The role of Mary Carson was offered to Audrey Hepburn.
Many actresses tested for the role of Meggie, including Michelle Pfeiffer. Finally, it came down to two actresses, Rachel Ward, and Jane Seymour. Producers liked Seymour's acting much better, but felt she was too strong an actress and lacked the vulnerability needed to play Meggie. So the part went to Ward.
Producers found the conditions of shooting in Australia to be impossible. Most of the sheep ranches were to far out in the middle of nowhere for film crews to get to, and the requirements placed on American film crews to shoot in Australia were unrealistic. So the entire ranch, Drohgeda was built in California.
Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown fell in love on the set. They were married in 1983 and have three children.

All your life I've watched you wage your battles against God. Yet you were always closer to his desires for us than I. In the end you've always been able to love. Somewhere in me I must have known from the very first that Dane was mine. But I didn't want to know. I wanted to be Cardinal de Bricassart more than I wanted our son. More than I wanted you. Of all the wrong I've done the worst is that I never made a choice for love. Half given to you, half given to God but really given to my own ambition. I knew it and I did it anyway. I told myself it was meant to be. Long ago I told you a story, a legend about a bird that sings only when it dies. The bird with the thorn in its breast. You said it pays its life for that one song. But the whole world stills to listen. And God in his Heaven smiles.
Driven to the thorn, with no knowledge of the dying to come.
When we press the thorn to our breast WE KNOW, WE UNDERSTAND and STILL WE DO IT.

Mary Carson: Let me tell you something, Cardinal de Bricassart about old age and about that God of yours. That vengeful God who ruins our bodies and leaves us with only enough wit for regret. Inside this stupid body, I am still young! I still feel! I still want! I still dream! And I still love you! Oh, God, how much!

Luke O'Neill: I think the Catholic Church is run by a bunch of poofters in black nightgowns.

Fiona Cleary: It's curious, you know. When it looked as though the fire might take everything I kept thinking of the most peculiar things. I didn't think of dying or the children or this beautiful house in ruins. All I could think about were my accounts the socks I was knitting for Paddy the heart-shaped cake tins Frank made me years ago. How could I survive without them? All the little things. Things which can't be replaced. It's too late, like all my life. Too late for him, too late for me. I can never take my Paddy in my arms now. I can never say to him the only thing he ever wanted me to say, that I loved him. I do love him, Father.

Archbishop Vittorio Contini-Verchese: The dying youth in the play is Hippolytus. He is cold to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. To punish him for his neglect she causes his mother to fall hopelessly in love with him. But, Hippolytus spurns her. And that's why she kills herself? Hippolytus' father blames him and has him killed by the god of the sea.
Ralph de Bricassart: A cruel story, and so unjust. Hippolytus dies even though he's innocent. In fact, he behaves laudably.
Archbishop Vittorio Contini-Verchese: A good Catholic interpretation, yes, perhaps. But to the ancient Greeks he is quite guilty of the sin of pride. You see, it is that Hippolytus holds himself above human love. He's cold. He will not even admit that human passion exists.
Ralph de Bricassart: And what if he would admit it? Would he then escape his fate?
Archbishop Vittorio Contini-Verchese: That is the cruelty because this is his fate. He cannot choose to love anymore than his poor mother can choose to be cold. The gods have willed it for their sport. Cruel, but rather an appealing system, is it not? No decisions to make, no conscience, no agony of free will nothing. All fated from the first.
Ralph de Bricassart: Rather shockingly at odds with the teachings of the Church of Rome.
Archbishop Vittorio Contini-Verchese: My dear Ralph, do you not find it humbling to realize that when this play was first performed Rome was still infested with fur-clad barbarians?

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Fiona Cleary: I don't know, and never will how much of our lives we're allowed to choose how much is decided long before we're born. But looking back, I see now choices I could've made and didn't!

Archbishop Vittorio Contini-Verchese: And like all self-perpetuating institutions the Church has always a place for ambitious men. In fact you are everything the Church admires in her high officials. You are conservative, quick, subtle. You know enough never to give away what is going on behind those eyes. And you have the most exquisite gift of knowing how to please. Even when it comes to pleasing those you loathe.
Ralph de Bricassart: You make me out to be a Machiavelli, except that he was an Italian. Archbishop Vittorio Contini-Verchese: My dear Ralph, you are a delight. I can scarcely wait to see your effect on our short, fat prelates in Rome.

Ralph de Bricassart: I wanted to be Cardinal de Bricassart more than I wanted our son. More than I wanted you. Of all the wrong I've done the worst is that I never made a choice for love. Half given to you, half given to God but really given to my own ambition. I knew it and I did it anyway. I told myself it was meant to be.

Dane O'Neill: But I wonder if the time comes when I must truly suffer can I accept it? Can I put myself into God's hands and not fight his will?


Fiona Cleary: For years I've sat by and watched you do all the things that I did. Crying for a man that you could never have. Giving all your love to his son, the way I gave mine to Frank. Neglecting Jussie, as I neglected you. You've lived your life as I did mine. Driven, always driven! I don't know, and never will how much of our lives we're allowed to choose how much is decided long before we're born. But looking back, I see now choices I could've made and didn't! Even after Paddy died. Even after I lost Frank. I might have asked your forgiveness years ago. But it's too late for me now, Meggie. But it's not too late for you.

Meggie Cleary: It cannot comfort me to watch you hand me your life like a sacrifice. What I need most is your forgiveness. You have your work. And you have the love of a man who will never break your heart. That's more than most of us get in a lifetime. Don't give it up for anything. And least of all for me.
Justinne O'Neill: But how can I leave you here grieving for Dane. Meggie Cleary: You must. To give us hope. A light has gone out. Not just for me, but for all of us. We will spend who knows how long in mourning it. But if you go, your light can burn for us. Knowing that will bring an end to our mourning.