Trivia for
Nashville (1975) More at IMDbPro »

• Each actor was required to write and perform their own songs for the movie.
  
  
• George Segal had a cameo as himself, but it was cut.
  
  
• Gary Busey was originally going to play "Tom" and wrote the song "Since You've Gone" used in the film.
  
  
• The film was very much improvised by the actors, who used the screenplay only as a guide. They spent a great amount of their time in character, and the movie was shot almost entirely in sequence.
  
  
• Original footage was so long, it was almost released as two parallel movies: "Nashville Red" and "Nashville Blue."
  
  
• Cameo: [Joan Tewkesbury] [, the film's writer. She is on the phone as Kenny's mother, and as Tom's lover.]
  
  
• During the filming of the car crash scene, drivers who were passing by stopped their cars and rushed to the scene of the "accident", carrying first aid kits and blankets.
  
  
• All songs were recorded live rather than being prerecorded in a studio.
  
  
• Robert Altman originally wanted Susan Anspach to play Barbara Jean, but she refused because she wanted more money. Ready to film in Nashville with no one cast in the role, Altman at the last minute offered it to Ronee Blakley, who was working as a back-up singer in Nashville at the time and had contributed some songs to the film. Blakley ended up receiving an Academy Award nomination for her performance.
  
  
• Robert Altman had Gwen Welles take singing lessons to sound better. The end result of those extended lessons is what you hear in the film.
  
  
• The character of Barbara Jean is loosely based on Loretta Lynn.
  
  
• All the band musicians used in the film were real musicians working in Nashville at the time.
  
  
• In response to those who believed the film was almost totally improvised and had little or no script, screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury insisted that there was a solid script written by Robert Altman and herself that dictated all the actions of all the characters, and that the improvisational elements added by the actors were solely in aspects of the dialogue.
  
  
• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #59 Greatest Movie of All Time. It was the first inclusion of this film on the list.
  
  
• The film was created due to an offer Robert Altman turned down. Originally, he was offered the chance to direct another script that took place in Nashville. He turned the project down but became interested in the setting. He sent his script supervisor, Joan Tewkesbury, to Nashville to observe the place and take notes. She wrote a diary and that diary became the basis of her screenplay. From there, several scenes were rewritten or improvised by the performers, a standard practice on Altman projects.
  
  
• 'Robert Duvall (I)' was originally offered the role of Haven Hamilton and agreed to play it on the condition that he would be allowed to write his own songs. Robert Altman refused his request, and Duvall backed out, to be replaced by Henry Gibson. Duvall later went on to perform his own compositions in Tender Mercies (1983) as part of his Oscar-winning turn as country music singer Mac Sledge.
  
  
• After seeing the first footage of her work in the traffic jam scene, Barbara Harris reportedly ran out of the projection room, went home, and asked Robert Altman to meet with her immediately. Unhappy with her performance, Harris offered to put up her own money to have the scene re-shot. Altman told her no.
  
  
• The role of Linnea Reese was created for and by Louise Fletcher, who herself was the daughter of two deaf parents and knew sign language. The role was eventually played by Lily Tomlin. Tomlin concluded that things worked out in the end because she was offered the role of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and turned it down, which enabled Fletcher to eventually get it, so in a sense they simply traded roles.
  
  
• During the DVD commentary of the film, Robert Altman pays a tribute to Tommy Thompson, who was the assistant director on almost all of Altman's films, and who had dropped dead on the set of Dr T and the Women (2000) a week before Altman did the commentary.
  
  
• In the opening sequence, the character played by Henry Gibson demanded that his piano player be replaced by the "Pig". At that time in Nashville, one of the most in-demand session players was a blind pianist named Hargus "Pig" Robbins. The man playing the piano in that scene is Richard Baskin, the actual music supervisor on the film.
  
  
• The actor Merle Kilgore plays Trout, a reference to Kurt Vonnegut's seminal character Kilgore Trout.
  
  

• SPOILER: Faced with an impending rainstorm which threatened to ruin filming of Barbara Jean's assassination (with no recourse, as the production's budget had run dry), Robert Altman reportedly screamed at the sky, ordering the rain to stop. The rain did indeed stop, and filming of the scene was completed.
  
  

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