At first, Aranda thought about Antonio Banderas as Paco, but the actor had already undertaken work on Arne Glimcher's "The Mambo Kings" (1992), and the role was assigned to Jorge Sanz, who would later become best known to English-speaking audiences playing the role of the young soldier who falls in love with four sisters in "Belle Époque" (1993), which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Sanz had won a Goya Award as Best Actor for Aranda's "Si Te Dicen que Caí", which also starred Abril. The three lead actors of "Amantes" had acted together before in another love triangle, in Aranda's previous project, "Los Jinetes del Alba".