Director Roman Polanski's children have parts in this movie. Morgane Polanski played the farmer's daughter, and Elvis Polanski played the boy with the hoop.
To keep the child actors of Fagin's gang in character, Sir Ben Kingsley kept his mannerisms (speech and hunch-walk) and his physical appearance as Fagin even off-set.
The idea of making a new version of Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" was suggested by Emmanuelle Seigner, director Roman Polanski's wife, while he was looking for a plot that their children would find interesting.
The Charles Dickens novel "Oliver Twist" has many more characters and subplots than can be fit into a just-over-two-hour movie. This version narrows down and streamlines the story to focus on six characters: Oliver Twist, Mr. Brownlow, Fagin, Bill Sikes, Nancy, and the Artful Dodger. The novel's other characters Mr. Bumble, Mrs. Mann, Mrs. Corney, Noah Claypole, Charlotte, Mr. Monks, Charley Bates, the Maylie family, the Fleming family, and the Leeford family, are all either relegated to brief cameo roles or omitted entirely from the story.