According to the director, Denis Villeneuve, Javier Bardem was offered the lead role but the actor felt he didn't suit the character. Christian Bale was also offered the role and he wanted to do it but couldn't due to scheduling conflicts with other projects.
The film titled "When there is a will, there is a way" in the movie came from a high school English teacher of Denis Villeneuve, as a catchphrase to give students the will to push harder in life.
When Anthony calls Adam they agree to meet on a Sunday, one hour drive out of town.
When there is the aerial shot of Adam driving to the appointment, shortly there is a billboard in the background displaying the date of "today". It states it's July the 13th of 2012.
This date is on a Friday.
In one of the apartment scenes, Professor Adam Bell is correcting one of his students assignments with a red capped ball point pen and then in the close up shot of the assignment immediately following, he is writing with a click style black ball point pen.
Mother: [leaving a message]
Hello, darling, it's your mother. Thank you for showing me your new apartment. I'm worried about you. I mean, how can you live like that? Anyway, would you call me back? Let's get together again. I love you.
Anthony: Control, it's all about control. Every dictatorship has one obsession and that's it. In ancient Rome they gave the people bread and circuses. They kept population busy with entertainment but other dictatorships used other strategies to control ideas, the knowledge... how do they do that? Lower education, they limit culture, censor information, they censor any means of individual expression and is important to remember this, that this is a pattern, that repeats itself through out history.