Marlon Brando was reputedly paid $1m to play Kurtz. Though Martin Sheen says Brando was not "difficult", it is rumoured the star did not read Heart of Darkness and rejected Coppola's script.

Brando eventually agreed to ab lib – including lines from TS Eliot poems. Heart of Darkness had a major impact on Eliot - his poem The Hollow Men opens with the Conrad line "Mistah Kurtz - he dead".