Most of the actors and actresses playing disabled people in this movie are actually disabled, including "I Won't Dance" cast member Teal Sherer.
The swimming pool in which Sir Kenneth Branagh and the actors and actresses who play the Warm Springs patients swim is the actual pool in which Franklin D. Roosevelt and the real patients swam, and the water is the same mineral water that was used in the pool. The pool was especially refurbished for this movie.
The cottage in Warm Springs in which FDR stays was filmed at one of the real cottages in which Franklin D. Roosevelt actually stayed.
The automobile that Sir Kenneth Branagh drives at Warm Springs is the same auto that the real Franklin D. Roosevelt drove, complete with 1920s hand controls. The make and model of the real-life car that Franklin D. Roosevelt drove with the special hand controls, was a 1936 Ford Phaeton, and it is on display at the FDR Presidential Library & Museum in Hyde Park, New York.
Throughout the movie, Louis Howe is seen wearing an old brown overcoat. The real Louis Howe was known to wear the same clothes again and again, much to the dismay of Eleanor Roosevelt.