Trivia

This movie precipitated the creation of the NC-17 MPAA rating, which it earned in place of an "X". The two to three second shot of Anaïs Nin (Maria de Medeiros) looking at an explicit illustrated postcard involving a Japanese woman and a squid, less than three minutes into the opening credits of the film, was the cause of the NC-17 rating.

Fred Ward replaced Alec Baldwin as Henry Miller. Baldwin had been originally cast but pulled out about two weeks prior to filming.

When Anaïs Nin (Maria de Medeiros) flips through the stack of erotic postcards in the beginning of the film, one of them is of a woman propped up in a chair with a hat on and is shown hiking up her skirt with one hand. The image is the same one used on the first edition cover of Anais Nin's short story collection titled, "Delta of Venus."

Fred Ward wore blue contact lenses over his brown eyes to better resemble Henry Miller.

The film that Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin go to see is Un perro andaluz (1929), a film by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel. Bunuel's son, Juan Luis Buñuel, plays the editor-publisher during the film's opening scene.