When director Abel Ferrara received a letter from IFC Films, the US distributor, telling the filmmaker to deliver an R-rated version so that it could match the version to be released on Showtime during its pay TV window, the director was disgusted and refused to back down telling THR "Welcome to New York is not being distributed in the U.S. because of this company, IFC, which I'm totally disgusted with." He stated "They knew from day one when they bought this film that they had the final version and that it wasn't going to be changed."
The $60,000-a-month three-story house that Simone (Jacqueline Bisset) rents for Mr. Devereaux's (Gérard Depardieu) stay while under house arrest, was the actual house that Dominique Strauss-Kahn's wife, Anne Sinclair, rented in 2011. It is located in Tribeca, New York.
When Gérard Depardieu's character is arrested, transported to jail and calls his wife in France he never asks why he has been arrested.
Director Abel Ferrera shot many sex scenes that were sometimes deemed too violent by critics. If the latter admits that he did not do it deliberately, Gérard Depardieu made it clear that from his point of view this violent aspect stood out because "no normal actor does that usually. If you slap, you have to face censorship". "But showing what these things are that we do with these girls, who agree, it's sad and it can be violent. It is reality. We've all had moments like that where we go a little overboard. It's not porn at all. In porn, there are big b****s. We are far from it," added the French actor.
Raquel Nave's debut.