To help her with her Minneapolis accent, Marisa Tomei asked that her driver be a native of the city. The first driver was sacked when she found out that he was from New Jersey, as was the second one when it transpired that he was originally from Texas.
A hot property before it went into production, stars like Geena Davis, Demi Moore and Brad Pitt were all vying for roles. Madonna had been particularly interested in the film, lobbying hard for Jason Patric to land the male lead. However, she finally quit trying when the studio decided to go with William Baldwin instead, although ironically Christian Slater has the part in the finished film.
The original title of the film was Baboon Heart.
Tom Serchio, who wrote the script and also had a part as Marissa's dud date, originally had the story take place on Staten Island. Minnesota had recently starting offering a tax credit to lure productions into shooting big film projects in their state. Tony Bill and Co decided to change the location to Minneapolis to take advantage of the financial incentives and so the script was rewritten to include the midwestern dialect, diner, and most of all : frigid weather!