Trivia for
The Mask of Zorro (1998) More at IMDbPro »

• Captain Love has a severed head in a glass container. In The Silence of the Lambs (1991), also starring Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster finds a severed head in a glass container.
  
  
• Originally, Anthony Hopkins refused the part of Don Diego de la Vega because he had too much pain in his back. A laser operation made an end on the pain and made it possible for him to accept the part.
  
  
• After watching La ardilla roja (1993), Stanley Kubrick advised Steven Spielberg to hire Julio Medem to direct this movie. Spielberg contacted Medem but the Spanish filmmaker rejected the job and preferred to keep working in more personal projects.
  
  
• While posing as a servant, Don Diego goes by the name Bernardo. In The Mark of Zorro (1920) and in the Disney television series, "Zorro" (1957) Bernardo was the name of Don Diego's mute servant who frequently pretended to also be deaf as a ruse to help Diego.
  
  
• The scene in the church is an homage to The Mark of Zorro (1940) in which Zorro pretends to be a priest and hears a confession from his lady love who proceeds to fall for the masked bandit.
  
  
• In order to accomplish the effect of Elena's dress falling off from being sliced up by Zorro, a wire was attached to the dress to pull the dress off. (See also the goofs section.)
  
  
• Izabella Scorupco was offered the lead female role but turned it down.
  
  
• Robert Rodriguez was originally attached to direct, but the studio didn't agree with his much-more violent and R-rated proposal.
  
  
• Raul Julia was originally supposed play Diego de la Vega but died before he could take the role.
  
  
• On the DVD commentary director Martin Campbell says that the acrobatic sword-fighting in the film was inspired by the work done by Gene Kelly, who used his talents as a dancer to play the role of D'Artagnan in the 1948 version of The Three Musketeers (1948).
  
  
• Just as Jouquin Murrieta was based on a real life bandit. So was Captian Harrison Love. He was based on a real life solider called Harry S. Love.
  
  
• In Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's original draft of the screenplay, Don Diego was not killed, and lived to tell the story of Zorro's adventures to his granddaughter.
  
  
• The scene in which Diego de la Vega escapes from prison by pretending to be the corpse of a recently dead prison mate is directly taken from the often filmed Alexandre Dumas père novel "The Count of Monte Cristo", although in it the "corpse" was disposed of by being thrown into the sea rather than buried.
  
  
• Sean Connery turned down the part later played by Anthony Hopkins.
  
  

• SPOILER: Alejandro Murrieta, disguised as Zorro, offers water to an exhausted worker at the mine in the final sequence of the film. This moment mirrors a classic moment from Ben-Hur (1959) when Jesus offers water to the enslaved Judah Ben-Hur, and in both cases a "savior" is involved. The dipper used looks remarkably similar in both films.
  
  
• SPOILER: Joaquin Murieta, 'Antonio Banderas' 's character's brother, and Three-fingered Jack were real life bandits in Northern California at the time of the 1849 Gold Rush. Joaquin Murieta was a Mexican born in Sonora who moved to California to find his fortune. But after being beaten and robbed by American gold miners, he swore that he would avenge his dishonor. He was the lead in a group of bandits in the California wilderness, killing anyone who stood in their way. His life was the stuff of legend, used by Mexicans as a source of patriotism and by Americans as reason enough to hang anyone who spoke Spanish. Three-fingered Jack was actually a Mexican by the name of Manuel Garcia, who was Murieta's side kick. Murieta was supposedly killed on July 18, 1853 by Captain Harry Love who preserved Murieta's head in a jar of alcohol, along with Three-fingered Jack's hand as proof that the bandit was dead.
  
  
• SPOILER: The DVD includes an alternate ending where Alejandro and Elena meet General Santa Anna while walking away from the mine with all the rescued prisoners. Joaquim de Almeida plays Santa Anna in this scene.
  
  

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