After seeing Aidan Quinn in this film, director Martin Scorsese hired him to play the lead central role of Jesus in the original Paramount Pictures development of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) (which later got canceled). Quinn has said: "Marty quite liked Reckless (1984). I mean, he said, 'I hate this kind of movie,' but he thought Jamie Foley did a real good job for a first try".
Star Aidan Quinn has said of this film: "...there was something about the rebellion in the boy [character of Johnny Rourke] that reminded me of myself when I was younger, and made me want to do it...I didn't sleep for three weeks. I was a mess. I didn't think I was doing very good. But I always think like that. Then the other thing comes into it. You tell yourself, it's just like dealing with that bunch of tough roofers, you got to adapt. It was Jamie Foley's first picture, too. I think we did the best we could, but I can't watch myself".
Aidan Quinn was cast in this film after, according to The New York Times, "a casting director wending her way through Chicago had taken a Polaroid picture of Mr. [Aidan] Quinn, and that was how he came to be submitted to James Foley, director of Reckless (1984) who hadn't been able to find the actor he needed to play the lead in the picture".