"It was the longest night of my life," Amy Irving exclaimed, laughing, in reference to the nude sex scene she has with Dennis Hopper and directed by her real life husband Bruno Barreto. "It wasn't just getting naked. It was a woman getting naked beyond nakedness. It was finding a place in which I, as an actress, was able to act without feeling self-conscious of the 30 crew members, and making love in front of my husband. I don't think any two actors took better care of each other than Dennis and I did that night. It was very intense, surrealistic. You block out everything, and you just see each other, and I think that helped to bring the intimacy between Dennis and me even closer." She revealed the scene was edited but in reality it was longer and very explicit. "You wouldn't believe what was cut. There were moments when Bruno would say. 'Now I think we should try this.' And I like..." Irving rolled her eyes. "Sometimes I couldn't believe what he was asking me to do."
But she said having explicit sex on set did not make her uncomfortable, "We're not making porn films here," she asserted. "We're expressing human nature in a very real, very strong, moving way."
Amy Irving (Rosealee Henson) was the then wife of the director Bruno Barreto, who encouraged her to do the extensive nude scenes. "Because Bruno is Brazilian and very comfortable in his sexuality, I think he was able to shoot it in a way that it wasn't just about baring your body. It was about baring your soul, baring everything. It's about shaking up the leaves and waking up your passions, and living your life to the fullest," Irving said.
Amy Irving (Rosealee Henson) plays the daughter of her real life mother Priscilla Pointer (Lily Henson).
Although Julie Harris plays Dennis Hopper's mother, she was only ten years older than him in real life.