Anecdotes

Marianne Lane's concert scene was filmed in Milan, at the San Siro Stadium, home to Serie A football clubs Inter and AC Milan. They shot the scene in front of 70,000 people during the show of Italian Rock star Lorenzo Jovanotti. Tilda Swinton has a mutual friend with Jovanotti, so they asked him if he could lend his crown for 15 minutes and the audience was asked to shout "Marianne Lane" before Jovanotti came out.

Four actors (the main cast), their director and an Italian crew were stuck together for eight weeks. At one point, the underwater camera needed for the climactic scene didn't work, and they had to wait a week for a replacement. Matthias Schoenaerts felt uncomfortable and trapped, Tilda Swinton was calm and later described it as "like an extended family holiday". Ralph Fiennes, who loved their individual houses built into the rocks, didn't want to leave.

Ralph Fiennes told that he accepted the role of Harry Hawkes when he received the screenplay and it was written that in a few minutes down the film, his character would express himself through dancing. He had never been asked to do that before, so he said "yes, thank you."

During filming, the cast, the director and the crew lived in individual houses built into the rocks on the island of Pantelleria, Italy.

The Rolling Stones helped with the script. Work with the band began with the filmmakers screening Amore (2009) for Mick Jagger and the rest of the band to introduce them to Luca Guadagnino's work. Jagger was intrigued. Ralph Fiennes was also friendly with Jagger and the duo went on a pilgrimage to a Stones concert in Rome to pitch A Bigger Splash. According to the film's producer Michael Costigan, it went even better than they could have ever hoped. Mick and Ronnie Wood, particularly, were so excited about the movie and about Ralph's character, he actually got a couple of notes back from Mick and from Ronnie so that the dialogue would be so authentic, in terms of describing the recording sessions that Harry discusses. When he puts the record on, Harry is now relaying some authentic details from the original recording sessions that the Stones provided.

Luca Guadagnino: the guy sitting next to Matthias Schoenaerts in the scene in which Paul is shooting the documentary with Harry.