Filmed as a musical with eight songs by Prince, Sinéad O'Connor, and Carole King. Following poor test screenings, all but one of the songs - and all of the movie-musical-style production numbers - were removed from the film, and James L. Brooks wrote new scenes and did three days' worth of re-shoots to transform the film into a more traditional studio comedy. Only "You are the Best," written by King and including an end-credits version sung by her, remains in the final cut of the film.
In the beginning of the movie, we see a reference to Powers Boothe showing up at the Emmy Awards ceremony to collect the award he had won for playing Jim Jones in the middle of a Screen Actors Guild strike. Although Nick Nolte was not nominated for an Emmy that year, everything else shown about the incident really happened in September, 1980.
Nick Nolte would work on this movie on weekdays, as he was also working on Ganar de cualquier manera (1994) at the same time.
James L. Brooks asked Joely Richardson to stay in character throughout the shoot, and to always maintain her American accent.