Line #73 Trivia/BramStokersDracula


1	!!For [[Film/BramStokersDracula the film:]]
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3	* ActingForTwo: Creator/WinonaRyder plays both Elisabeta and Mina. More subtly and symbolically, the priest who informs Vlad of Elisabeta's damnation is played by Creator/AnthonyHopkins, who turns up later as Van Helsing; he also has a ''third'' role as the voiceover narrating the log of the doomed captain of the Demeter. Creator/GaryOldman also plays the coach driver who takes Jonathan to the castle. [[MythologyGag This is likely a reference to the book]], where Jonathan suspects that Dracula drove the coach too.
4	* ActorInspiredElement:
5	** Dracula was just supposed to appear as himself when he's caught with Mina. Creator/GaryOldman felt that he wouldn't be intimidating enough, and so the bat costume was created. Funnily enough, he still didn't find himself scary in that at first (see below).
6	** As Florina Kendrick was the only Romanian on set, she taught Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder and Anthony Hopkins how to speak and properly pronounce Romanian for the scenes where they had to speak it.
7	* AllStarCast: Most of the leads were A-listers at the time -- Creator/AnthonyHopkins was just coming off his ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' triumph -- with notable character actors rounding out the cast. This was effectively Creator/GaryOldman's breakthrough role for mainstream American audiences. Oldman would become the only actor, who ever played Dracula in a movie or TV adaptation, to win later Best Actor Oscar in his career. Both Creator/WinonaRyder and Creator/RichardEGrant would score Oscar nominations post-this movie.
8	* AwesomeDearBoy: Creator/GaryOldman wanted to play Dracula because he wanted to say: "I've crossed oceans of time to find you". To him it was worth playing the role just to say that line.
9	-->It was an opportunity to work with Coppola, who I consider one of the great American directors. That was enough, really. It was my first big American movie, made on a big set with lots of costumes. For a young actor, that was a tremendous experience.
10	* CastTheExpert: For Dracula's brides, Florina Kendrick was a native Romanian speaker, and Michaela Bercu grew up speaking the language herself. Notably, they speak dialogue in the film while Monica Bellucci, who is Italian, does not.
11	* CastTheRunnerUp: Creator/KeanuReeves was among those considered for Dracula.
12	* CompletelyDifferentTitle: Became ''Vampire: True Love Never Dies'' in Taiwan.
13	* CostumeBacklash: Mildly for Sadie Frost, who had to endure hours spent getting fitted with Lucy's big white wedding dress, and found it difficult to move in. She however said it fit the character.
14	* CreatorBacklash: Creator/KeanuReeves said years after the movie came out that he wasn't happy with his work in it, stating he had been exhausted from making several films right on the heels of signing on as Jonathan Harker, and that he tried to raise his energy for the role "but I just didn't have anything left to give".
15	* CreatorBreakdown:
16	** Creator/GaryOldman was going through a divorce and struggling with alcoholism while making the film.
17	** Creator/SadieFrost was also struggling emotionally with being a new mother while she had to film the role, and the pressures that came with being surrounded by Hollywood stars. Not to mention her agent urging her to move to Los Angeles, away from her family.
18	** To an extent, Creator/KeanuReeves. As mentioned in CreatorBacklash, he was experiencing burn-out during filming due to having been working non-stop, which he felt negatively impacted his performance.
19	** Creator/MonicaBellucci likewise was overwhelmed by the transition from modelling to films, and briefly considered quitting the industry.
20	--> "It was horrible because, after that, I knew I couldn’t go back to modelling and it was so difficult to become an actress. Just the taste of it… Oh my God! It’s horrible! I felt like a cow that is full of milk and nobody will take it. I felt I don’t want to do this shit any more, I want to do films. But, of course, I did Dracula because I was pretty not because I was the best actress in the world. You have to work on it.”
