Trivia / Julien Donkey-Boy

• Actor-Inspired Element: The dad's love of weird country music and tendency to go on long stream-of-consciousness monologues about world history could only have come from Werner Herzog himself.
• Amateur Cast: Aside from Ewen, Chloë, and Werner Herzog, the rest of the cast were either random people Harmony knew, or were passers-by who were secretly filmed interacting with Ewen or Chloë while the two were in character.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Ewen Bremner rigorously studied Harmony Korine's uncle — an actual Schizophrenic, and inspiration for Julien — to achieve a naturalistic performance.
• No Budget: A majority of the film's $1.5 million budget went towards travel and work visas for both Werner and Ewen, as well as for post production work in Denmark.
• Promoted Fanboy: For both Harmony and Werner. Harmony frequently cited Werner's directing style as an influence to his films and Werner wanted to work on the movie after seeing Harmony's first film.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Harmony originally wanted his uncle to play Julien since he was a schizophrenic. He decided to cast Ewen instead when the mental institute his uncle lived in wouldn't let him leave for filming.
  • Macaulay Culkin was offered a role in the movie, but he turned it down saying he wasn't ready to start acting again yet.
  • Harmony himself wanted to play Julien's brother Chris in the movie, but he later chose Evan Neumann instead for unknown reasons.

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