Trivia
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Spoilers (1)
Natalie Portman, who appeared in a cameo, traveled to the film's location in Jodhpur, India, to shoot for about half an hour and then spent 10 days exploring India afterward.
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Wes Anderson said that part of his inspiration for The Darjeeling Limited was The River, and more specifically that he owes a debt of gratitude to Martin Scorsese for screening the film personally for him.
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Director Wes Anderson chose not to have an original score for his film, opting, instead, to borrow original music from Indian films including those from legendary Indian auteur Satyajit Ray's films.
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In order to achieve a constant limp while filming, Owen Wilson placed a small lime in his shoe.
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Most of the props used on the train sets were handmade or decorated, including the entire dining room set.
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The character of Vladimir Wolodarsky in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, was named after Wallace Wolodarsky, who played Brendan.
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The 11 suitcases seen in the movie are created by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton and they are decorated with giraffes, rhinoceros and antelopes designed by Eric Chase Anderson, the director's brother. They all have the initials JLW.
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Towards the end of the film, on the train 'Bengal Lancer', the painted portrait on the wall of the compartment is of director Satyajit Ray.
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Bipasha Basu rejected a role in "The Darjeeling Limited" because she feels the need to act in roles where she is not stereotyped as a typical Indian.
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Adrien Brody is the only one of the three leads to not have been in a Wes Anderson movie prior to this. Jason Schwartzman was in Rushmore while Owen Wilson has participated in some way to every Anderson feature film.
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The abbey towards the end of the film was originally a royal hunting lodge belonging to the Maharana of Mewar in the Rajput era. It is located in Udaipur. To redecorate it, production designer Mark Friedberg was inspired by Michael Powell's Black Narcissus which takes place in an abbey in the Himalayas.
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Wes Anderson had never been to India prior to May 2006, when he went there to polish his script.
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Adrien Brody remarked that during the river scene, Wes Anderson's instructions were the exact opposite of what he had intended to do, making the scene sadder in his opinion.
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Though no such train actually exists, The Darjeeling Limited was still filmed inside a moving train which went from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer and through the Thar desert, and proved a daily challenge for cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman as nothing could be fixed to the ceiling and filming equipment couldn't be more than a meter out of the windows. To achieve this, Wes Anderson and production designer Mark Friedberg went to see the Northwestern Railways company and told them they needed ten rail-cars and a locomotive which they would redecorate entirely and then move around their railway. This was the first time Northwestern Railways received such a request, and though it took a lot time and effort, it was eventually evidently granted.
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In creating the look of the train, production designer Mark Friedberg inspired himself partly from the 20th Century Limited, a train which linked New York to Chicago from 1902 to 1967.
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The third collaboration between Wes Anderson and Anjelica Huston after The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
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The fourth collaboration between Wes Anderson and Bill Murray after Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
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Feature film debut of Amara Karan, who plays Rita. While she was still being considered for the role, Karan received the script and discovered that Rita smokes cigarettes. Not being a smoker, she enlisted some friends to help her practice smoking. During a meeting with Wes Anderson, Karan casually tossed a cigarette into her mouth and started smoking: "I am sure it must have looked really spontaneous." Anderson did not waste any time before asking her if she would come aboard.
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Wes Anderson cites the following as influences on him for this film: Jean Renoir's The River, the films of Satyajit Ray and the Indian documentaries made by Louis Malle.
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The character that Owen Wilson plays in the film is suspected of an abortive suicide attempt. Ironically, when the film was released, Wilson pulled out of all press duties following a real-life suicide attempt.
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Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman organically wrote the screenplay as they traveled around India together.
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After completing the screenplay's first draft, Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman all visited India together to see if the fictional world they'd created meshed with the real thing. Although the changes made subsequently were relatively minor, much of the dialog was excised from the later passages of the film as Wes Anderson wanted India's only natural beauty to speak for itself.
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The three brothers - Francis, Peter and Jack - are actually named after Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich and Jack Nicholson.
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Spoilers
The house into which the dead boy is brought, was not supposed to be blue, but rather have the same natural red color as the others. It was painted blue by a member of the village during the course of time from which it was selected until the crew returned. Anderson chose to use it anyway.
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