Prince intended to cast Vanity, leader of the girl group Vanity 6, but she left the group before filming began. Her role was initially offered to Jennifer Beals (who turned it down because she wanted to concentrate on college) before going to Kotero, who was then virtually unknown. Prince had seen her appearance on the February 1983 episode of "Tales of the Gold Monkey", in which she played a saucy island girl (inspired by Jamie Muller, the only person who Prince trusted to cut the grass of his Minnesota home at the time of filming) who was sleeping with a German man of the cloth. Excluding Prince and his onscreen parents, almost every character in the movie is named after the actor who plays him or her.