Brian Cox took the part of Big John Harrigan against the advice of most of his colleagues and his agent.
The distributor, Lot 47, appealed against the NC-17 rating at the same time as launching a publicity campaign about how arbitrary the rating system was. Both failed.
The poem Howie recites in the car is "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" by Walt Whitman.
The tattoo on Gary's right arm means "virtue."