Trivia / Bicentennial Man

• Acting for Two: Embeth Davidtz plays both the adult form of Little Miss and her granddaughter Portia.
• Completely Different Title: The movie became Andrew—NDR114 in Japan.
• Creator Backlash:
  • In his final standup special, Weapons of Self-Destruction, Robin Williams mocked doing this film.
  • Chris Columbus later admitted that although he wanted to direct the film to work in science fiction for the first time, the production ended up being more work than he was ready for and there should have been a different director. The next time he directed a sci-fi film, it would be Pixels in 2015.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Robin Williams shaved off his considerable body hair to play the robotic Andrew. He was also the one under the robot suit, as body doubles had trouble replicating his body language.
• Executive Meddling: Disney cut the budget by $20 million, resulting in the film losing scenes and having lacklustre marketing. This led to Robin Williams falling out with Disney again after he had earlier reconciled with them following a similar incident on Aladdin.
• Fake American: Sam Neill (Irish-New Zealander) and Embeth Davidtz (South African) as Sir and Little Miss.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: When Andrew regales the family with jokes, the jokes themselves were unscripted. Robin Williams ad-libbed all of the jokes. The other actors' reactions to the jokes and their laughter are real.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The film had misleading marketing, with trailers emphasizing its potential to be a robot version of Mrs. Doubtfire (it wasn't) and somewhere between one-quarter to one-half of the scenes used in the trailer were cut from the film or alternate takes that weren't used (such as when Galatea does a point-and-laugh at Andrew, but in the film she's hiding her face).
• Production Posse: Chris Columbus had also directed Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire and Nine Months. He also directed Bradley Whitford in Adventures in Babysitting.
• Prop Recycling: The car that Ma'am drives in the film is the same car used in Demolition Man.
• What Could Have Been: This was originally planned with Tom Hanks starring and Wolfgang Petersen directing. Tim Allen was also considered, but he was busy with Galaxy Quest. Other candidates included Dan Aykroyd, Alec Baldwin, Jeff Bridges, Billy Crystal, Robert De Niro, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Keaton, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Jack Nicholson, Bill Paxton, Kurt Russell, William Shatner and Martin Short.
• Writing Around Trademarks: In the novella, the robotic company is called US Robots and Mechanical Men. A real-life company named themselves US Robotics in honor of Isaac Asimov, requiring the company to be called NorthAm Robotics in the film (as they are not portrayed positively).

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