Reportedly, one of the reasons John Travolta turned the film down was because he wanted final cut approval but director Paul Schrader would not give it to him. Travolta allegedly kept the Armani suits especially tailor-made for him in the film. The picture is one of at least four films that Gere has done after Travolta had turned them down, the others being Chicago (2002), Days of Heaven (1978), and An Officer and a Gentleman (1982).
Debbie Harry has said the film's main title song "Call Me" was inspired by driving and she visualized the film's opening sequence when writing it. She said: "When I was writing it, I pictured the opening scene [of the movie], driving on the coast of California." Harry was first given an instrumental rough track titled "Man Machine" by Giorgio Moroder and was asked to write the melody and lyrics for the song. Reportedly, this only took her a few hours to do.
The film is widely credited to have established clothes designer Giorgio Armani in Hollywood, since the Italian designer's clothes are featured prominently in Julian Kaye's wardrobe.
According to Richard Gere, the nudity was not in the original script. "It was just in the natural process of making the movie. I certainly felt vulnerable, but I think it's different for men than women."
In 2012, star Richard Gere said that he was drawn to the role because of its gay subtext. "I read it and I thought, 'This is a character I don't know very well. I don't own a suit. He speaks languages; I don't speak any languages. There's kind of a gay thing that's flirting through it and I didn't know the gay community at all.' I wanted to immerse myself in all of that and I had literally two weeks. So I just dove in."
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