Amy Ryan looked and sounded so convincing as a working-class Dorchester mom that a security guard mistook her for a fan on the first day of location filming and wouldn't let her on the set. One of the producers finally noticed her on the other side of one of the barricades and said she should be let through. The incident made Ryan twenty minutes late, but convinced her the Boston accent she'd prepared was realistic.
Jill Quigg was discovered when the production's barricades in the streets of Boston prevented her from picking up her son from school. Ben Affleck was so impressed by her loud rants against the film crew that he asked her to read for the movie.
The film's UK release, scheduled for December 28, 2007, was postponed for almost six months, because of the film's similarity to the real-life case of four-year-old Madeleine McCann, who disappeared from the holiday apartment where she and her family were staying in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, 2007.
Amy Ryan was so convincing with her Boston accent in her audition that writer and director Ben Affleck asked her what part of Boston she was from.