Trivia / 8 Women

• Actor Allusion:
  • Like in The Young Girls of Rochefort (and other films), Catherine Deneuve's character's mother is played by Danielle Darrieux.
  • Suzon being the child of Gaby's first love instead of Marcel brings to mind The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, where Catherine Deneuve's character becomes pregnant by her boyfriend just before he goes off to war and she marries a different man.
  • It is not the first time that Catherine Deneuve and Fanny Ardant shared a common love. They were both partners of François Truffaut. This likely counts as a peculiar kind of homage from François Ozon to the legendary director.
  • When Pierrette says post-makeover Augustine looks like "the lady of the camellias", it's a reference to Isabelle Huppert (Augustine) starring in an adaptation of that book.
  • Louise's picture of a previous employer is significant because it's Romy Schneider, a famous actress who inspired Emmanuelle Béart to go into acting.
  • The portrait of a younger Gaby evokes the posters for Belle de Jour, another key film in Deneuve's career.
• All-Star Cast:
  • Mainly from a French perspective, but nearly all the actresses are big figures in their country's cinema industry and they were no strangers to international productions either.
  • For the German dub they decided to have eight popular national actresses voice the characters instead of going for dedicated voice actors. So, the German dub also functions as a star-studded cast for German audiences.
• Dawson Casting: 21-year-old Ludivine Sagnier as 16-year-old Catherine.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Ozon originally wanted to use birds instead of flowers to symbolize the eight women. Louise's was apparently the turkey (he may have been joking).
  • The film originally started with Chanel and Louise having a conversation in the kitchen, much like the play. Ozon cut it in favor of starting with Suzon's arrival because he felt the scene was too explanatory and revealed too much of Louise's personality too soon.
  • Emmanuelle Beart was originally tapped to play Pierrette until Fanny Ardant came in. She ended up playing Louise, which didn't impress Beart as she didn't find the character as interesting as the others, until Ozon tweaked her a bit.
  • The film was initially conceived as a remake of The Women, but Ozon couldn't secure the rights to it.

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