Joseph Gordon-Levitt wrote the part specifically for Scarlett Johansson, and was really happy when Johansson agreed to star in the movie.
PornHub, a real-life pornography video website Jon goes on, supplied videos for production.
The sound effect used when Jon throws tissues into the garbage after watching porn is the same sound used when files are dragged to the "trash" utility on a Mac, the computer used by Jon.
The Facebook page for Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson) is real, and her friends are celebrities under false names.
The original cut, which was screened at Sundance in 2013, was given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. Writer and director Joseph Gordon-Levitt cut some graphic porn footage that his character is watching throughout the movie from the final cut, which received an R rating. He chose to cut some of this footage since he didn't want people to think this movie was solely about porn after being confronted with sexually graphic footage.