In preparation for her role, Kelly McGillis lived with an actual Amish widow and her seven children for a while before filming began to get the speech cadence down and to observe the daily life of an Amish widowed mother.
As realistic as the actors playing background roles as Amish people are, no actual Amish were in the film because they do not (as correctly stated in the movie) like to be photographed. They were intensely interested in the filming, though, and many Amish people were often out of camera range politely watching the filming.
When shooting the murder in the men's room scene, Peter Weir claimed it was the most violent scene he'd ever filmed. Even today, he still thinks it was perhaps too violent. But he wanted to invoke outrage - at the severity of the violence occurring before the eyes of an innocent Amish boy.
Although he once again plays a heroic man with a gun, this was the first starring role that broke Harrison Ford away from the science fiction and fantasy genres that made him famous, and gave him his first and only Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
Although the film was made with advice from experts on the Amish community, some members of the community were critical, feeling the portrayal was not entirely accurate. The National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom called for a boycott of the film, citing fears that these communities were "overrun by tourists" because of its popularity. They worried that "the crowding, souvenir-hunting, photography, and trespassing on Amish properties would increase as a result." When the film was finished, then-Pennsylvania governor Dick Thornburgh promised not to promote the Amish film communities as future film sites.