Penélope Cruz became the first Spanish actress ever to be nominated for Best Lead Actress at the Oscars.
First movie of Pedro Almodóvar and Carmen Maura together in 18 years. Their friendship broke after shooting Femmes au bord de la crise de nerfs (1988).
According to Pedro Almodóvar, there's only one fake element in Raimunda's (Penélope Cruz) body: the bottom. He said that this kind of characters are usually big-bottomed people, and that Cruz is just too stylized.
Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) sings the song 'Volver', though Cruz is dubbed by Estrella Morente. The actress trained to learn how to lip sync for the scene.
The movie that Irene watches on TV is Bellissima (1951), starring Anna Magnani as a fame-hungry, working class mother who drags her unwilling daughter to the Cinecitta film studios in Rome for a movie audition. There is a parallel in the film, as Raimunda mentions that Agustina's fame-hungry sister once dragged her to Madrid for a singing audition.
Pedro Almodóvar: [red cars] the main characters drive a red car, which features prominently in the plot. In this film is a 1980 Ford Granada MkII 2.3 GL Ranchera.