Trivia

Both Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider admitted that they felt raped by this film and refused to speak with director Bernardo Bertolucci ever again. Yet in his autobiography, Brando says that Bertolucci was one of the three best directors he ever worked with.

According to his autobiography "Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me," the reason why Marlon Brando refused to do a full frontal nude scene was because his "penis shrank to the size of a peanut on set."

While filming, director Bernardo Bertolucci tried to explain the point of the film to Marlon Brando, suggesting that his character was Bertolucci's "manhood" and that Maria Schneider's character was his "dream girl." Brando later maintained that he had absolutely no idea of what Bertolucci was suggesting or even talking about.

According to Maria Schneider, the infamous "butter scene" was never in the script and it was improvised at the last minute by Marlon Brando and Bernardo Bertolucci, without consulting her. Bertolucci confirmed that during a press tour. He said he didn't tell Schneider that Brando's character would use butter as a lubricant in the film's rape scene "because I wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress. I wanted her to react humiliated." The director's admission caused public outcry. Schneider told the Huffington Post "Marlon said to me: 'Maria, don't worry, it's just a movie,' but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn't real, I was crying real tears." She felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologize. Thankfully, there was just one take."

Bertolucci later insisted that the incident was misconstrued, and that only the lurid detail of butter in the scene was unscripted for shock, while the rape scene itself was scripted (and simulated).

Maria Schneider said, much later in life, that making this film was her life's only regret, that it "ruined her life", and she considered director Bernardo Bertolucci a "gangster and a pimp".