Edward James Olmos remained close friends with Jaime Escalante until Escalante's death on March 30, 2010. Olmos even led a campaign to help pay for Escalante's medical bills, a campaign which included cast members from the movie and former students of Escalante.
Edward James Olmos went through a hair thinning process and gained an estimated 20 pounds for the role of Jaime Escalante.
The character Ana Delgado is the only high school student in the movie based on a real-life student. She was based on Leticia Rodriguez, the daughter of the owner of El Farolito, a small family restaurant west of downtown LA, who wanted her to drop out of school to work at the restaurant. Reportedly, the argument between her father and Escalante was as dramatic in real life as it was in the movie.
According to Edward James Olmos, he wrote most of his dialogue with Jaime Escalante, and much of it was verbatim what Escalante had said in the real-life situations that were depicted in the movie. For instance, Olmos said the dialogue in the scene where Escalante confronts the ETS investigators about the cheating allegations was word for word what Escalante told the ETS in real life.
Jaime Escalante was actually impressed by the movie, stating that it was "Ninety percent truth, and ten percent drama."