Viggo Mortensen on his character's wardrobe: "I particularly liked the white linen suit that you see in the poster that Chester wears, and in a way that's another character in the movie because the journey of that beautiful cream-colored linen suit, on the Acropolis in the sunshine in the beginning, this immaculate, perfect, fits perfectly, looks great. You see that suit at the very end of the story, and that suit's been through it, it's a bit torn, it's frayed, it's not as clean as it was, it's suffered almost as much as the man wearing the suit."
The dog seen in the opening scenes is Viggo's own dog and is called Biggles.
Hossein Amini's directorial debut.
Principal photography began August 2012 in Athens, Crete, Istanbul, and London's Ealing Studios. Identifiable locations include the Küçük Hasan mosque on Chania harbour, a nearby café and the Grand Arsenal in Plateia Katehaki, the ruins of Knossos near Iraklion, and the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul
All three principal actors have appeared in big movie franchises/trilogies. Mortensen in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Isaac in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and Dunst in original Spider-Man trilogy.