Paul Bettany, who only took the part of Tom Edison after being convinced by friend Stellan Skarsgård, later called the making of this movie "hideous" and "a peculiarly unsatisfying experience, because Lars von Trier has no interest in you being any part of the cerebral process with him. You're absolutely his puppet." Despite still being a fan of von Trier's movies in general, Bettany has never watched this movie, and has no intention of ever doing so.
Paul Bettany didn't want to play Tom Edison, because they were shooting it in Sweden. Then his friend Stellan Skarsgård told him that Lars von Trier's shoots were so funny, that "you'll miss something extraordinary if you turn the part down." After shooting half the movie, Bettany asked Skarsgård when the fun would start, to which Skarsgård replied: "I lied. I did it because he is amazing to work with, and you wouldn't be able to see that before you were actually here yourself. I wanted to give you a chance, and you wouldn't have shown up if I had been frank with you."
Aspiring filmmaker Jennifer Kent felt she could learn more from working with Lars von Trier, than by attending film school, and hereby reached out to him in order to work on one of his movies. She was eventually hired by his producer as a runner on this production. Ten years later, she directed her first feature film, The Babadook (2014).
Nicole Kidman reportedly vowed she would never work with writer and director Lars von Trier again after completion of this movie. Kidman later turned down the lead in Antichrist (2009), but in late 2010 revealed that she and Trier were still in touch, and in 2012 she was cast in Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013), but left the production due to scheduling conflicts.
Lars von Trier revealed in a November 2014 interview he wrote the screenplay on a twelve-day drug binge.