, Creator/SofiaBraga suggested that she play the part since it would cause confusion for the audience to see her as Valentin's girlfriend and Leni Lamaison but not the third female. She called Borba first with the idea before taking it to Babenco. Borba said she was sad at first to lose the part but realized Braga was right and that playing the part was much less important than her true role in the film, which was her collaboration with Creator/WilliamHurt.