Early in the film, Baroness Karen Blixen is introduced to her servants. Although the scene is inter-cut with close-ups and other inserts in the film, the first take was filmed as one long shot that required Meryl Streep to meet and exchange dialogue with several other characters. As soon as director Sydney Pollack yelled "Cut", Streep, wearing a high-collared shirt and snug jacket, yelled "get this thing off of me!" and ripped open her jacket. A large beetle had crawled down the front of the jacket moments after the camera rolled, yet she continued filming the scene. Much of it remains in the final film.
Karen Blixen travels across dangerous terrain to bring supply wagons to her husband's regiment. During the night, a lion attacks one of the oxen and Blixen tries to fight it off with a whip. Meryl Streep was assured that the lion would be tethered by one of its back legs so it couldn't get too close. When the scene was shot, the lion had no restraint, and it got closer than Streep anticipated. The fear on her face is real.
When Denys washes Karen's hair, he quotes from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. One line, "He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast", is inscribed on the real Denys Finch Hatton's gravestone.