Time Bandits/Trivia

• All-Star Cast: And HOW! Most of them were Monty Python fans and wanted to work with Gilliam.
• Enforced Method Acting: According to Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin's interview on the DVD, David Rappaport was so into the character of Randall that he didn't socialize with his co-stars and kept demanding close ups on himself. The invisible barrier scene where the other Time Bandits get angry at him, the actors were really angry at David for the way he treated them.
• Fake Brit: Shelly Duvall as Pansy and Katherine Helmond as Mrs Orge.
• Fake Nationality: Brit Ian Holm as Frenchman Napoleon. Also Charles McKeown also a Brit playing a Frenchman.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: John Cleese, Michael Palin, Ian Holm, and Sean Connery play historical figures in the movie. Also David Warner as Evil, R2D2 as Fidget, and the voice of Judge Claude Frollo as The Supreme Being, representative of all that is good. Katherine Helmond, best known for Who's The Boss? and who would reappear in Brazil, played the Ogre's Wife. Shelley Duvall also makes a cameo. The announcer is played by Jim Broadbent of Harry Potter fame, among many other roles.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Michael Palin wrote the role of Robin Hood for himself, but John Cleese wanted to play him.
  • The Ogre's wife was going to be in really heavy make up, but Katherine Helmond thought it would be funnier if she looked like an ordinary person.
  • Terry Gilliam did not originally intend to hire Sean Connery as Agamemnon, he only wrote in the script that Agamemnon looked like Connery as a joke while adding that they would have to hire someone of similar physical stature but cheaper. Apparently someone upstairs thought that he really did want Connery and sent the script his way, and to Gilliam's surprise the former James Bond star expressed genuine interest in the part.