The scene where Will (Ben Foster) and Olivia (Samantha Morton) speak to each other in her kitchen is eight minutes long and was shot in one take. Co-writer and director Oren Moverman allowed actors and actresses to improvise in certain scenes.
The soldiers in the film wear a unit patch with a large "22" on it. This is a fictional unit. The actual 22nd Infantry Division was a "Phantom Division" that never actually existed. It was created in World War II to fool German intelligence. The patch created is different from the one in the film, though.
Despite its critical acclaim and Oscar nominations, this movie didn't receive a theatrical release in the UK for nearly two years.
Co-writer and director Oren Moverman had wanted to have a scene with Will (Ben Foster) and Tony (Woody Harrelson) singing a song but couldn't decide which song to sing, and settled on "Home on the Range" after hearing the song being played from an ice cream truck while scouting locations. This is then paid homage to after Will's first notification when he's sitting in Will's car and an ice cream truck passes by playing "Home on the Range".
Sergeant Brian Scott, who was training to deploy to Iraq out of Fort Dix, New Jersey, and was a Technical Advisor on this film, was subsequently injured in an IED attack in Baghdad.
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