Sydney Pollack initially turned down the chance to direct the remake, thinking the material too dated to work effectively in 1995. Once he agreed to take it on, Pollack made sure he had the approval of the original's director, Billy Wilder.
The lead role was originally offered to Winona Ryder. She turned down the role because she felt she could not fill the shoes of Audrey Hepburn.
Despite the film's disappointing critical and commercial reception, both Sydney Pollack and Harrison Ford are on record as saying that they liked the film.
Harrison Ford is 23 years older than co-star Julia Ormond, which is not as great an age difference as the leads in the original Sabrina (1954), where Humphrey Bogart was 29 years older than co-star Audrey Hepburn.
The poem about Sabrina the water sprite is actually an excerpt from a masque called Comus, by John Milton. In turn, Sabrina (in the Milton poem) is based on a Welsh tale about a princess named Sabrina who was thrown in a river that is the boundary between Wales and England. The water deity Nereus took pity on Sabrina and turned her into a river goddess.
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