Nicolas Cage agreed to play Fu Manchu in the Werewolf Women of the SS trailer, for free, as a favor to his friend Rob Zombie.
During filming, Josh Brolin asked Robert Rodriguez for a video camera so he could shoot his audition tape for Non, ce pays n'est pas pour le vieil homme (2007). He ended up having his audition shot with the million dollar digital camera they were using for the picture, directed by Quentin Tarantino, and with Marley Shelton reading the part of his wife in the scene. The tape was then scored and edited by Rodriguez before being sent to Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Their first response on viewing the tape was to ask who lit the set.
After the sexual assault accusations against Harvey Weinstein went public in 2017, Robert Rodriguez revealed that Rose McGowan had confided to him that Weinstein had assaulted her as well. She had signed a nondisclosure agreement about it and had subsequently been blacklisted from any films the Weinsteins produced. Rodriguez said he cast McGowan to get even with him, knowing that his brother Bob Weinstein, who ran Dimension films, knew nothing of it, and that Harvey could not object without having to admit to his past.
In an interview with Newsweek, Quentin Tarantino stated he came up with the idea of À l'épreuve de la mort (2007) when he was talking to a friend about buying a car. Tarantino wanted to buy a Volvo because he "didn't want to die in some auto accident like the one in Fiction pulpeuse (1994)." In regards to the safety of the car, his friend had said "Well, you could take any car and give it to a stunt team, and for $10,000 or $15,000, they can death-proof it for you." The "death proof" phrase had stuck to Tarantino after that.
Zoë Bell, who plays the character Zoe in the segment Death Proof, does all her own stunts (she was the stunt double for Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill movies).
Quentin Tarantino: [Long Take] During the second half of À l'épreuve de la mort (2007), when the four women are talking in the cafeteria, it is all done in a single take that is approximately seven minutes long.
Quentin Tarantino: [car hood shot] Traditional shot looking up at the actors from the trunk of a car is replaced by one looking up from under the hood.
Quentin Tarantino: [Red Apple Cigarettes] In the segment Planet Terror, JT tosses a pack of Red Apple cigarettes to El Wray.