- Milos Forman: I remember it was the 4th of July. It's not a Bank Holiday there so we were working. We were filming the marriage of Figaro, the camera was behind the stage looking out over the dancers and the audience. So, "roll it", "play back" and instead of Mozart, American national anthem starts to play.
- Jeffrey Jones: This huge American flag unfurled from the flies and 400 Czechs stood up and sang the national anthem of the United States and knew the words.
- F. Murray Abraham: I get goose bumps just thinking about it, they all stood up and either sang or hummed the star spangled banner with us.
- Milos Forman: All stood up, except 30 or 40 men and women, looking at each other, panic on their faces, what they should do? That was the secret police interspersed among the crowd.
- Jeffrey Jones: And I was thinking, oh, my God, the army is going to come and we're all going to jail because this was an act of rebellion.
- Milos Forman: You know in communist countries they love to make movies about composers because composers don't talk, they make music they don't say anything subversive.
- Milos Forman: I talked to Neville Marriner after the première and he said
- [about Tom Hulce]
- Milos Forman: he never hit a wrong key. Even when he plays backwards.
- Elizabeth Berridge: So one day, I don't remember if it was a rehearsal or an actual take, I came right out of my dress. Which I was barely in to begin with.
- Vincent Schiavelli: I had never been to a Soviet Bloc country before and going to one at such an accelerated speed my impressions were vast, and huge. I felt like I was a grade B spy movie. Followed everywhere, hotel rooms bugged.
- Milos Forman: This movie could have been shot in only three cities, Vienna, Budapest or Prague because only these three cities have the 18th century architecture. Prague was ideal, Prague was absolutely ideal because thanks to communist inefficiency the 18th century was untouched.
- Jeffrey Jones: You could set up a camera just about anywhere without having to undo many of the signs of the 20th century.
- Vincent Schiavelli: There was no advertising, basically you take away the electric street light you were in the 18th century.
- Milos Forman: I was reading F. Murray Abraham for a small part, and he was OK. Then I had a young actor coming for Mozart so I said, "Could you just read Salieri for this young man" and F. Murray, probably because it didn't matter, gave a wonderful performance.
- F. Murray Abraham: And I said "Uh, Milos, this is the part where he becomes the old man" which I hadn't really prepared for. He said "Well? Do the old man!"
- Elizabeth Berridge: Milos said, "Essentially you both have the part, it's impossible to choose between you so in the end I had to go with the fact that one of you is simply too pretty to play Konstanza. So Elizabeth you have the part." I was like "Er, thanks, that's... well I have the part, that's good".
- Vincent Schiavelli: I had to turn a corner and walk along the street, Milos said "Vinnie, television is ruining you". He meant my performance was terrible, my walk was terrible. "Television is ruining you". We shot it a moment later, he said "That was wonderful". I don't know what changed.
- Milos Forman: [about Peter Schaefer] We had big conflict, big conflict. I hated his cooking, he hated my cooking.
- Saul Zaentz: I spoke to both of them at different times, both of them used words to describe each other you don't use in mixed company.
- Milos Forman: In the theater, everything is stylized. No-one pretends that the tree is a real tree or the sunset is a real sunset.
- Ken Tuohy: When we arrived there were 75,200 pound cannons all looking at each other. Milos said "I love it", I said "Yeah, I love it too. What are we gonna about these 2 tonne cannons?". He said, "Oh, the cannons can't be there". I realised that already, that the cannons can't be there!
- Milos Forman: Although I love Meg Tilley, I think Elizabeth Berridge was more right, I mean Constanze was a landlady's daughter, she was a street kid.
- Tom Hulce: My practice room was right over the room where Milos hung out and the one day he made a comment about how I was improving was the day my teacher was demonstrating to me.
- F. Murray Abraham: They were sizable rooms in this one hotel, very ornate with rugs and sconces, chipped, worn, tacky but nevertheless they were there.
- Tom Hulce: I don't think I ever told Murray about this, but I would leave out bits of information which I knew he needed to get to the next place so it would look like Salieri wasn't smart enough.
- Milos Forman: So after a few weeks I told F. Murray, ok you got the part. He obviously didn't believe me because he immediately took a role in another film.
- F. Murray Abraham: It was while I was on the set of Scarface that I heard I was gonna do Amadeus and the attitude of the other actors on the show changed towards me, I was no longer just this hard working young actor called F. Murray Abraham like so many other hard working young actors, I was the man who got the part that every other actor in the English language was trying to get.
- Elizabeth Berridge: I was under the impression, never having done a movie of that size before, that if things went wrong one should just stop.
- Tom Hulce: [about the dictation scene] There's a moment in that scene where me the actor, I'm genuinely lost.
- Elizabeth Berridge: So the casting director got in touch with an acting teacher of mine and asked if there was anyone she could recommend for the part and she said Elizabeth Berridge, the casting director said "She's too introverted and quirky for this outgoing bubbly girl", which I was!
- Neville Marriner: Apart from being rather flattered that they'd thought of me I thought that, so long as it didn't turn into some Hollywood scenario, I would be quite interested in.