Bob Hoskins and Derrick O'Connor as Spoor and Dowser of Central Services

Jim Broadbent as Dr. Jaffe

Ry Cooder as the typist in the opening scene

Charles McKeown (who helped to write the screenplay for Brazil) as Harvey Lime of Information Retrieval

Terry Gilliam as the smoking "lurker" in Shangri-La Towers

Holly Gilliam as Holly Lint

Terry Gilliam never read George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). He was familiar with the basic plotline, however, and part of his rationale for the making of Brazil was "to do 1984 for 1984" (Sterritt and Rhodes 31). Yet Gilliam maintains that it was only a happy accident that his story ended up corresponding so much with Orwell’s tale.

The idea for the masks worn by the "Forces of Darkness" in Sam’s dreams came from a rotting doll that Gilliam once found in his parents’ backyard. He liked the "mongoloid" face because its expression "could be taken in many ways" (Sterritt and Rhodes 31).

Robert DeNiro initially wanted to play Sam Lowry, but the part had already been promised to Monty Python member Michael Palin. DeNiro still wanted to be a part of Brazil, however, and instead took the part of Harry Tuttle. The role was intended to be minor, but DeNiro’s brilliant acting turned Tuttle into a more complex character and arguably a hero of the story.

After graduating from Occidental College in Eagle Rock, California, Gilliam worked for Help! Magazine in New York City for several years. The names for the Ministry officials Mr. Kurtzmann and Mr. Warrenn came from the editor and publisher of Help! Magazine, Harvey Kurtzman and James Warren (Gilliam, Alverson, McCabe 15).

"Lurkers" were positioned throughout the film to suggest that "people were being arbitrarily picked out for surveillance" by the government, and that no secret was safe (Mathews 147). Gilliam himself played the "lurker" on the staircase by the Buttle flat in Shangri-La Towers.

Jack Lint was the main character of Brazil in the first draft of the script, as the loving family man who was also a part of a horrifyingly oppressive institution (Gilliam, Alverson, McCabe 12).

The original title song of the film was Ry Cooder's "Maria Elena;" Cooder, a guitarist who has worked with the likes of The Rolling Stones and Little Feat, appears in Brazil as the typist in the first scene who swats a fly into his typewriter and inadvertently causes the Buttle-Tuttle mix-up (Gilliam 121).

The struggle between an oppressive bureaucracy and true passion (though in a different sense of the word) was actually played out in a fight between Gilliam and Hollywood producer Sid Sheinberg over the length of Brazil and its ending. Sheinberg refused to release the film in the United States unless it was cut from 142 minutes to 94 minutes and ended on a happy note. Gilliam fought the mandate ferociously, even going as far as to place an advertisement in Variety that read: "Dear Sid Sheinberg, When are you going to release my film, BRAZIL? Signed, Terry Gilliam." In the end, Hollywood gave in; its submission was the one aspect of the confrontation which did not correspond with the film. For more detailed information, read Jack Mathews' The Battle of Brazil (1987).

Terry Gilliam

Other titles for Brazil included 1984 ½ (a nod to both Orwell’s 1984 and Fellini’s 1963 film 8 ½), The Ministry, and The Ministry of Torture, Or How I Learned to Live With the System—So Far (taken from the 1964 flick Dr. Strangelove).

Brazil has been described as the watershed of Gilliam's career, as it marked his transition from "more or less an escaped Python" to "a film-maker of high ambition" (Gilliam 111).