The film-makers wanted to use the actual footage of a famous TV interview with Lord Hailsham in which he angrily said that "a great party is not to be brought down by a proven liar and a woman of easy virtue", but Hailsham, still very much alive in 1989, refused to permit it, just as he also made strenuous efforts to prevent the film from being made at all. As a result, the interview was recreated with an actor, Iain Cuthbertson, who was encouraged to portray Hailsham as an apoplectic buffoon.