21	* DawsonCasting: Lucy claims to be nineteen but Sadie Frost was twenty-four when she filmed her part. Oddly enough, in her autobiography, she says she felt the character "needed to look older" than her actual age.
22	* DeletedScene:
23	** An extended version of the opening, showing the blood swallowing Elisabeta whole, Dracula with his face covered in it and the entire room flooding. It would then MatchCut to Lucy washing Mina's hair at Hillingham.
24	** The scene of Mina and Lucy laughing about ''Arabian Nights'' takes place before Jonathan leaves, and it ends with the footman announcing Jonathan in the garden, and Mina going out to see him. This explains why she's wearing the same dress in both scenes.
25	** In the carriage to the Borgo Pass, the other passengers warn Jonathan that he is cursed.
26	** Mina on the typewriter before the ball at Hillingham, clarifying that Lucy has decided she'll be married in the Autumn, but not on who the groom will be. The suitors all get voiceover introductions from Mina, and they all help Lucy find a lost earring.
27	** More of Dracula showing Jonathan around the castle.
28	** A longer sequence of Jonathan exploring before meeting the brides.
29	** An extended version of Jonathan hiding from the mercenaries as they dig, adapting a moment from the book where he breaks open Dracula's coffin intending to kill him, but is thrown back when Dracula wakes up and then dragged into a tunnel by the brides.
30	** Scenes aboard the Demeter showing a crew member encountering Dracula below deck and getting killed.
31	** An extended version of the ship pulling into the harbour, and Dracula killing a man on the dock. The shot of blood splattering on the sail during the montage in the finished film is from this scene.
32	** Dracula and Mina's dance among the candles is intercut with Jonathan fleeing from the brides.
33	** A longer version of Jonathan approaching the convent, where he throws coins stolen from the castle through the door. The coins bear Dracula's face.
34	** A scene confirming [[spoiler: Reinfield's death]], which is only implied in the finished film.
35	** A longer version of the ending, showing Mina reuniting with Jonathan, and confirming the two do get their happily ever after. This one does not have Mina [[spoiler: chopping off Dracula's head.]]
36	* DyeingForYourArt:
37	** Creator/SadieFrost - a brunette - dyed her hair red to play Lucy because producers felt she resembled Creator/WinonaRyder too much. Sadie actually didn't even bother auditioning for Lucy purely for this reason, but was approached after Francis Ford Coppola saw her in ''Diamond Skulls''.
38	** Creator/GaryOldman also shaved the front of his hairline to accommodate the make-up process.
39	** Michaela Bercu had to endure "hundreds of steamed hair extensions a day" for her small part as one of the brides.
40	* EnforcedMethodActing:
41	** Creator/WinonaRyder, Creator/GaryOldman and Sadie Frost had to spend a weekend together in Coppola's home - where they stayed in character the whole time.
42	** Creator/GaryOldman struggled to find himself scary in the giant batsuit, so Coppola said to whisper something scary into each actor's ear. No one knows what he said - but they all look terrified.
43	** Oldman was also drunk when they filmed the part where Dracula licks the blood off Jonathan's razor. They also waited until after midnight to shoot it, putting the cast in "the proper mood".
44	** Creator/RichardEGrant, Creator/CaryElwes and Creator/BillyCampbell were all sent on various team building exercises to build up a believable on-screen camaraderie.
45	** For the scenes where Lucy is writhing around on her bed in ecstasy, Gary Oldman was also off camera whispering seductive things to Sadie Frost. She later joked that the things he said were "very unrepeatable".
46	** When Mina is caught drinking Dracula's blood, Coppola was shouting "slut!" and "whore!" at her off camera to make her look guilty and ashamed. According to Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves both refused to join in Coppola's berating despite his demanding.
47	** Subverted in the scene where vampire!Lucy brings a little girl into her crypt. The child actress was terrified at the sight of Sadie Frost in the make-up, so Sadie broke character and did a lot of sweet-talking to get her to finish the scene.
