In an interview, Johnny Depp thanked his stunt horse, Scout, for saving his life after a violent fall during filming. After Scout dragged Depp 25 feet, Scout jumped over him to avoid stepping on him. A clip of the fall shows the horse clearly jumping over Depp, and detaching him from the saddle. Depp suffered only minor bruises and scrapes, but says it could have been a lot worse if the horse had stepped on him.
Tonto means "fool" in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. In Spanish versions of this film, Tonto is renamed Toro, which means "bull."
The "frame story" where young Will meets the old Tonto takes place in 1933, the year of the first Lone Ranger radio broadcast.
Todd McDaniels, a linguist at the Comanche Nation College, commented favorably on Johnny Depp's attempts to speak Comanche, a language with 23 to 30 living native speakers. "The words were there, the pronunciation was shaky, but adequate."
During the opening sequence of the bank robbery, the music in the background is the William Tell Overture, by Gioachino Rossini, which is later played extensively in the film's climax. It was the musical cue used in the original radio show and later films, particularly for intense sequences. It became so popular that most people know it only as the "Lone Ranger" theme.