Trivia for
Evita (1996) More at IMDbPro »

• Madonna was cast after she wrote a long and desperate letter to director Alan Parker convincing him she was perfect to play the role. The letter was accompanied by a copy of her video for "Take A Bow" where she had specifically asked the director that it should resemble the '40s and '50s.
  
  
• Oliver Stone was planning to make a film about Eva Perón, but after several disagreements with Argentinian President Carlos Menem he abandoned the project. Stone receives a token credit as a writer for this film, despite having made no input to the script.
  
  
• In the original album and stage play, there is a line referring to Evita as "the new world Madonna with the golden touch". In the film, it was changed to "she's Our Lady of the new world with the golden touch". This was done since the actress playing Eva is Madonna.
  
  
• When filming the music video for "You Must Love Me" (which was a new song, written specifically for the movie), Madonna was four months pregnant with her daughter Lourdes.
  
  
• British singer Billie Piper can be seen as an extra. She is a girl asking Juan Peron for an autograph right before he meets Eva.
  
  
• Meryl Streep, Pia Zadora, Charo and Maria Conchita Alonso were considered for the role of Evita.
  
  
• Michelle Pfeiffer also was considered for the role of Eva Peron, and when the film was to be directed by Oliver Stone she even had taken a good few months voice training for the role.
  
  
• Ken Russell was the first director attached. His first choice to play Eva was Barbra Streisand, who turned him down. His second choice was Liza Minnelli, who he screen-tested, but her casting was vetoed by lyricist Tim Rice, who wanted Elaine Paige, who had originated the stage role in London. Paige was also Rice's girlfriend.
  
  
• The Blue Harley Davidson WLA motorcycle that is seen in the funeral scene was restored by Mark Evans on the British television series "A Bike Is Born".
  
  
• Most of the costumes for Eva were based on outfits that the real Eva Peron wore. Some were recreated from photographs, but many of them were based on the originals, which are still kept in government vaults in Argentina. Madonna undergoes more costume changes than any other actress in film history.
  
  
• Patti LuPone, who played the lead in "Evita" in the Original Broadway Cast, was offered the role of Evita's mother but turned it down. Patti LuPone has reportedly never seen the movie even though Madonna wanted to know what she thought.
  
  
• Madonna only speaks 140 words of dialog. The rest of her lines are sung.
  
  
• The original Broadway production of "Evita" opened at the Broadway Theater on September 25, 1979, ran for 1,567 performances and won the 1980 Tony Award for the Best Musical.
  
  
• Madonna changed costumes 85 times, more than Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra (1963). Madonna wore 39 hats, 45 pair of shoes and 56 pairs of earrings. Because of this, Madonna was an entry in "Guinness World Record" that year.
  
  
• Director Cameo: [Alan Parker] the frustrated director.
  
  
• Olivia Newton-John seriously lobbied for the title role when the project was in development in 1979/1980. After the box-office failure of Xanadu (1980), Olivia reconsidered her offer.
  
  
• Antonio Banderas only speaks 6 words of dialog in the entire film.
  
  
• The first ever film released on DVD.
  
  
• The song "The Lady's Got Potential" originally appeared on the concept album for Evita with an entirely different set of lyrics. There was a subplot on the concept album that involved Che developing an insecticide with hope for financial success, and the original lyrics for "The Lady's Got Potential" centered around a comparison between the death of flies and the death of democracy. When the insecticide subplot was dropped on the show's journey to the stage, the song was dropped as well. However, Andrew Lloyd Webberand Tim Rice almost completely rewrote the song for inclusion in the film.
  
  
• Although Patti LuPone (who originally played Evita on Broadway) has never seen the film, she did admit in an interview that she heard part of the soundtrack. She expressed disappointment with the fact that many of the songs' keys had been changed, thereby altering their emotional effectiveness.
  
  

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