City of God/Trivia

• Cast the Expert: Except for two professional actresses (Angélica's actress was just starting and eventually played a major role in I Am Legend, for example), almost all of the actors were actual children from the favelas (Brazilian slums).
• Enforced Method Acting: Somehow it falls on this. On the infamous Sadistic Choice scene, Meirelles, the director wasn't getting the appropriate acting from the crying child, so the pedopsychologist found out that the child's greatest fear was of having a toothache, and she told him to imagine that he has a toothache in the foot.
• Throw It In:
  • The praying before the gang war breaks out wasn't scripted, but the actors included it since the drug dealers usually do it in real life.
  • The final scene when the littlest child runs to go with the Runts (Caixa Baixa) and comes back to pick up his shoe was also unplanned.