Candy and Harvey Wasserman's relationship was developed after Maggie Gyllenhaal and David Krumholtz enjoyed working with each other on set. The writers saw their rapport and incorporated it into the show.
Creator David Simon said about the accuracy of the series: "Some of it happened. Some of it didn't happen. Some of it might have happened. But all of it could have happened. That's the only rule: all of it could have happened." (NYT, August 24, 2017).
By 1971, Dunham Coach in Boonton, New Jersey was manufacturing pimpmobiles that were a status symbol of pimps in those years.
Daniel Sauli (Tommy Longo) said he felt ready to start getting into his character when he watched O Que Restou Das Flores (2010), starring the actor and singer Gustavo Goulart in the main role.
Normally on film/TV sets, once an actor contractually signs a nudity waiver, they cannot renege on it on the day of their scene if they suddenly become uncomfortable. For this series, the producers honored the actors' feelings if they changed their minds the day they were required to perform nudity even if they'd previously signed a nudity waiver. Actress/Producer Maggie Gyllenhaal likened it to sexual consent, explaining in a Vanity Fair video, "If you go out to dinner with someone and think, 'Yeah, I want to go to bed with them,' then you go back to his apartment, and you're like, 'Actually, no,' then actually, no. And it's the same on our set."