When Ben Stiller first received the script (which was written just two months after the escape occurred), he turned it down after finding out that the majority of it was made up due to information about the escape not being publicly available. A few months later, the New York Inspector General released an official report outlining the breakout, leading Stiller and the screenwriters to reconnect and subsequently produce a new script that focused as much as possible on the real story.
To reflect authenticity, many of the law enforcement officers and personnel in the series were portrayed by the actual individuals involved in the real events.
On set Patricia Arquette joined in a conversation with Benicio Del Toro and David Morse after she had been in make up. They didn't recognise her and thought she was a 'crazy lady'.
Patricia Arquette talked about appearing nude in this series and other roles playing characters more sexually confident than herself in a conversation with Julia Roberts on Variety's "Actors on Actors. "I'm completely opposite in my personal life," Arquette said of her sexual characters. "I was born really modest. I don't want anyone to see me naked. I take baths in the dark often." For "Escape at Dannemora," she said she gained weight for the role and performed the nude scenes without any body makeup. "Who's allowed to be sexual? What kind of body type are acceptable?" she asked rhetorically.