In spite of it being her most iconic role, Audrey Hepburn felt miscast as Holly due to the changes in the source material.
Truman Capote said that he felt "double-crossed" by Hepburn's casting and didn't appreciate that the film turned his story from a cautionary tale into a romance.
Both Richard Shepherd and Blake Edwards have regretted casting Mickey Rooney in yellowface. Rooney himself stated if he'd known that so many people would be offended, he would never have taken the role but otherwise didn't regret his performance itself, saying they had much fun during the shooting and everyone in Hollywood (including Asians) had congratulated him upon the release of the movie, with the criticism only coming much later.
Deleted Scene: Although it's never explained why Holly is wearing a bed sheet at her cocktail party, an earlier scene (cut before release) established she'd been taking a bath and had to improvise a gown on the spur of moment. The cut scene was featured in a Life magazine pictorial shortly before film was released.
Fake American: Audrey Hepburn, though her foreign accent is explained as a result of speech lessons. In the movie the accent is so she can casually pass herself off as a Fake Brit, to make her more marketable as an aspiring actress.
Hostility on the Set: Though she had known him previously and got along with him fine during rehearsals, Patricia Neal said that George Peppard was unbearable to work with. Also, while he later became friends with Audrey Hepburn, he found her difficult to deal with due to their different acting styles.
Throw It In!: In the scene were Holly pushes Cat out of the taxi, he recoils from the wet pavement and tries to back into the car, forcing Holly to push him out a second time. This was obviously just the natural reaction of the cat, but it makes the scene twice as painful.
Wag the Director: Not surprisingly considering his intensity, George Peppard didn't make many friends on the set. He and Blake Edwards locked horns many times throughout the filming, almost coming to blows on at least one occasion. No matter what kind of direction he was given, Peppard would end up playing the scene as he thought it should be played, which didn't endear him to anyone. Even Patricia Neal, with whom Peppard had been friendly in the past, noticed a change in the actor-and not for the better. Peppard, she felt, had been "spoiled." Peppard felt from the get-go that Neal's character was too dominant. "He wanted things as he wanted them," she later said of Peppard. "I dominated him a lot more in the script and he didn't want to be seen in that condition...His character was written with a battered vulnerability that was totally appealing, but it did not correspond to George's image of a leading man. He seemed to want to be an old-time movie hunk."
Truman Capote envisioned Marilyn Monroe as Holly Golightly, but she declined on the advice of her drama coach Lee Strasburg, who told her that playing a call girl would be bad for her image. Shirley MacLaine and Kim Novak also passed on the role. Amazingly, Audrey Hepburn was the fourth choice for her most iconic role, and Capote was not pleased, having written the character with Monroe in mind. Jane Fonda was also considered.
John Frankenheimer was originally set to direct, but Audrey vetoed him, as she'd never heard of him.
A stage musical adaptation starring the powerhouse duo of Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain was struggling in previews, so the producers made the mistake of bringing in Edward Albee to punch it upnote The script was originally written by Abe Burrows who also directed it but when Albee arrived and badmouthed him, Burrows left affecting the mood of the cast. Albee turned the show into a bizarre meta-narrative where Holly is a fictional character created by Paul who takes on a life of her own, and it was such an obvious disaster in the making that the team made the unprecedented move of cancelling it before it was to open on Broadway note it ran for 4 previews in New York, where the audience walked out .
Its failure was based on the fact it did follow the novella's storyline rather than the movie although audiences came to see it, believing it was the film on stage. In 2013, the musical finally opened as part of a London series of concerts but the reviews were negative saying it never came alive.