48	** Winona Ryder wasn't giving the right reaction to Mina seeing Dracula in London for the first time. So Gary Oldman grabbed a zucchini off a nearby cart when she wasn't looking - and flashed it in front of his groin.
49	** In order to get emotional for some of Dracula's sadder scenes, Gary Oldman had an album full of pictures of his son and looked at it before shooting.
50	* EditedForSyndication: Along with trims for violence and nudity, all of Renfield's scenes were cut when Fox aired the movie in TheNineties, presumably for time.
51	* ExecutiveMeddling:
52	** Creator/KeanuReeves was put in as Jonathan at the request of the studio, who wanted a MrFanservice to appeal to the female moviegoers.
53	** Roughly twenty-five minutes of footage are said to have been cut because test audiences found the movie too gory.
54	* FakeBrit: Americans Creator/WinonaRyder and Music/TomWaits as Mina and Renfield respectively, and Canadian Creator/KeanuReeves as Jonathan. Waits does a near-flawless accent, Ryder's is decent enough and Reeves is, rather infamously, not at all believable.
55	* FakeNationality: The Romanian Dracula is played by the British Creator/GaryOldman. The Welsh Creator/AnthonyHopkins also plays the Dutch Van Helsing. Dracula's brides do not have their nationalities stated but only one of them - Florina Kendrick - is Romanian.
56	* FontAnachronism: We see a ticker tape typing out the message sent to Van Helsing from Dr. Seward. The type appears to be OCR (optical character reader) font which was not created until 1968. Keep in mind that the movie takes place in 1897. That's a 71 year difference.
57	* FriendshipOnTheSet: Winona Ryder became friends with Keanu Reeves, and recalls reading her journals from when she was filming and finding them full of sentences like "thank god I'm going to see Keanu".
58	* FunnyCharacterBoringActor: Lucy is portrayed as a bubbly and vivacious flirt. In her autobiography, Creator/SadieFrost talked about how unconvincing she felt she was to play such a character. At the time she filmed the role, she had a newborn baby and was HappilyMarried.
59	--> "I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd betrayed Francis and was just shy Sadie, the most unattractive girl in the world."
60	* GodNeverSaidThat: For years it was reported that Francis Ford Coppola regretted casting Keanu Reeves as Jonathan given his infamously bad English accent in the film, especially after it became known that it may have been in response to [[ExecutiveMeddling a request of the studio]], who wanted a MrFanservice to appeal to the female moviegoers. Coppola had to set the record straight in a 2015 interview, saying that he didn't regret casting Reeves as Jonathan, and claiming that he worked harder on the English accent than most people realise.
61	--> “He tried so hard. That was the problem, actually — he wanted to do it perfectly and in trying to do it perfectly it came off as stilted. I tried to get him to just relax with it and not do it so fastidiously. So maybe I wasn’t as critical of him, but that’s because I like him personally so much. To this day he’s a prince in my eyes.”
62	* HostilityOnTheSet:
63	** Creator/GaryOldman and Creator/WinonaRyder didn't get along well at all during filming. The rest of the cast was shocked because the two had been friendly during rehearsals, then came back from a break in the schedule seemingly hating each other, with no indication given (then or later) as to what had happened. It turned out that they had different acting styles - she needed an acting coach to help her evince the necessary emotions, while he was an intense method actor, whose approach unnerved her. Later in one of her interviews Ryder dismissed situation simply as "teenage drama" and said that she became friends with Oldman (who admittedly was going through a divorce and dealing with alcoholism at the time).
64	** Oldman and Coppola sometimes publicly clashed with each other on the set over creative choices, e.g. the appearance of young Dracula in the film. You can even see in the behind the scenes extras where they showed on set footage filming a scene where Oldman and Coppola noticeably get angry at each other when filming a scene.
