Brazil (film) - Cast

Cast

• Jonathan Pryce as Sam Lowry. Pryce has described the role as the highlight of his career, along with that of Lytton Strachey in Carrington.
• Kim Greist as Jill Layton. Gilliam's first choice for the part was Ellen Barkin; also considered were Jamie Lee Curtis, Rebecca De Mornay, Rae Dawn Chong, Joanna Pacuła, Rosanna Arquette, Kelly McGillis, and Madonna. Gilliam was reportedly dissatisfied with Greist's performance, and chose to cut or edit some of her scenes as a result.
• Michael Palin as Jack Lint. Robert De Niro read the script and expressed interest in the role, but Gilliam had already promised the part to Palin, a friend and regular collaborator. Palin described the character as "someone who was everything that Jonathan Pryce's character wasn't: he's stable, he had a family, he was settled, comfortable, hard-working, charming, sociable – and utterly and totally unscrupulous. That was the way we felt we could bring out the evil in Jack Lint."
• Robert De Niro as Archibald "Harry" Tuttle. De Niro still wanted a part in the film after being denied that of Jack Lint, so Gilliam offered him the smaller role of Tuttle.
• Katherine Helmond as Mrs. Ida Lowry. According to Helmond, Gilliam called her and said, "I have a part for you, and I want you to come over and do it, but you're not going to look very nice in it." The make-up was applied by Gilliam's wife, Maggie. During production, Helmond spent ten hours a day with a mask glued to her face; her scenes had to be postponed due to the blisters this caused.
• Bob Hoskins as Spoor, a government-employed heating engineer who resents Harry Tuttle.
• Ian Holm as Mr. Kurtzmann, Sam's boss.

Co-writer Charles McKeown plays Harvey Lime, Sam's co-worker. Director Terry Gilliam makes a cameo appearance as the smoking man at Shang-ri La Towers, while his daughter Holly Gilliam portrays Jack Lint's daughter, Holly Lint. Other cast members include Jim Broadbent as Dr. Louis Jaffe, Mrs. Lowry's plastic surgeon, Ian Richardson as Mr. Warrenn, Sam's new boss at Information Retrieval, Peter Vaughan as Mr. Helpmann, the Deputy Minister of Information, Barbara Hicks as Mrs. Alma Terrain, Kathryn Pogson as her daughter Shirley, Bryan Pringle as the waiter Spiro, Brian Miller as Mr. Archibald Buttle, Sheila Reid as Mrs. Veronica Buttle, Derrick O'Connor as Spoor's partner Dowser, Derek Deadman and Nigel Planer as Bill and Charlie (workers seen repairing Buttle's ceiling), Gorden Kaye as the MOI Lobby Porter, Jack Purvis as Dr. Chapman, Elizabeth Spender as Alison "Barbara" Lint, Myrtle Devenish as the typist in Jack's office and Roger Ashton-Griffiths as the priest.