Trivia for
The Bridges of Madison County (1995) More at IMDbPro »

• In 1993, Sydney Pollack was the front-runner for the director's chair for this film and it was expected that Robert Redford would star. At the time, other contenders for the female lead included Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, Barbara Hershey and Anjelica Huston.
  
  
• The Cedar Bridge, where Francesca met Robert, was destroyed in a fire on 3 September 2002.
  
  
• Francesca's House was burned in an arson fire on 6 October 2003, almost a year after the Cedar Bridge was destroyed.
  
  
• The farmhouse used in the film had been abandoned for over thirty years and was completely restored by production designer Jeannine Claudia Oppewall and her art directors Charles Breen and William Arnold.
  
  
• Meryl Streep allegedly put on 15-20 pounds of weight for her role in this film as a middle-aged housewife.
  
  
• Bruce Beresford was chosen as the director before Clint Eastwood but wanted to make Francesca Johnson English. When this was not accepted by the studio he left.
  
  
• Robert James Waller finished his manuscript in eleven days, intending it to be simply a gift for various friends and family. One of his friends was so impressed with the manuscript, he asked if he could try to interest a literary agent in the work. Waller later received a life-changing call from a New York agent who asked, "...Robert, where have you been all my life?"
  
  
• In her autobiography Catherine Deneuve mentions how she traveled to London to audition for the lead role.
  
  
• Cher and Isabella Rossellini were two other actresses in contention for the female lead.
  
  
• Filmed in sequence.
  
  
• The studio was initially only interested in casting younger actresses in the lead but were failing to find anyone suitable. The idea to talk to Meryl Streep largely came from Clint Eastwood's own mother.
  
  

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