To sum up an earlier writeup, the movies within the movie in CQ are: Codename: Dragonfly is a combination of Barbarella and Danger: Diabolik (John Phillip Law, star of both, has a role), while Paul's home movie is a documentary version of David Holzman's Diary (star L.M. Kit Carson appears as one of Paul's imaginary critics). Some other characters in the film are directly inspired by real actors and filmmakers of the period.
- Dragonfly/Valentine (Angela Lindvall): Conflation of Jane Fonda and Brigitte Bardot. Both starred in flashy trashy coproductions of the 1960s, and have been known to present their boobies for the camera, Fonda allegedly doing so in Barbarella. Fonda was not a political activist at the timeframe depicted in the movie, but one shouldn't forget her Hanoi Jane period. Valentine and Fonda are both Americans that were made into stars by a Frenchman, which brings us to:
- Andrezej (Gérard Depardieu): Roger Vadim. Director of said international co-productions of the sixties. Discovered Bardot and Fonda, and was married to both for several years. Directed Barbarella, allegedly by himself.
- Enzo (Giancarlo Giannini): Dino De Laurentiis. Italian producer of said co-productions, including both Barbarella and Danger: Diabolik, and many other films of varying quality since then.
- Marlene (Élodie Bouchez): Anna Karina. Icon of the Nouvelle Vague, at the time wife of Jean-Luc Godard and star of many of his early and mid 1960s movies. Bouchez has some physical resemblances to Karina, and is used in much the same way.
- Felix DeMarco (Jason Schwartzman): Roger Corman. Francis Ford Coppola's nephew playing the elder's former boss, obnoxious director (and producer) of grade-Z horror garbage. Coppola directed his first few movies for Corman in the early 1960s, namely Dementia 13.