The first scene Nikita appears in was the first one Anne Parillaud shot. Despite having only one line, Luc Besson had Parillaud deliver nearly a hundred takes. She later found out that he used the second take in the movie.
Luc Besson had Anne Parillaud train extensively with guns so that she would be completely at ease with them. Parillaud took to practicing loading and unloading a fake gun in her car which led to her being pulled over by the police and having their guns drawn on her in traffic one day as they thought her weapon was real.
The film's onscreen title is simply "Nikita". It is titled in the United States as "La Femme Nikita" ("The Woman Nikita"). This is a man's name in languages such as Russian.
The diplomatic plates on the Mercedes driven by Victor in the mission to the embassy has a code indicating that it belongs to the Australian embassy.
During the film a character named Léon is mentioned but not shown; later in the movie Jean Reno appears as Victor. In Luc Besson's next film, Jean Reno plays the famous "Léon: The Professional". The characters of Victor and Léon are very similar. In addition to obviously being played by the same actor, both have a similar costume of a long coat with a hat, wear dark glasses and carry a large suitcase; both describe their profession as 'cleaner', and when both characters are first shown to the audience, they are assassinating bodyguards in an apartment building. Besson even described Léon's character as "Now maybe Jean is playing the American cousin of Victor. This time he's more human."