Helen Mirren describes herself as "a terrible singer." British singer Jenny Darren is heard every time Maggie Sheridan's music is played in this series.
In the scene in which Maggie Sheridan (Dame Helen Mirren) and Robert Tassi (Franco Nero) are making love, he is seen upside-down and she is wearing a small turban and a dark dress or robe. The scene evokes Artemisia Gentileschi's "Uffizi Judith," in which Holofernes is being decapitated and Judith's servant is holding him down.
Maggie's Polish alter-ego, which she used to travel to the United States, is reflective of Dame Helen Mirren's own Russian heritage. Her birth name is Helen Lydia Mironoff.
The theft of the painting Judith Slaying Holofernes from an Irish country house greatly resembles the (as of 2021) four art thefts that have occurred at Russborough House in County Wicklow, Ireland. They thefts occurred between 1974 and 2002 and were perpetrated by members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and by Irish organized crime.
The painting that drives the story of this film is a real one. There are actually two nearly-identical versions of Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi: one of which dates from 1612 or 1613 and is housed in the Museo Capodimonte in Naples, Italy, and a second version dated to 1620 or 1621 and housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. Similarly, the life story of Gentileschi discussed by the characters, is accurate.
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