The film was originally planned as a documentary, but the filmmakers found almost no footage of Solanas or anyone to speak about her.
The filmmakers were given permission to reproduce some of Andy Warhol's paintings and silk screens for the set, but they had to destroy them after filming.
The band "Yo La Tengo" appears briefly (along with their friend Tara Key of the band Antietam) as the Velvet Underground in the film.
Mary Harron was inspired to write the movie after reading the SCUM Manifesto, the anti-men rhetoric Valerie Solanas published in the 1960s.
Harron had imagined Lili Taylor in the role of Solanas before casting her.