Atom Egoyan came up with the idea for the film when his family's home burned down as a child. He was fascinated by how much his family was forced to depend upon the insurance adjuster, who was just a stranger to them otherwise.
The football players in the "High School Confidential" sequence were the real York University football team. None of the players knew what the scene was about before they began shooting.
Maury Chaykin filmed his scenes concurrently with The Pianist (1991), shooting one by day and the other by night, resulting in considerable exhaustion. During the filming of his first monologue, Chaykin forgot one of his lines. Rather than call cut, Atom Egoyan continued the take, which wound up being used in the final film. He felt Chaykin's disoriented delivery added to the scene.
According to Atom Egoyan, Noah Render's use of a bow-and-arrow is an allusion to Robin Hood, which is also the name of the real estate development where the character lives. It is one of several mythological and religious allusions throughout the film, which were added to give it a sense of "heightened reality."