The audience members in the talk show scene were hired for $50 each, and they were told they would be the first audience members of a new talk show. This was filmed at a suburb of Dallas, Texas.
According to Sacha Baron Cohen, Harrison Ford is in the only scene that was scripted, and was the only actor that was in on the joke.
Ayman Abu Aita filed a lawsuit against Sacha Baron Cohen for falsely depicting him as a terrorist and lying about the interview. Aita previously served in Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a Palestinian terrorist group, and spent two years in an Israeli prison for shooting Israeli soldiers. At the time of filming, Aita was a representative of Fatah, which is not considered a terrorist group. David Letterman and Larry Charles are also named as defendants in the suit. Allegedly, Sacha Baron Cohen had claimed that he had received death threats from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade.
After filming the scene with presidential candidate Ron Paul, Sacha Baron Cohen and his camera crew were driven out of the state by a cop they hired. The reason for this being the threats to Sacha about the Secret Service coming after him. This was confirmed on the Blu-Ray commentary track.
The sequence where Brüno enrolled at the Alabama National Guard, filmed at the Fort McClellan Military Academy in Anniston, Alabama, went undetected until a young cadet who recognized him from Borat (2006), notified elder officers who were unfamiliar with the actor.
James McCartney: Uncredited, as himself. In the first fashion show sequence, as the camera pans the audience, he appears briefly with his father, Sir Paul McCartney.
La Toya Jackson: As herself, cut from the movie, due to the sudden unexpected death of Michael Jackson, but was included on the DVD for the movie.