The interview scenes are based upon the actual interviews with said serial killers, sometimes almost word for word.
The characters Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) are based on real life FBI profilers John Douglas and Robert K. Ressler, who pioneered the field of criminal profiling in the 1970s.
Based on the true crime book "Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit", written by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker.
The show is based on the real-life experiences of John Douglas, a special agent who pioneered the practice of psychological profiling during his 25 years with the FBI.
Kazu Hiro and his prosthetics makeup team spent six hours working on actors Oliver Cooper and Damon Herriman for their respective roles as David Berkowitz and Charles Manson, so that when they walked onto the set they were the very embodiment of their real-life characters. Hiro had earlier won the Oscar for his transformation of Gary Oldman into Winston Churchill in the biopic L'ora più buia (2017).