‘Robert De Niro prepared to play a plumber by watching a brain surgeon’: Terry Gilliam and Jonathan Pryce on making Brazil

De Niro agreed because he was a Python fan, Gilliam cast his daughter but she cut her hair off in protest – and Pryce needed a wig as he’d just been playing a friar with a tonsure

I had this vision of a radio playing exotic music on a beach covered in coal dust, inspired by a visit to the steel town of Port Talbot. Originally the song I had in mind was Ry Cooder’s Maria Elena, but later I changed it to Aquarela do Brasil by Ary Barroso. The idea of someone in an ugly, despairing place dreaming of something hopeful led to Sam Lowry, trapped in his bureaucratic world, escaping into fantasy.