Trailer
Plot summary
Eva Duarte is the illegitimate child of a locally prominent man, and his official widow and family block her mother and her children from his funeral. At fifteen she lives in the provincial town of Junín, prostituting herself to the touring tango singer Agustín Magaldi, and she threatens to disclose their liaison unless he takes her to Buenos Aires. In the city he abandons her, and she has affairs with a succession of increasingly influential men, becoming a model, an actress and a radio personality. She meets Colonel Juan Perón at a fundraiser after the 1944 San Juan earthquake.
Cast
- Victoria Susas Doña Juana
- Laura Pallasas Elisa Duarte
- María Luján Hidalgoas Young Eva (as Maria Lujan Hidalgo)
- Servando Villamilas Cipriano Reyes
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Evita (1996)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Madonna's wardrobe involved 85 costume changes, finished off with 39 hats, 45 pairs of shoes and 56 pairs of earrings, while chief hairstylist Martin Samuel designed 42 different hairstyles for her; the film broke the Guinness World Record for "Most Costume Changes in a Film".
- The cast and crew faced protests over fears the project would tarnish Eva's image, with members of the Peronist Party launching a hate campaign against the production, Madonna and Parker; the government of Argentina then made its own film, Eva Perón: The True Story, to counter any inaccuracies.
- Jon Peters promised he would convince his girlfriend Barbra Streisand to play the lead role if he were allowed to produce, but Streisand was not interested: she had seen the stage version in New York and did not like it.
- Russell screen tested Liza Minnelli in a blonde wig and custom period gowns and felt she was better suited to Eva, but Rice, Stigwood and Paramount wanted Elaine Paige, the first actress to play Eva in the London stage production. Russell began his own screenplay without their approval.
- In December 1994, Madonna sent Parker a copy of her "Take a Bow" music video along with a four-page letter explaining that she was the best person to portray Eva and would be fully committed to the role.
- Because the film required the actors to sing their own parts, Madonna trained with vocal coach Joan Lader, who said Evita is real musical theater, operatic in a sense, and that Madonna developed an upper register she did not know she had.
- Before he left the project, Stone had considered casting Michelle Pfeiffer in the lead role of Eva, and this was confirmed in July 1994; Pfeiffer then left the production when she became pregnant with her second child.
