Akiko Wakabayashi playing Aki could not drive a motor-vehicle so six stuntmen created the illusion of her driving the white Toyota 2000GT convertible by attaching a cable and pulling it from outside frame.
Tsai Chin, who played Bond's playmate in the opening pre-credit sequence, returned to the Bond series nearly 40 years later when she played one of the players in Le Chiffre's big poker match in Casino Royale.
Burt Kwouk as SPECTRE Agent No. #3 is dubbed. Kwouk had previously played Mr. Ling in the earlier James Bond movie Goldfinger.
Charles Gray (Henderson) would later play Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever. In 1967, he played in The Night of the Generals opposite Donald Pleasence, who plays Blofeld in this film.
Alexander Knox who played the American Secretary of Defense (uncredited) was re-voiced by an unknown actor. Although Canadian by birth, Knox's natural speaking voice carried a strong British accent.
Peter R. Hunt was the original editor. The producers were not happy with the film, and pleaded with Hunt to return as editor. He did this on the condition that he could direct the next Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
David Niven, whom Kissy Suzuki's bird is named after, was an early choice by Ian Fleming to play the role of James Bond, and appeared in the 1966 James Bond spoof, Casino Royale.
Ian Fleming named the character of Dikko Henderson for his friend Sir John Nicholas Henderson who was commonly known as Nicko Henderson.
John Jordan ("Aerial Unit Camera") lost his leg while working on the film.
Ken Adam's volcano set was constructed at Pinewood Studios outside London and consisted of a movable helicopter platform, a working monorail system, a launch pad and a full scale rocket mock-up that could simulate lift-off. 700 tonnes of structural steel and 200 miles of tubular steel were used. Adam once said that the set used more steel than that used for the London Hilton Hotel. The set also used 200 tonnes of plaster, 500,000 tubular couplings and over 250,000 square yards of canvas were all employed in the construction of the set which cost just over $1 million.
Teru Shimada, who plays Mr Osato, was working as a caretaker when he was cast in the role.
A cover version of the film's title song "You Only Live Twice" was recorded by 'Bjork' for David Arnold's Bond song compilation album, "Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project". However, the song was not included on the compilation album.
A number of actors were asked to play Blofield before Donald Pleasence, but all has stage or TV commitments which made them unable on accept the role. Producer Harry Saltzman, who had an eccentric choice for actors to play villains, had originally hired the fabled Czech actor Jan Werich to play Blofeld. Werich was the personification of sophisticated intellectual humor in Czech theater and film, and was known as the "Wise Clown". Casting a clown as a demonic villain backfired during production: It was felt that Werich looked too much like Father Christmas to be menacing and he was released after a week's shooting.
A scene where a helicopter grabs a car of Spectre with a magnet was an idea conceived by Dana Broccoli, wife of producer Albert R. Broccoli.
A song composed by Robbie Williams extensively sampled the title theme from You Only Live Twice. The song called "Millenium" was composed sampling the main string sample from the John Barry original theme. It was the first solo UK number one hit for Williams on 19 September 1998. Also, its music video included a number of James Bond 007 iconography and imagery.
According to numerous call sheets, a total of 98 stunt men were used in the volcano scenes.
Actor Tetsurô Tanba (Tanaka) later became a religious leader in Japan.
Actor and Stuntman Joe Robinson instructed Sean Connery in the art of Judo for the scene where Bond has to fight with Blofeld's giant bodyguard Hans near the end of the film. Robinson also doubled the actor Ronald Rich who portrayed Hans. He would later appear as diamond smuggler Peter Franks in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever.