A few years after this movie, Sir Anthony Hopkins had already signed on to play Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal (2001), but Jodie Foster had declined. When director Ridley Scott let Hopkins know what actresses were being considered to play Clarice, Hopkins remembered how much he enjoyed working with Julianne Moore on this movie, and recommended her.
Reproductions of Picasso's art work were not allowed to be used in this movie. However, the estates of Henri Matisse and Georges Braque allowed their work to be represented.
Natascha McElhone's featuring film debut. She didn't hesitate doing full frontal nudity, undressing in front of Anthony Hopkins. "There I was in my first movie, playing a huge role opposite an enormous star, so there was no sense of dipping my toe in and testing the waters," she said.
Sir Anthony Hopkins ate the same diet as Pablo Picasso during filming.
Merchant Ivory Productions faced strong objections from Françoise Gilot and her son, Claude, when making this movie. Claude Picasso met once with the Merchant Ivory team, but then strongly objected to the making of this movie, petitioning the studio to stop production. Gilot had written her story in the book "Life with Picasso" in 1964, which Picasso had tried to stop from being published. The filmmakers were unable to acquire the rights. Instead they used Arianna Huffington's "Picasso: Creator and Destroyer" as the basis for Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's script.