65	* IronyAsHeIsCast: In the second Brazilian Portuguese dub by Dublavideo, Luiz Carlos de Moraes dubs Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, the irony being that in the original Megassom dub, he was the voice of Gary Oldman as Dracula.
66	* NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals: Florina Kendrick had several snakes in her hair for the scene where the brides seduce Jonathan, and had to work with them for two days before shooting so that she could do the scene without being terrified.
67	* MeaningfulReleaseDate: This film was released to coincide with the 95th anniversary of the release of the novel, and with the 80th anniversary of the death of Creator/BramStoker.
68	* OrphanedReference:
69	** At the ball in Hillingham, Jack can be seen handing a squashed hat to Quincy and apologising for it. The extended version of the scene shows him awkwardly sitting on it after Quincy put it on the couch.
70	** It's not said how Jonathan got away from the brides in the finished film. A deleted scene shows him making a crucifix out of two wooden poles and fending them off before he leaves the castle.
71	* PlayingAgainstType: Creator/KeanuReeves in an English period piece. At the time he was known for his comedy in ''Franchise/BillAndTed'' and was just emerging as an action star.
72	* PracticalEffects: Creator/FrancisFordCoppola was adamant that every effect seen in the film was done in-camera. He and his son, Roman, worked hard to use pretty much every trick in the book (model work, forced perspective, projection, multi-exposure, reversed shot, etc.) to achieve this goal. Coppola even went so far as to shoot scenes with an antique, hand-cranked Pathé camera to get an uneven, stuttering effect that was impossible to achieve with modern film cameras.
73	* RecursiveAdaptation: The film was adapted into a novelization by Creator/FredSaberhagen.
74	* ReferencedBy:
75	** ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd'': In his Dracula Games review, among the various games the Nerd reviews are the [[Platform/NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]], [[Platform/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]], Platform/SegaGenesis, and Platform/SegaCD versions of ''Bram Stoker's Dracula''.
76	** ''WebVideo/ConsoleWars'': In one episode, Greg and Dan see whether the SNES or the Sega Genesis had the worse LicensedGame based on ''Bram Stoker's Dracula''.
77	** In [[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E7TheThingLayStill the Season 1 finale]] of ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'', Lestat de Lioncourt's [[https://brotherconstant.tumblr.com/post/700522526154031105/iwtv2022-lucy-westenra-in-bram-stokers-dracula flamboyant costume]] on the float for the Krewe of Raj is a homage to Lucy's wedding gown.
78	** ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': The third segment of "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E5TreehouseOfHorrorIV Treehouse of Horror IV]]", titled "Bart Simpson's Dracula", is a parody of the film, with Mr. Burns in the role of Dracula.
79	** ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'': In "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS3E6TheReturnOfBatduck The Return of Batduck]]", when Creator/TimBurton turns Dracula down for the part of Batman in ''Film/BatmanReturns'', Dracula says "I'll go with Coppola."
80	* RomanceOnTheSet: While promoting her film ''Film/DestinationWedding'' (co-starring Creator/KeanuReeves) in August 2018, Creator/WinonaRyder poked fun at this concept by claiming that she might be married, in the eyes of God, to Reeves, who also played her character's husband in ''Dracula''. Apparently Creator/FrancisFordCoppola wasn't happy with their wedding scenes in this film, and to achieve greater authenticity, reshot the sequence with a real priest.
81	* SparedByTheCut: A death scene was filmed for Renfield that takes place before everyone finds Mina with Dracula, but was cut. Book savvy viewers will infer his death from his final scene, but he appears to survive.
82	* StarMakingRole: This brought Creator/GaryOldman to the attention of mainstream American audiences, and had the effect of typecasting him as various villains in the 90s.
83	* ThrowItIn:
84	** Creator/GaryOldman wanted to say "I never drink... wine" as an homage to Creator/BelaLugosi from ''Film/Dracula1931'' (the line as originally written was nearly verbatim to the novel: "...and I do not sup.")
