Untamed Heart agent, MGM had greenlighted the project. Originally, the film was titled "The Baboon Heart" in honor of an infant named Baby Fae (born 14 October 1984) who received a cross-species heart transplant from a baboon to fix a congenital heart defect. Initially, Bill had not considered Christian Slater for the role of Adam, “but then it was just the obvious choice." For the role of Caroline, Bill remembered auditioning Marisa Tomei for his earlier film, "Five Corners". While she had been too young for that role, after her success with "My Cousin Vinny" he felt she was right for the
Baboon Guinea baboon is and weighs only , while the largest chacma baboon can be and weigh . Five species of "Papio" are commonly recognized, although there is some disagreement about whether they are really full species or subspecies. They are "P. ursinus" (chacma baboon, found in southern Africa), "P. papio" (western, red, or Guinea baboon, found in the far western Africa), "P. hamadryas" (hamadryas baboon, found in the Horn of Africa and southwestern Arabia), "P. anubis" (olive baboon, found in the north-central African savanna) and "P. cynocephalus" (yellow baboon, found in south-central and eastern Africa). Many authors distinguish "P. hamadryas"