FILM · 1997 · USA
The Devil's Advocate
25 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
25 Interesting Facts About The Devil's Advocate
Interesting Facts (20)
- #001
Keanu Reeves took a pay cut so the producers could afford Al Pacino's fee. When Pacino found out, he donated the same amount as his own salary to charity.
- #002
The boxing match Lomax and Milton attend wasn't staged but a real world title fight, held on October 4, 1996, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, where IBF super middleweight champion Roy Jones Jr. took on top contender Bryant Brannon and knocked him out in the second round. Jones later turned up in another Keanu Reeves film, The Matrix Reloaded (2003).
- #003
The open-air terrace of John Milton's office really was on the 50th floor of a New York building; the set stood two meters from the edge.
- #004
Charlize Theron thought long and hard about doing full nudity, having turned down Showgirls (1995) for exactly that reason, but she said yes because she loved the character.
- #005
The film was first conceived as a bigger, effects-driven blockbuster, and Al Pacino turned it down five times. After several rewrites, Taylor Hackford offered it to him again. Pacino liked it but didn't think he could do Milton justice, and suggested Sir Sean Connery or Robert Redford instead.
- #006
In a deleted scene, Mary Ann (Charlize Theron) goes looking for Kevin (Keanu Reeves) at Eddie Barzoon's party and is sent to the library, where she is shocked to find three people in a threesome and leaves when they invite her to join. The scene didn't make the final cut, but seeing how debauched Milton's firm is would help explain her growing suspicion that Kevin is cheating on her.
- #007
When Kevin talks with the reporter Larry in the bathroom, a loud bang is heard before he splashes water on his face. At the end he wakes up in the same bathroom, but there is no bang. The sound marks Kevin's entry into Milton's world, or his hallucination.
- #008
To prepare, Charlize Theron spent an hour a day with a psychotherapist "practicing schizophrenia" during the three-month New York shoot.
- #009
Every time Mary Ann tries out a new shade of green on the apartment walls and her friend Jackie talks her out of it, Jackie is wearing clothes or jewelry in that very shade.
- #010
Connie Nielsen's character speaks Spanish in the Italian version of the film and Italian in all the others. Nielsen is in fact Danish, and this was her first American film.
- #011
According to the director's DVD commentary, when the scene of Daniel Oreskes coughing violently for several minutes was finished, the whole cast and crew burst into applause.
- #012
John Milton's plan to pair Kevin with his half-sister is foreshadowed when he tells Kevin's wife, Mary Anne, to change her hair to the style Kevin finds attractive, knowing it will make Kevin lose interest in her and throw himself into work. Note another woman wearing a similar hairstyle.
- #013
Sculptor Frederick Hart and the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., sued Warner Brothers over a sculpture in Milton's office that closely resembled Hart's "Ex Nihilo." Warner Bros. agreed to alter the scenes in future releases; for copies already made, it added stickers before sale stating that the film's sculpture had no connection to Hart's work.
- #014
The Devil (Al Pacino) and everyone who works with him smoke; nobody else does. Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) toys with cigarettes.
- #015
When Milton sees Kevin and Christabella together at the party, he calls them the future of the firm. On the surface that means the law firm and its shady dealings, but it also hints at the reveal that Milton wants them to have a child who will rule the world.
- #016
Demons in paranormal accounts are said to knock three times on surfaces to mock the Holy Trinity, and John Milton, the Devil, has a habit of laughing three times throughout the film.
- #017
When Kevin Lomax and John Milton first meet, Milton looks amazed and affectionate, as if meeting someone he has always wanted to meet rather than a new employee, a subtle hint that they are related.
- #018
All through the film, Al Pacino flicks his tongue like a snake as he talks.
- #019
In the book Kevin's surname is Taylor, not Lomax, and he and John Milton aren't father and son, as they are in the film.
- #020
The scene where Kevin and John first meet Alexander Cullen (Craig T. Nelson) at a construction site was originally longer and revealed that Cullen and his wife were divorcing and already separated. That would have given Cullen another motive to kill her: if proof of his affair came out before the divorce was final, Mrs. Cullen would be legally entitled to half his fortune. The finished film never spells out the divorce; Mrs. Cullen simply suspects Alexander is cheating, which could give him a reason to kill her before she files.
Characters & Cast (2)
- #021
After her first audition for Taylor Hackford, Charlize Theron was told that he and the Warner Brothers executives thought she was too beautiful for the part. She was allowed three more screen tests, though, playing very different, highly emotional scenes. She called it an exhausting experience that stretched over about two months, but it worked, and she got the role.
- #022
Playing the role finally gave Al Pacino a reason to read "Paradise Lost."
Deeper Meaning (3)
- #023
Keanu Reeves's wardrobe darkens as the film goes on, from light colors through deeper grays to black by the end, mirroring his character's moral decline.
- #024
As Eddie Barzoon jogs through the park, the three runners chasing him wear the colors of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or rather of their horses: one in white for the horse of Conquest (or Pestilence), one in red for War and one in black for Famine. Milton, delivering a monologue about Barzoon to justify sending the demonic runners after him, wears green, the color of the last horse, Death's.
- #025
Donald Trump's multi-level private apartment in Trump Tower served as Alex Cullen's home, its trademark gold decor and classic view of Central Park giving a familiar New York setting. On the WTF podcast, screenwriter Tony Gilroy said: "We needed the ugliest, gaudiest, most horrible real estate developer apartment possible, and Trump threw his apartment at us."
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- IMDb
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