Trivia / Moulin Rouge!

• Cast the Runner-Up: John Leguizamo was originally considered for The Argentinean.
• Cut Song: Kylie Minogue recorded two other songs for the film - covers of Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" and Donna Summer's "I Feel Love".
• Deleted Scene: A scene establishing the "Gothic Tower" as a bordello was cut. It involved dancers in S&M gear performing Grace Jones' "Slave to the Rhythm", "Warm Leatherette", and "Pull Up to the Bumper".
• Fake Brit: Nicole Kidman and Richard Roxburgh (Australian) put on English accents.
• Fake Nationality: The French characters are played by Australian and British actors (and one Colombian-American actor), and an Argentinian character is played by a Polish actor. Most of them use their own accents, except Nicole Kidman who puts on an English one.
• Inspiration for the Work: Baz Luhrmann explained how he got the idea:
  When I was in India researching A Midsummer Night's Dream, we went to this huge, ice cream picture palace to see a Bollywood movie. Here we were, with 2,000 Indians watching a film in Hindi, and there was the lowest possible comedy and then incredible drama and tragedy and then break out in songs. And it was three-and-a-half hours! We thought we had suddenly learnt Hindi, because we understood everything! We thought it was incredible. How involved the audience were. How uncool they were - how their coolness had been ripped aside and how they were united in this singular sharing of the story. The thrill of thinking, "Could we ever do that in the West? Could we ever get past that cerebral cool and perceived cool". It required this idea of comic-tragedy. Could you make those switches? Fine in Shakespeare - low comedy and then you die in five minutes...In Moulin Rouge, we went further. Our recognisable story, though Orphean in shape, is derived from Camille, La Bohème - whether you know those texts or not, you recognise those patterns and character types
• In Memoriam: The end credits include a dedication to Baz Luhrmann's father Leonard who passed away while the movie was in pre-production.
• Non-Singing Voice: Averted with Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman, who performed their own singing, but played straight with Jim Broadbent (Zidler) whose more operatic notes are dubbed by singer Anthony Weigh.
• On-Set Injury: Production was halted for two weeks after Nicole Kidman fractured two ribs and injured her knee while rehearsing a dance routine. Many of the scenes where she is seen only from the chest up, including "a real actress", were shot while she was in a wheelchair. Consequently, Kidman had to be replaced by Jodie Foster for the lead role in Panic Room (though Kidman did have a voice cameo in the film).
• Sleeper Hit: Made a modest $50 million at the box office (maybe not-so-modest considering the musical genre was sagging), but became an even bigger hit on DVD via word-of-mouth.
• Troubled Production: Not by a lot, but filming went over-schedule enough that the demolition crew stashed their equipment on-site so the next film scheduled for the lot could start production as soon as possible. Ironically, it was Ewan McGregor's next feature, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The Green Fairy was initially more monstrous and drew inspiration from Iggy Pop, Marilyn Manson, and Ozzy Osbourne before evolving into her final incarnation as Kylie Minogue. Ozzy himself supplied that the warped roar her voice turns into.
  • Early drafts of the script had Satine with a three-year-old child, and Christian would be narrating the story to the child.
  • An even earlier draft would have had a Love Triangle between the Duke, Satine and Christian - where the Duke would get both of them hooked on morphine.
  • Catherine Zeta-Jones and Heath Ledger were contenders to play Satine and Christian. Courtney Love also lobbied hard for the role, and called losing it to Nicole Kidman one of her biggest career regrets. She did however allow "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to be covered for the film, a rare instance of her allowing late husband Kurt Cobain's work to be used.
  • Other possible Christians included Leonardo DiCaprio, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman, and Ronan Keating. Other possible Satines included Drew Barrymore, Kirsten Dunst, Hilary Swank, Kate Winslet and Renée Zellweger. Tim Wheeler also auditioned for Christian, which led him to write the track "Orpheus".
  • Rowan Atkinson and Alan Cumming were considered for Toulouse-Lautrec.
  • Elijah Wood auditioned by doing a song-and-dance number but he failed to land a part.
  • "Come What May" was originally written for William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, but cut from the film and reused here. It's the only original piece of music, but could not get nominated for "Best Original Song" since it was written for another film.
  • The first musical number was to be "Father & Son" between Christian and his father. Cat Stevens however objected to the sexual content in the film and would not allow the song to be used. The special edition DVD has the scene included in the complete script. Production got as far as having Ewan McGregor shoot a test scene of him singing the song which Baz Luhrmann would eventually post on Instagram having secured permission from Cat Stevens to finally release it.
  • The Duke was originally going to sing a rendition of Frank Sinatra's "My Way", but it never happened. There's a reference to this in the finale, as the Duke repeatedly yells "my way!"
  • Natalie Mendoza auditioned for Satine but was cast as can-can dancer China Doll instead. Mendoza would eventually get to play the role as Karen Olivo's replacement in the Broadway production.

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