Despite the film being produced 29 years after The Trip to Bountiful (1985), Cicely Tyson was born on December 19, 1924, less than a month after Geraldine Page, who plays Mrs Watts in the 1985 version: November 22, 1924.
Cicely Tyson also played Blair Underwood's mother in "Mama Flora's Family" (1988).
According to Cicely Tyson she had been wanted to play the focal role in ''Trip to Bountiful'' since seeing tt009020: after some thirty years of pestering her agent to acquire the Horton Foote play for her Tyson was contacted "out of the blue" by Foote's daughter Hallie Foote who hoped Tyson would headline a Broadway revival of ''Trip to Bountiful'',
Tony Award-honored for her ''Trip to Bountiful'' stage performance, Cicely Tyson was heavily favored to win a "matching" Emmy for her performance in the derived telefilm. However Jessica Lange, Tyson's competitor in the Emmy category of Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie of 2014, would be awarded the Emmy for American Horror Story (2011).
Cicely Tyson would headline the Broadway production of ''Trip to Bountiful'' for 189 performances from April to October 2013, Tyson's performance being Tony Award honored in the ninth week of the play's run. The Broadway production would play an encore engagement in Los Angeles running at the Ahmanson Theatre for six weeks in the autumn of 2014 with Tyson again as headliner.