85	** At a preview screening, none other than Creator/GeorgeLucas suggested that [[spoiler: Mina decapitate Dracula at the end]]. Coppola agreed and the scene was added in.
86	* UnbuiltCastingType: This brought Gary Oldman to the attention of American audiences as a villain. But here although he's playing Dracula, he plays him as a TragicMonster and as one of the most sympathetic portrayals yet.
87	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
88	** The project was originally going to be a MadeForTVMovie, directed by Creator/MichaelApted. Creator/WinonaRyder saw the script and brought it to the attention of Francis Ford Coppola. Keen to work with her again after she fell ill and had to drop out of ''Film/TheGodfatherPartIII'', Coppola decided to direct the movie as a feature. Michael Apted stayed on as producer.
89	** An early idea was to have simple, impressionistic sets using only light and shadows - with minimal props. The studio vetoed this idea, and insisted on proper sets being built. This is also why the costumes became so elaborate - the sets were going to be plain to allow them to stand out.
90	** The battle scene in the prologue was originally intended to be performed with shadow puppets instead of actors. The idea was used later in the film when we see, in the cinema house, a shadow puppet battle similar to the prologue battle.
91	** Creator/FrancisFordCoppola wanted Creator/JohnnyDepp to play Jonathan Harker, but the studio wanted someone who was more of a heartthrob. Creator/ChristianSlater was offered the role, but turned it down, saying, "If you're not gonna play Dracula, what's the point?" Creator/WilliamBaldwin and Creator/CharlieSheen auditioned for the part.
92	** Creator/LiamNeeson was considered for, and very much wanted, the role of Van Helsing, but after Creator/AnthonyHopkins, still riding the success of ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'', showed interest in the role, Neeson was ultimately turned down.
93	** Coppola originally wanted Creator/DanielDayLewis for Dracula (Day-Lewis had played Dracula on stage), but he was busy with ''Film/LastOfTheMohicans''. Other candidates included Creator/AlecBaldwin, Creator/AntonioBanderas, Creator/HartBochner, Creator/GabrielByrne, Creator/NicolasCage ([[Film/Renfield2023 he'd get his chance 3 decades later]]), Creator/RupertEverett, Creator/ColinFirth, Creator/AndyGarcia, Creator/HughGrant, Creator/JeremyIrons, Creator/MichaelKeaton, Creator/RayLiotta, Creator/KyleMacLachlan, Creator/ViggoMortensen, Creator/AidanQuinn, Creator/AlanRickman, Creator/EricRoberts and Music/{{Sting}}.
94	** Creator/DrewBarrymore and Creator/JulietteLewis were considered for Mina Harker.
95	** Creator/LauraDern was considered for Lucy Westenra.
96	** Creator/SteveBuscemi was the first choice to play Renfield but turned it down. [[Music/IanDuryAndTheBlockheads Ian Dury]] auditioned for the part.
97	** A scene that was storyboarded, but not filmed, involved Seward and Holmwood coming across the dead bodies of Harker, Morris, and Van Helsing impaled on posts before the climactic confrontation, and then realizing that this is simply a hallucination conjured by Dracula, using his powers of psychological persuasion.
98	** James V. Hart's original version of the script was more of a straight up horror movie, and did not include the Dracula/Mina romance.
99	** Creator/MadchenAmick was originally cast as Lucy.
100	* WorkingTitle: At one point, Creator/FrancisFordCoppola considered just titling the film 'D' to distinguish it from other Dracula adaptations.
101
102	----
103	!!For [[Pinball/BramStokersDracula the pinball game:]]
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105	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: According to designer Barry Oursler, the game was originally intended to be a licensed ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' game.
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107	----
108	!! For the video games:
109
110	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Early magazine ads for the Sega CD game showed a stage that took place in a corridor with a sloped stairway, as well as Harker having different sprites that looked more relaxed than the final game's own.

Context Trivia / BramStokersDracula