Awesome, Dear Boy: José Coronado jumped at the chance to play Emperor Maximilian I during the TV movie sequel, being a fan of the series and upset at not having been ever called.
Cast the Runner-Up: Doubling as Casting Gag, Irene Escolar was considered for the title role, but lost to Michelle Jenner... only to be cast as her daughter Juana, her successor on the throne and the main female role.
The Infante Alfonso, who was 14 when he died, is played by 20 year old Víctor Elias.
Isabel is 2 years older than Alfonso and played by 25 year old Michelle Jenner (Queen Isabella should be 10 at the start, 23 at the end of the first series and 41 at the end of the second).
Rodolfo Sancho, same age as Peris-Mencheta, plays Fernando of Aragon, who is said in show to have the same age as Isabel (and in Real Life was one year younger).
Dueling Shows: With Toledo, cruce de destinos, another period series of the same year. It was not much of a duel, thought: while Toledo drew slightly more interest than it is often believed (it was not cancelled for doing bad, but for not excelling, as well as for its network to focus in other projects), Isabel completely blew it out of the water.
Fake Nationality: Rampant through the series, given the lack of dialogue in language other than Castilian Spanish. Two unusual inversions are Englishman William Miller and half-Armenian Hovik Heuchkerian as Castilians Beltrán de la Cueva and Francisco Ramírez.
Follow the Leader: The series came near the end of a trend of period shows in Spanish TV caused by the success of Águila Roja, as well as a certain global HBO fad. In particular, comparisons were made immediately to rival network's Antena 3's Toledo, cruce de destinos, a show released earlier in the same year and also set in Medieval Castile (on paper, at least).
Hire the Critic: Aragonese history teacher and medieval reenactor Enrique Villuendas was hired as a consultant after he criticized the first season in his blog. He has a cameo in Season 2 as the chief inquisitor of Aragon, Pedro Arbués.
Irony as She Is Cast: Eusebio Poncela, a homosexual who passed a closeted youth during the uber-Catholic Franco dictatorship, plays Cardinal Cisneros. It is neither the first nor the last time, as he does have a bit of an amusing typecast of playing churchmen.
Real-Life Relative: Michelle Jenner's father Miguel Ángel Jenner plays Sancho Jiménez de Solís in the second season.
The Red Stapler: Tourism to some of the places shown in the series has increased after the show came out, most notably Segovia and Arévalo.
Screwed by the Network: The show was virtually canceled before its premiere, which was pushed back a year. This was quickly corrected after the ratings turned good, enough to renew the show for two seasons (and later greenlight a sequel, Carlos, Rey Emperador).
Sleeper Hit: This was the only production of Spain's historical series boom in The New '10s (not counting its originator, Águila Roja) that became truly successful.
Throw It In!: The scene where Enrique IV breaks down crying after hearing of his friend's death and Cabrera quickly shuts the doors so no one sees him was improvished by the actors. Pablo Derqui also came with the idea of portraying Enrique IV as bulimic, after hearing of his shyness and cause of death.
The project existed in some form at TVE for about 2 years before Olivares showed up. An early idea (titled Isabel, my Queen) was far more Tudoresque, with far more attention to romance and sex and not much politics. Isabel and Gonzalo Fernández had an ahistorical sexual relationship before her marriage, and the first season ended with Isabel and Fernando's wedding.
The early version of the project was going to be financed by Carlos Sobera's production company, Isla. Sobera himself, better known as a comedic actor and quiz show host, was going to play Carrillo.
Olivares pushed for better accuracy, more politics and a bigger role for Gonzalo Chacón. His original plan was to begin with the execution of Chacón's mentor Álvaro de Luna and Chacón being named Isabel and Alfonso's tutor at Arévalo, which was an instance of being Reassigned to Antarctica, and end with Isabel's coronation which would be portrayed as the culmination of Chacón's long term revenge years later. However, TVE vetoed the use of a first scene of Isabel not featuring Isabel, and was replaced by the use of the coronation scene as a How We Got Here. But it was found then that having the same scene at the end and beginning of the series made the finale weaker, which led to the scripting and filming of new scenes to set the plot of the second season. Notably, the outdoors scene when Isabel gets out of the Church in the white dress was filmed in summer, and the following shot of her sitting on the throne, still wearing the same dress, was filmed in winter.
The events of the second season were considered to be divided in two seasons. The near cancellation and bureaucratic nightmare that was to shoot at the Alhambra for one year (nevermind two) should probably be blamed for the condensation into one.
Many actresses of different age auditioned to play Isabel, before it was decided that Michelle Jenner would play Isabel both as a young and older woman. Others included Maribel Verdú, Adriana Ugarte (also offered to play Beatriz Galindo, which she turned down to star in El tiempo entre costuras), Verónica Echegui, Irene Escolar and María Valverde.
Fernando was almost played by Hugo Silva, Jenner's romantic partner in Los Hombres de Paco.
Many scenes of Christopher Columbus in The Americas were cut after negotiations with Latin American stations to co-produce fell through.
's production company, Isla. Sobera himself, better known as a comedic actor and quiz show host, was going to play Carrillo.