Lead actors Tom Selleck and Paulina Porizkova had such a bad time on this movie that by the time filming ended, they refused to be in the same room with each other. To make the ad poster for the film, director Bruce Beresford had to photo shoot them both separately, and digitally combine the two photos using Paintbox software, so that it looked like Selleck was standing behind Porizkova with his arms around her.
The movie received a Worst Actress Razzie nomination for Paulina Porizkova at the 10th Golden Raspberry Awards but she lost out on the Razzie to Heather Locklear for The Return of Swamp Thing (1989).
The name of the annual clown meeting which was in the memory of the greatest clown of all was "The Funeral of Grimaldi". Several scenes in this movie take place at this event towards the end of the film. Grimaldi refers to real-life clown Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837), who is the most celebrated English clown in history, and just like in the movie, there really is a "Funeral of Grimaldi" held every year on the first Sunday in February, at the All Saints' Church in London. His actual birth and death dates were also reproduced on poster artwork seen in the film, these being Born: 18th December 1778 and Died: 31st May 1837.
The Eastern European country that the character of Nina (Paulina Porizkova) came from was the then-communist Romania, but in real life, Porizkova came from the then-communist Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic.
When the actors speak Romanian, they do it rather poorly, but they do try hard. It seems to be for lack of professional advisers rather then the lack of knowledge of the language. Also, the subtitles do at times not translate at all what the actors are saying. Particularly, after a car crash, and with the criminals leaving their car somewhat groggy, their conversation is in fact much more politically to the point for the period, certainly more interesting. They refer to actual aspects of the communist dictatorship of Ceausescu, they mention the most prolific prison for political prisoners (Gherla) and such. Not many people on that set seem to have spoken Romanian.