Over 300,000 extras appeared in the funeral sequence. About 200,000 were volunteers, and 94,560 were paid a small fee (under contract). The sequence was filmed on January 31, 1981, the 33rd anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's funeral. Eleven crews shot over 20,000 feet of film, which was pared down to two minutes and five seconds in the final release.
Sir Ben Kingsley's (born Krishna Bhanji) paternal family was from the Indian state of Gujarat, the same state Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was from.
The Indian government provided one third of this movie's budget.
After plans for the film were announced, Sir Richard Attenborough held a press conference in Delhi for the Indian media. There was much concern and opinion expressed about how Gandhi, a virtual deity to many Indians, would or should be portrayed on-screen. One female journalist seriously suggested that Gandhi should only be shown as a brilliant white light moving across the screen. An exasperated Attenborough snapped back, "Madam, I am not making a film about bloody Tinkerbell!"
Sir Ben Kingsley prepared for his role by studying newsreel footage of Gandhi, reading books on and by the man, dieting, losing weight, practicing Yoga and learning to spin thread just as Gandhi did.