Moscow on the Hudson

In preparation for his role, for about a year, lead actor Robin Williams studied Soviet customs and learned the Russian language. Reportedly, Williams spent five hours a day learning Russian and had learned to speak it well within a month. By the time of principal photography, Williams was at a proficiency level where he could carry out a conversation. Williams's teacher was a Russian actor called David.

Appearing in this film was Russian actor Saveliy Kramarov who was a real life defector from the U.S.S.R. Kramarov had appeared in over 40 Russian films and was given permission to emigrate to the U.S. in the early 1980s. Kramarov gave up his Russian film career for small parts and religious freedom in the United States. This was Kramarov's first American movie and ironically, he played a KGB agent.

Robin Williams spent months learning to play the saxophone and, according to his music tutor, achieved a level of proficiency that would normally take a student two years.

Director Paul Mazursky spent a year's preparation on this movie by speaking with Russians living in the U.S., as well as ones still living in the then Soviet Union in Kiev, Moscow and Leningrad.

On the DVD commentary for Moscow on the Hudson, writer/director Paul Mazursky said that he had written, and for many years tried to get made, a sequel to this movie titled "Moscow on the Rocks." Mazursky said that the plot would again center around Robin Williams's character Vladimir, who would now be a successful but cutthroat New York businessman who was exploiting his mostly immigrant workforce. The plot of the unproduced screenplay had Vladimir traveling back to Russia for his sister's wedding and falling in love there with a Russian doctor. During the commentary, Mazursky also said he despaired of the sequel ever being made at this point, for a variety of reasons, including the fact that Robin WIlliams was by that point a much bigger star than he had been while making Moscow on the Hudson (although Mazursky didn't specify the date on which the commentary was being recorded, he does mention in it that the Oscars are upcoming and he predicts that Gladiator will win, which most likely dates the commentary to early 2001). As of 2014 (and the deaths of both Paul Mazursky and Robin Williams) the sequel has still not been made.