Trivia

The extensive historical research for this movie resulted in a script with a five-page, single-spaced bibliography.

Executive producer and director John Frankenheimer's last movie.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson (Sir Michael Gambon) is convincing George Wallace (Gary Sinise) to follow his idea on ending segregation laws on his state, Johnson urges the other one to imagine what his legacy would be in the following years, long before they're dead, which he says that by 1995 they would both be gone. However, in reality, Wallace managed to live beyond 1995 (he died in 1998) and was a changed man.

Executive producer and director John Frankenheimer was a close friend of Lyndon Johnson's political rival Robert F. Kennedy (having even driven Kennedy to the Ambassador hotel the night he was assassinated). Frankenheimer admitted that his view of Johnson was negative at the time, but he gradually came to have a more sympathetic perspective and that was his motivation for making this movie.

The part of Special Assistant to the President Jack Valenti was played by his son, John Valenti, in the latter's first acting role. Jack Valenti later headed the Motion Picture Association of America for thirty-eight years.

Gary Sinise: As Governor George Wallace. He previously played Wallace in George Wallace (1997), also directed by John Frankenheimer. The footage of Wallace on television is from Sinise's performance in that mini-series. In the scene right afterwards, he is also shown taking a publicity shot with Lyndon B. Johnson (Sir Michael Gambon), then talking to Johnson, then ending with a press conference.