Trivia for
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) More at IMDbPro »

• For his brief driving scene in this movie, Javier Bardem underwent hours of driving instruction and still didn't have a driver's license to show for his efforts when the movie wrapped.
  
  
• The city of Barcelona offered to pick up the tab of production costs if the film was shot there, the amount rose up to two million Eur from public funds. Ultimately, the filmmakers shot in Barcelona.
  
  
• Woody Allen wrote the parts of Cristina and Juan Antonio with Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem in mind. Apparently, Bardem was his first and only choice for the male lead.
  
  
• A part of the film is set in the city of Oviedo. One of the sights of Oviedo that was not featured in the film is a life size statue of Woody Allen which was installed in 2003.
  
  
• The movie features several books about sexuality : the novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (when Vicky tries to sleep and Cristina writes poetry in the kitchen) and The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet (read by Cristina later in the movie).
  
  
• This is the fourth consecutive film where Woody Allen has filmed outside of the United States (after Match Point (2005), Scoop (2006) and Cassandra's Dream (2007)). New York does feature as a filming location in the film but it is believed Allen has tired of filming in New York, hence the existence of European locations in his recent work.
  
  
• This is the third film that Woody Allen has made with Scarlett Johansson after Match Point (2005) and Scoop (2006).
  
  
• The title is a conflation of the character names of the two lead actresses as well as the movie's major setting (i.e. Vicky and Cristina and Barcelona). The title does not the represent the name of a character called Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
  
  
• Cameo: [Joan Pera] The Spanish actor who has dubbed Woody Allen's voice in several Spanish and Catalan versions of his films for over twenty years appears in the film.
  
  
• With Penélope Cruz winning an Oscar for her role as Maria Elena in this film, it continues a mini-trend of young actresses winning Best Supporting Actress Oscars in Woody Allen films after Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite (1995) and Dianne Wiest in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Bullets Over Broadway (1994).
  
  
• The film features Barcelona as both a setting and a word in the movie's title. New York director Whit Stillman was once labeled the new Woody Allen after making his first film Metropolitan (1990). Coincidentally, Stillman's subsequent film was called Barcelona (1994).
  
  
• First Woody Allen film where two girls' names appear in the title: Vicky and Cristina. Other Allen movies with girls names in the title include Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Alice (1990); Melinda and Melinda (2004); Cassandra's Dream (2007); What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) and Annie Hall (1977).
  
  
• "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" was based on a screenplay Woody Allen originally wrote years earlier, which was set in San Francisco. Since his deal for this film specified that it must be shot in Spain, Allen looked for a story from his files that could be rewritten for a Spanish setting, took his old San Francisco-set script and rewrote it to take place in Barcelona.
  
  
• The film that Vicky goes to watch is Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943).
  
  

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