Writer/director Carlos Reygadas shot crowded street scenes in the middle of real crowds. Cameraman Diego Martínez Vignatti sat in a wheelchair and they just pushed him through everyone. Luckily, no one who passed by looked into the camera lens.
Anapola Mushkadiz said that in the fellatio scene what she sucks is a fake penis: "It was not complicated to shoot the scene because it was a prosthesis. The problem was that Marcos Hernández had just come out of an operation and had to be seated and had discomfort. We shot the scene in a studio and with few people."
Anapola Mushkadiz said that the hardest part to play was not the fellatio, but the bed sex scene with Marcos Hernández. "It was my second scene, and I knew that after all it would be easier, especially sucking on something plastic. Fortunately, Carlos Reygadas was extremely considerate, gave me time ... I had to climb naked on this man I barely knew! I, who usually tend to let my mind wander, have never been so focused. And just as people feel like the scene actually happened, I felt like I really had sex. It was very cool because later I lost fear of the camera and being with people. Something more intimate and trustworthy has also been created between me and Marcos and the kisses have become more natural."
To play Marcos' wife in this movie, Carlos Reygadas wanted Marcos Hernández's actual wife, but she refused. So he looked for the character on the street and in the Zócalo he found Bertha Ruiz. "My collaborators thought I was crazy, but what interested me about her was her stony face", recalls the director. In life, this woman sold cakes at the exit of the subway, and had to ask her husband the permission to play the role: "It was not obvious because he was a police commander. And with the naked scenes! The three of us talked, and he agreed if the sex scenes were simulated: 'No real sex, no real sex...', he said to reassure himself."