The owner of the circus at the beginning mentions the Hagenbeck-Wallace wreck and the Hartford fire. On June 22, 1918, a troop train crashed into the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus train after the driver fell asleep. The crash killed 86 people and injured 127. On July 6, 1944, a Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey big top circus tent caught fire during a performance in Hartford CT, killing 169 people and injuring over 700.
Almost all of the circus wagon carts that appeared in the movie were the original carts from the Ringling Brother's shows. During production, the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin shipped its circus carts to California to be used for filming. As of late, they are all now back in their original display building.
Reese Witherspoon stated in interviews that the love scene she did with Robert Pattinson wasn't pleasant at all. He had a bad cold the day of filming. He even sneezed at one point. Witherspoon said he was "literally snorting and snotting through every second of it, and it was not appealing. I'm talking green, infectious, disgusting." When Pattinson heard about her negative comments, he told the Chicago Sun-Times "Listen, I had a cold and kept apologizing to Reese, who has since revealed to the press that I had the worst sinus infection when I was kissing her. She has said, 'He was just sniffing all the way through.' I guess that was her response to, 'Reese, you're the envy of so many girls.'"