Stars Greta Scacchi and Vincent D'Onofrio were romantically involved at the time of the filming. Their daughter Leila George D'Onofrio, was born in March 1992. He left them when Leila was six months old.
In a 2008 interview, Greta Scacchi said she spent most of her early acting career playing femmes fatales and taking her clothes off on screen. She had agreed to nude scenes only because they were demanded by the script as necessary and by the box office to attract audiences. Also, if she had said no, she wouldn't have worked. But after she gave birth to her first child, fathered by co-star D'Onofrio while making Desire, studios stopped asking her to perform nude.
Shirley Henderson's debut.
The same year of this film's release Greta Scacchi and Vincent D'Onofrio also appeared in The Player (1992).