The relationship between director Sir David Lean and Sir Alec Guinness deteriorated during the making of the movie. The final straw came for Guinness when he found out that a large chunk of his scenes had been left on the cutting room floor by Lean. Neither man ever met or spoke to the other again. Lean also managed to fall out with Dame Peggy Ashcroft during production with Lean deliberately shunning her from his table during lunch and dinner. Ashcroft, for her part, was unconcerned about his behaviour and dismissed it as Lean's usual sulky petulance.
As well as several leading cast members, Sir David Lean steadily alienated most of his heads of department and their crew during production. The atmosphere on-set deteriorated to such an extent that producer, John Brabourne, eventually had to order cinematographer Ernest Day and his camera crew to, at least, say "Good Morning" to Lean each day.
When she was in her fifties, Peggy Ashcroft attended the last performance of the theatrical version of "A Passage to India" and met E.M. Forster. He told her that one day she would play Mrs. Moore, something she thought very unlikely at the time because she was so much younger than the character.
Writer and director Sir David Lean had frequent on-set clashes with Judy Davis, who accused him of having lost his touch, not having directed for fourteen years.
This is David Lean's first and last movie after a 14-year hiatus from the industry. He was so devastated by the negative reviews of A Filha de Ryan (1970), he dropped out of the filmmaking scene.