For the sex scenes, director Silvio Soldini said he was inspired by Intimacy (2001). "I wanted to take on the challenge of shooting sex scenes as naturally as making love in everyday life," he said.
Silvio Soldini said he had Alba Rohrwacher do 5 auditions before choosing her and the last one was a sex scene with Pierfrancesco Favino. "When I saw them together, I no longer had any doubts, either about one or the other. It was an audition of more than forty minutes and in which Alba almost broke Pierfrancesco's septum because I was rehearsing a somewhat "hard" scene. At that moment I knew that they were going to be fine and that they were happy too, that they were good together and had the same kind of intensity."
Director Silvio Soldini said the sex scenes were rehearsed several times. "Alba and Pierfrancesco put themselves on the line with a great deal of generosity and professionalism," Soldini explained. "Often in films, these scenes are not rehearsed, to put off the moment of awkwardness, but if you start shooting without exactly knowing what should happen, the results can be disappointing. We rehearsed these scenes just like the others and we shot them in single takes, without a break. True, there were very few of us on the set, and I had to push the dolly myself!"