Ouzo was used as a replacement for absinthe for the drinking scenes filmed on the first day. Because the scene turned out so well, method drinking was adopted for the rest of filming. As a result, Thewlis had admitted in a interview that he can't really remember making the film at all.
Contrary to popular belief, Total Eclipse (1995) with Leonardo DiCaprio was not the same project about Rimbaud that River Phoenix was in talks of doing. Phoenix was in discussions with director Volker Schlöndorff after he saw Phoenix's performance in "My Own Private Idaho". He let the idea go after Phoenix's death. Schlöndorff's idea would have been based on a completely separate work about Rimbaud written by Henry Miller that was more of a character study. It was not based on the play Total Eclipse by Christopher Hampton.
The film was issued on VHS after the box-office success of Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic (1997): this release prominently and misleadingly featured a shot of Leonardo DiCaprio and Romane Bohringer on its cover, apparently to give the impression of a romantic relationship between the two (the film is in fact about his affair with her husband).