The filming included more than 1,000 actors as extras for the crowd scenes, although only eighty actors had speaking parts. Among the extras there were local gauchos hired by the producers and others provided as laborers by their employer, the Patrón Costa, a wealthy local family. There were also the aforementioned fencing trainer and soldiers lent by the military garrison and two pato players from Buenos Aires, experts falling from horses. As the gauchos did not want to be dressed as Spaniards, military conscripts played the part.