History Trivia / RyansDaughter

* HostilityOnTheSet: Sarah Miles and Christopher Jones grew to dislike one another, leading to trouble when filming the love scenes. Christopher was engaged to Creator/OliviaHussey, and he was not attracted to Miles. He even refused to do the forest love scene with her, which prompted Miles to conspire with Mitchum. It was Mitchum who settled on the idea of drugging Jones by sprinkling an unspecified substance on his cereal. Mitchum overdosed Jones, however, and the actor was nearly catatonic during the love scene. He was never told by the producers about the drugging and believed he was having a nervous breakdown.

** Then came its release. Creator/{{MGM}} was expecting the film to repeat the huge success of ''Film/DoctorZhivago'', and unveiled it with a suitably lavish publicity campaign and roadshow release. Unfortunately, the movie was roundly savaged by critics, who typically complained it was too big a scale for its modest love story. Lean took this criticism extremely personally; at a meeting of New York film critics he was confronted by Creator/PaulineKael, Richard Schickel and others who seemingly took delight in insulting ''Ryan''. This time, critical scorn matched audience indifference, and Ryan's box office take proved mediocre. It earned several Oscar nominations and eventually turned a profit, but fell short of MGM's hopes for a massive blockbuster. Lean wouldn't make another film for 14 years.

** Lean wanted Creator/AlecGuinness to play Father Collins. Guinness, a devout Roman Catholic, not only refused the role, but sent Lean a long list of objections he had with the character and the portrayal. Lean thanked him for his honesty. Furthermore, the two had clashed while filming ''Film/DoctorZhivago''.
** Lean originally wanted Creator/PaulScofield for Charles Shaughnessy, but he had a theatrical commitment. Creator/PatrickMcGoohan, Creator/GeorgeCScott and Creator/AnthonyHopkins were considered but not approached, and Creator/GregoryPeck lobbied for the role but gave up after Creator/RobertMitchum was approached.
** Lean originally wanted Creator/MarlonBrando for Doryan. He accepted, but problems with the production of ''Film/{{Burn}}'' forced him to drop out. Creator/RichardBurton, Creator/RichardHarris and Creator/PeterOToole were also considered.

* CreatorChosenCasting: Creator/DavidLean cast Christopher Jones after seeing im in ''Literature/TheLookingGlassWar'' and without even meeting him. Lean felt that Jones had the Creator/MarlonBrando[=/=]Creator/JamesDean quality he was looking for, not realising that he was dubbed and was made to look taller.

** Lean cast American actor Creator/ChristopherJones on the strength of his performance in ''Literature/TheLookingGlassWar'' without bothering to meet him first... only learning after production began that the film had been shot to hide Jones' diminutive stature and that his high-pitched voice had been dubbed. Jones and Lean clashed frequently, with Lean finding Jones' voice and performance so unsuited to the square-jawed soldier he had envisioned that he had Doryan re-written as traumatised into near silence by his trench experiences, with his aide-de-camp, Captain Smith (Gerald Sim), given the extra lines. Jones' voice was ultimately dubbed by Julian Holloway, but his performance was one of the most harshly criticised aspects of the film.

* FakeIrish: Six of the seven top-billed cast members play Irish characters, but none of them are Irish themselves; Creator/TrevorHoward (Fr. Collins), Creator/JohnMills (Michael), Sarah Miles (Rosy), and Barry Foster (Tim O'Leary) are English, Creator/RobertMitchum (Charles) is American, and Leo [=McKern=] (Tom Ryan) is Australian.

** Leo [=McKern=] had such a negative experience making the film that he gave up acting for some years.

** The weather was so uncooperative that many of the beach scenes in the film were shot near Cape Town in South Africa rather than near the specially constructed village on Ireland's Dingle Peninsula. Ironically, Lean had to wait for a year for a suitably dramatic storm to strike the Irish coast for a pivotal scene in which the villagers wade into the sea to retrieve a shipment of weapons intended for the IRA. Leo [=McKern=], who played the title character's father, nearly drowned and nearly lost his glass eye to the rough seas, and was so frustrated by the slow pace of filming that he swore he would never act again (his "retirement" ultimately only lasted a few years). Nor did Ryan's long gestation endear Lean to MGM, who soon regretted giving the director carte blanche after ''Zhivago''. At one point, MGM President James Aubrey arrived in Ireland to demand that Lean pick up the pace. Lean responded by shutting down production until Aubrey left the country.

* WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: According to producer Anthony Havelock-Allan, the availability dates of Sarah Miles and Creator/RobertMitchum made preproduction something of a rush, preventing Creator/DavidLean from assembling a proper shooting script.

** Christopher Jones was dealing with the death of his friend Creator/SharonTate, which may have played a part in him and Sarah Miles not getting along and nearly having a breakdown during the shoot. Olivia Hussey, whom he was with at the time, described their relationship as extremely abusive and that it ended during filming for that reason.