After asking Reese Witherspoon to get pregnant for the role (as a joke, because she thought Reese was too thin), Mira Nair was delighted when Witherspoon announced she was expecting after all.
The sheer brown gown with white embroidery worn by Kelly Hunter (Lady Steyne) at the Prince Regent's party is the same costume worn by Faith Brook (Countess Rostova) in War & Peace, by an extra at the London Ball in Poldark: Episode #2.2, and by a guest at the London ball in Poldark.
In the early 1970s Stanley Kubrick wanted to direct an adaptation of this book, but found it to be too big to make it into a three-hour film. He instead made Barry Lyndon.