Elle Fanning, the real-life younger sister of Dakota Fanning, was initially supposed to play Sophie Gray. However, she had to be re-cast because she grew four inches taller than her sister.
Greg Wise (John Ruskin) and Dame Emma Thompson (Lady Eastlake) have been married since 2003.
While this movie makes a great deal of Ruskin's 'cruelty' towards Effie Gray, there is scant evidence for this in reality, and probably reflects as much on the difference in cultural mores between the Victorian and modern eras as it does on Ruskin. In the time when sex outside marriage was considered scandalous, it was not uncommon for a couple to marry only to find themselves sexually unsuited. There are other famous examples from the 19th century, including writer Thomas Carlyle and his wife, and the British statesman Sir Edward Grey, who, despite his closeness to his first wife, had numerous extra-marital affairs, and after her death told friends that the marriage was unconsummated.