Amadeus/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Enforced Method Acting: While shooting the scene where a dying Mozart dictates the Requiem to Salieri, Tom Hulce deliberately skipped lines so as to make it seem Salieri could not understand what he was being dictated.
  • Fake Nationality: The Austrian Mozart and the Italian Salieri are played by Americans Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: That's a surprisingly young Cynthia Nixon as the maid who comes to work for the Mozarts ( secretly hired by Salieri to spy on Wolfie).
  • The Other Marty: Meg Tilly was originally cast as Constanze Mozart, however, she tore her ligament the day before shooting started, thus being replaced with Elizabeth Berridge.
  • Revival by Commercialization: According to The Other Wiki, the film ironically helped spark a revival of Salieri's music, which had previously languished in obscurity.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Mark Hamill was considered for the role of Mozart (for the film) and he had already played the role on Broadway. He was rejected because the director wanted lesser-known actors.
    • Kenneth Branagh, Tim Curry and Mel Gibson were among those rejected for the part of Mozart.
    • Meg Tilly was originally supposed to play Mozart's wife but she injured her leg the day before filming and the part had to be recast. Director Milos Forman did later hire her again for a another period film set in the 18th century, Valmont (based on the novel Dangerous Liaisons).