Trivia / Unforgiven

• Actor-Inspired Element: When English Bob departs, cursing at the town, he speaks with a rough, lower-class cockney accent, confirming that Bob's refined, upper-crust persona was fake. Richard Harris revealed:
  I read the script and I said to Clint Eastwood, "You know, it would be great if I could play this man as a very sort of upper-class fake, and at the end of the picture—when he gets the hell beaten out of him—maybe all of that drops, and you see behind it all he's really sort of a low life". And Clint said, "Yes, great! Go for it!".
• All-Star Cast: We've got Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris…
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Richard Harris jumped at the chance to work with Clint Eastwood. In fact, when he was offered the role, he was watching his favourite western on television - High Plains Drifter.
• Billing Displacement: Richard Harris is fourth-billed, and while English Bob is certainly an entertaining character, he's not particularly relevant to the main plot, and there are other characters with more screentime.
• Career Resurrection: The film revived Clint Eastwood's career after a string of not very well regarded films in the 1980s.
• California Doubling: Southern Alberta, Canada doubles for 19th-century Wyoming and Kansas. In particular, "Big Whiskey" was set at the Bar U Ranch, a local historic landmark.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Gene Hackman had turned down the part of Munny before the script came to Clint Eastwood.
• Completely Different Title: Known in France as Impitoyable ("merciless"). The Quebecois title is closer to the original one, but not a literal translation (Impardonnable, literally "unforgivable").
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Clint Eastwood personally telephoned Richard Harris to offer him the role of English Bob. Harris was watching High Plains Drifter on television at the time, leading to Harris thinking it was a prank.
• Deleted Role: Clint Eastwood's mother Ruth Wood toiled through an uncomfortable day (wearing a heavy dress) as an extra, filming a scene where she boards a train; but the scene was eventually cut, with her son apologizing that the film was "too long and something had to go." All was forgiven when he brought her to the Academy Awards and thanked her prominently in his acceptance speech.
• Fake American: Unforgiven was filmed in Alberta, so many of the supporting characters (like Beauchamp and the Schofield Kid) are played by Canadian actors.
• Fake Brit: English Bob is played by the Irish Richard Harris.
• Follow the Leader: Though the script had been around for awhile, this film wasn't finally produced until after there was a full resurgence of interest in the western genre with the success of Dances with Wolves after a period of largely being seen as unprofitable due to the enormous failure of Heaven's Gate. This film like that one would go on to win a number of Academy Awards including Best Picture.
• God Never Said That: Despite some online claims, Clint Eastwood has never stated that William Munny is an older Man With No Name. In fact, original screenwriter David Peoples confirmed in an interview that he was thinking of writing a prequel movie about Munny in his prime, contradicting the supposed "fact" that Unforgiven is a sequel to the Dollars Trilogy.
• In Memoriam: The final screen credit reads, "Dedicated to Sergio and Don", referring to Clint Eastwood's mentors, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel.
• Playing with Character Type: As part of the film's Genre Deconstruction of Westerns as a whole, Clint Eastwood's role in the film is a deconstruction of his earlier Western character(s), namely those from the Dollars Trilogy.
• Prop Recycling: Clint Eastwood wore the same boots as he did in Rawhide.
• Real-Life Relative: Clint Eastwood's mother Ruth Wood had a role as an extra that was eventually deleted.
• Saved from Development Hell: The script floated around Hollywood for nearly 20 years, during which time Gene Hackman read and rejected it, only to be later convinced by Clint Eastwood (who had owned the rights to the script for some time) to play a role.
  • In the early 1980s, Francis Ford Coppola got ahold of the script, and met with John Malkovich to offer him the role of William Munny. Malkovich recalled:
  The offer was not very serious - thank God! I say that for myself and the poor public, and for Clint - absolutely! I would have been a total, total failure. Total! Who would've wanted to see that? I wouldn't! I would've just been acting-schmatching. There are some things you can only have with a kind of mythic figure which Clint is.
• Spared by the Cut: The screenplay reveals that the Schofield Kid drowned himself out of guilt for having killed a man.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Sam Rockwell was considered for the Schofield Kid.
  • Jeremy Irons was reportedly considered for English Bob.
• Working Title: The Cut-Whore Killings and The William Munny Killings.

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