History Trivia / PennyDreadful

* FakeAmerican: British actor Stephen Lord plays the American Warren Roper.

* ProductionPosse: John Logan cast Rory Kinnear (Caliban) and [[Creator/HelenMcCrory Helen [=McCrory=]]] (Evelyn) due to having worked with them on ''Film/{{Skyfall}}''.

** Well, ''three'', actually. Creator/RoryKinnear plays the Orderly, [[spoiler: Lucifer]] and [[spoiler: Dracula]] in "A Blade of Grass".

** According to John Logan, Dorian's entire admittedly-anachronistic look came from Reeve Carney, who dresses very similar in real life.
** The entire [[spoiler: brainwashing]] subplot in season two came about because John Logan finds Timothy Dalton so charming and friendly in real life, and wanted to write it into Malcolm's character.
* ActorInspiredHeroism: [[GentlemanAdventurer Sir]] [[GreatWhiteHunter Malcolm]] [[HeWhoFightsMonsters Murray]] was initially created with the intention of being the darkest of the cast (who are all anti-heroes), thus whilst still complicated and even at times sympathetic, season one clearly presents him as a selfish, hypocritical, ruthless and at times flat-out abusive man with a long dark past of bloodshed. It was intended he would mostly carry on this role throughout the entire series run; however, series creator John Logan found Creator/TimothyDalton to be such a friendly and charming person to work with, he decided to incorporate some of this into the character. This led to Sir Malcolm spending a large portion of season two under a spell that made him kinder and more optimistic, and Season three to involve him genuinely developing into a much softer and more heroic individual.

** American actor Reeve Carney plays the character of Dorian Gray.

** Inverted with British actor Stephen Lord who plays the American Warren Roper.

* FakeIrish: The English Creator/BilliePiper portrays Irish immigrant Brona Croft/Lily Frankenstein.

** After a whole season of telling images in the opening credits, plus wondering about certain characters' ultimate roles in the show, let's just say not too many viewers were surprised that [[spoiler: Ethan turns out to be a werewolf and Brona becomes the Creature's intended bride.]]

* InternationalCoproduction: Produced in the US by Showtime and for the UK by Sky Atlantic.
* MethodActing: What Eva Green did for the many possession/asylum scenes, according to the director. She would ask to be put in restraints, got water dumped on her, and all of the bruises Vanessa displays in "Possession" are due to her throwing herself around.

** Well, ''three'', actually. Rory Kinnear plays the Orderly, [[spoiler: Lucifer]] and [[spoiler: Dracula]] in "A Blade of Grass".

* ProductionPosse: John Logan cast Rory Kinnear (Caliban) and Helen [=McCrory=] (Evelyn) due to having worked with them on ''Film/{{Skyfall}}''.

* CreatorsFavorite: Series creator John Logan has admitted that Vanessa and the Creature are his favorites to write for, so much so that in season two, he wrote them a 10-minute scene together, and in season three, crafted an entire episode around the premise of "what if the Creature had been Vanessa's orderly at the asylum?"

** Patti [=LuPone=] plays the Cut-Wife/Joan Clayton in season 2 and [[spoiler: her descendant]] Dr.Seward in season 3.

* ActorInspiredHeroism: [[GentlemanAdventurer Sir]] [[GreatWhiteHunter Malcolm]] [[HeWhoFightsMonsters Murray]] was initially created with the intention of being the darkest of the cast (who are all anti-heroes), thus whilst still complicated and even at times sympathetic, season one clearly presents him as a selfish, hypocritical, ruthless and at times flat-out abusive man with a long dark past of bloodshed. It was intended he would mostly carry on this role throughout the entire series run; however, series creator John Logan found Creator.TimothyDalton to be such a friendly and charming person to work with, he decided to incorporate some of this into the character. This led to Sir Malcolm spending a large portion of season two under a spell that made him kinder and more optimistic, and Season three to involve him genuinely developing into a much softer and more heroic individual.
* {{Conlang}}: The language used in season two ([[BlackSpeech Verbis Diablo]]) is a fictional amalgam of Aramaic, Ancient Greek, Latin, and an obscure Arabic dialect called (in phonetic English) "Kan Allah Musali-Algins". Verbis Diablo was created specifically for the show by linguist David J. Peterson, who has also created languages for shows such as Series/GameOfThrones and Series/TheShannaraChronicles.

* ActorInspiredHeroism: [[GentlemanAdventurer Sir]] [[GreatWhiteHunter Malcolm]] [[HeWhoFightMonsters Murray]] was initially created with the intention of being the darkest of the cast (who are all anti-heroes), thus whilst still complicated and even at times sympathetic, season one clearly presents him as a selfish, hypocritical, ruthless and at times flat-out abusive man with a long dark past of bloodshed. It was intended he would mostly carry on this role throughout the entire series run; however, series creator John Logan found Creator.TimothyDalton to be such a friendly and charming person to work with, he decided to incorporate some of this into the character. This led to Sir Malcolm spending a large portion of season two under a spell that made him kinder and more optimistic, and Season three to involve him genuinely developing into a much softer and more heroic individual.

** French actress Eva Green plays Vanessa Ives.

** American actor Christian Camargo plays the very posh Dr. Alexander Sweet, [[spoiler: a.k.a. Dracula]].

* CastingGag: [[Creator/BrianCox Brian]] [[Film/{{Manhunter}} Cox]] playing the Wolfman's father isn't [[Film/TheWolfman2010 the first time]] a [[Creator/AnthonyHopkins former]] [[Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]] has played that role.