Acclaimed Flop: The film was widely praised by critics and nominated for many awards, but grossed just over $6 million at the box office (less than a third of what The Player had grossed a year earlier). This has been attributed to the fact that neither Raymond Carver nor most of the cast (Jack Lemmon excepted) were exactly Household Names in 1993, so marketing the film was a struggle. Also, the three-hour-plus length didn't help matters.
California Doubling: Actually invoked in-universe. Bill mentions to the mountain bikers that they're only a few hundred yards away from the Bronson Caves, which had been used as the entrance to the Batcave.
Cast the Expert: Legendary jazz vocalist Annie Ross as Tess, a veteran jazz vocalist, and Lori Singer, a cellist as well as an actress. But averted with Huey Lewis, Lyle Lovett and Tom Waits, who don't play singers (and don't sing at all, except for Waits singing to himself a few times).
Cast the Runner-Up: Madeleine Stowe was originally cast as Marian Wyman, but she didn't feel comfortable with the bottomless nude scene, so Altman brought in Julianne Moore and switched Stowe to the role of Sherri Shepard. Sherri's nude modeling scene was added to show that it wasn't nudity per se that Stowe had a problem with, just the particulars of the scene where Marian takes her skirt off.
Harpo Does Something Funny: As always in Altman's films, the actors were given a lot of free rein to improvise at various points in the script. For example, in the scene in which Paul Finnigan and Claire Kane are both at the hospital reception desk, the script said only that Paul performs a trick for Claire. Jack Lemmon later said in an interview for the film's "making of" documentary, Luck, Trust, and Ketchup, that he had been trying to work the trick of blowing an egg from one shotglass into another into a film for years, and was delighted to finally have the opportunity to do so.
No Stunt Double: Believe it or not, the actor who played Casey, Zane Cassidy. His father, veteran stunt man Mike Cassidy, advised him on how to take the fall in the scene where he's hit by the car. Zane went on to be a stunt man himself.
Production Posse: Shares 9 actors with The Player, because Robert Altman had already lined up the Short Cuts cast when he got the offer to direct The Player, so it was easy to talk those actors into doing another film. Co-writer Frank Barhydt also appeared in The Player (as Frank Murphy, the balding, sunglass-wearing employee who shows up in the studio group scenes).
Technology Marches On: Several of the subplots would have played out differently in today's world. If the Finnigans had caller ID (which existed at the time but wasn't universal) they would've known all along that it was the baker calling them. The fishermen talk about what a hassle it would be to report the body since they don't have mobile phones, which were still a luxury item in 1993. Also, the scene at the photo processing booth is a relic of the pre-digital camera era.
Throw It In!: Unusually for Altman, there wasn't much of this. The complexity of the Hyperlink Story and the limited production time meant that for once he stuck very tightly to the shooting script.
Robert Altman had enough material for two more films based on Raymond Carver stories. One called More Short Cuts went into pre-production but ended up in Development Hell when Altman couldn't secure the financing.
Ray Liotta was considered for the role of Gene Sheppard.
Working Title: Was originally called L.A. Shortcuts, and at one point was going to be called To Hell with Love (after a song Tess sings during the film).
