While a guest on "Fresh Air with Terry Gross" in 2016, Sarah Paulson talked about how inexperienced she was when filming this Law & Order episode: "It was my first on-camera role, and it was back when I didn't know anything about what it was like to be on camera. I'd only ever done only a little bit of theater in New York. I'd just graduated from high school in 1993. And, yeah, it was back in the days when I didn't know you could move your body, your head on camera, so I moved a little bit like I had been in a car accident and I was wearing a neck brace. So it's very humiliating to me that you [Terry Gross] have seen this, and I hope for my $2.93 residual check and all the humiliation that goes with knowing that it's out there for people to see."
Actress Sarah Paulson's on-screen acting debut. She also appeared in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999).
This episode appears to be based on several cases/incidents:
- The 1992 Amy Fisher (a.k.a The Long Island Lolita) case. Amy Elizabeth Fisher became known as "the Long Island Lolita" by the media in 1992, when, at the age of 17, she shot and severely wounded Mary Jo Buttafuoco, the wife of her illicit lover, Joey Buttafuoco. Initially charged with first-degree attempted murder, she eventually pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated assault and served seven years in prison. Paroled in 1999, Fisher became a writer, a webcam model, and a pornographic actress.
- The 1993 death of Anne Scripps. Scripps was an American heiress to the E. W. Scripps Company; she was the great-great-granddaughter of James E. Scripps, founder of The Detroit News. In 1993, she was bludgeoned by her estranged second husband, Scott Douglas, as she slept in her Westchester County, New York home on December 31, 1993. Scripps had suffered domestic abuse at the hands of Douglas before her death and gone to a judge to kick him out of her house but the judge refused. After Scripps's death Douglas was later found dead, washed ashore in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. This episode has many similarities to Scripps case, her first husband was Anthony Morrell (the victim's husband in this episode is the similarly named Steve Martell). Martell is a house-painter/womanizer, Scripps' second husband was also a house-painter. In this episode, the victim's Mercedes is found abandoned on the 59th Street Bridge over the East River; Scott Douglas' BMW was found abandoned on the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River.
- The 1990 Jessica Wiseman/Douglas Christopher Thomas case.14- year-old Jessica had her 17-year-old boyfriend, Douglas, shoot and kill her parents. Thomas was executed in 2000, when the death penalty for juveniles was still a legal punishment.
- The 1943 Wayne Lonergan case and the related 1946 novel The Big Clock.
- Based on the 1955 novel "Lolita".
Sarah Paulson plays a 17-year-old in this episode. At the time of the taping of this episode, Sarah Paulson was actually 19 years old.
Close your eyes when Defense Attorney Wheeler speaks, and you'll recognize one of the most prolific voice actors in animation and video games. Victor Raider-Wexler has provided character voices and narration for dozens of productions; he's one of the know-the-voice-but-can't-place-the-face actors popular with producers.