Trivia

Jaye Davidson was not a professional actor but a fashion designer in London when he was discovered at a party, which had led to his casting and Oscar-nominated performance in The Crying Game (1992). His dislike of the attention that he received after that movie made him reluctant to take the role of Ra in this film. He didn't want to just turn the offer down, so he made what he expected to be an unacceptable demand of $1 million. This was accepted, and he appeared, but he has virtually quit acting after this performance (save for one TV movie and a short film), and went back to being a fashion assistant.

James Spader found Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich's original script to be awful, and even had issues with the revised version. According to Devlin, Spader's main problem was with the dialogue: "There was one day where he wouldn't come out of his trailer until we rewrote the scenes. Kurt Russell got very upset with him. He burst into his trailer and said 'What are you doing?' And James said, 'Come on, admit it. The dialogue is horrible.' Russell said, 'Of course, it's horrible. That's why they pay you a million dollars. If it was brilliant, you'd do it for free.'" Devlin said that things gradually improved: "The movie always had a [...] wink to all the science fiction fans about what we were trying to do and the kinds of movies we were referencing. Once they started to understand the tone, they started to really get it. When the movie was finished, both actors were really pleased with it. They were really happy, but I think it just took them a while to get where we were going with it."

Jaye Davidson thought his performance was terrible, and did not know that his voice would be altered (which was an afterthought during post production) or that he would otherwise be made to appear any more alien. After the first screening of the film, Dean Devlin found Davidson in tears. When Devlin attempted to apologize, Davidson responded "no, you saved me", and thanked him.

David Arnold was working as a clerk at a record store in England while scoring students movies for free when he was approached to compose the music for this film. On the DVD's commentary track and in interviews, Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich mentioned how they heard Arnold's score for The Young Americans (1993), and loved it so much that they offered him the job with almost full freedom to come up with his own themes. Afterwards, they admitted to be a bit nervous, since Arnold's scoring experience at the time was limited to a few short films and only one full-length movie. However, their doubts were gone as soon as they heard what Arnold had composed, and they continued their cooperation with him on Independence Day (1996) and Godzilla (1998). Emmerich called it "one of the best scores of my movies, by far", and Devlin also stated that its quality is best exemplified by the countless times it was re-used in trailers, TV spots and programs.

Kurt Russell was highly sought after by producer Dean Devlin to play no-nonsense Special Ops Colonel O'Neill, because they needed a big name to sell the film abroad, as the movie was basically independently produced. When Russell was sent the script, he thought it was terrible and turned the film down. The producers made increasingly generous salary offers until he finally accepted a $7 million paycheck. Devlin later learned that Russell had somehow been sent the first draft of the script - which Devlin himself admitted was terrible - rather than the final draft. When Russell read the shooting script, he said: "Oh, this isn't so bad."