Trivia
One scene called for actor Al Pacino to be surprised after opening a door. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was filming in a nearby studio, so director Garry Marshall arranged for Kirk and Spock be on the other side of the door that Pacino opened.
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The football team on the poster behind Nick when Johnny enters the restaurant for the first time is PAOK from Thessaloniki, Greece, with a double-headed eagle as its emblem.
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Kathy Bates originated the role of Frankie on the stage. She campaigned to get the role in the film, but lost out to Michelle Pfeiffer.
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Playwright Terrence McNally originally wrote the role of Frankie for Kathy Bates. Johnny was played by Kenneth Welsh in the 1987 Off-Broadway production of "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune" that starred Bates.
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In a scene at the beginning, Frankie is on a bus reading a magazine. On the front cover is Penny Marshall, the sister of director Garry Marshall.
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Frankie agrees to open her robe for 15 seconds so that Johnny can look at her nude. She actually does it for over 40 seconds.
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Kathy Bates, who had originated the role of Frankie on stage, was passed over in favor of Michelle Pfeiffer - a fate that often seemed to befall her stage characters when transferred to the screen, which delayed her eventual success on film. Ironically, in this case, it was Marshall's former brother-in-law, Rob Reiner, who gave Bates her big-screen break in Misery.
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Michelle Pfeiffer took on the role of the emotionally fragile waitress in part to work with Al Pacino again after having filmed Scarface with him nearly a decade before.
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The casting of Michelle Pfeiffer was met with some negativity as many felt the actress was too beautiful to play such a damaged and plain character. However, while the film wasn't an enormous hit, Pfeiffer's performance was widely-praised and the actress was nominated for a Golden Globe as a result.
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